Managing Family Relations and Controlling Information While Supporting an Allergic Child

Abstract

This paper explores parental (particularly mothers’) support in the daily lives of children with allergies in a Swedish context. An ordinary life is established by making comparisons to what other children without allergies presumably can do (and eat). Although the parents’ goal is to support their child in managing allergies, neither their practical nor their interactional strategies work in a clear-cut direction to promote the child’s ordinary life and identity. On the contrary, parents’ accounts convey that they function just as much against an everyday life and the child’s identity. When managing family relations, parents expect immediate family members (specifically grandparents) to understand and accommodate the child’s needs.

 However, claims of family responsibility are made through moral tales about lack of support from “generalized others.” Family responsibility is also downplayed in parents’ accounts as demands of support may put parents’ moral self at risk. The strategy of information control in certain situations and (non-family) relations used to keep the child safe may risk stigmatizing the child, alternatively, making the child into a social threat. One of the conclusions that could be drawn from this study is that claims of family support may be contradictory to other cultural principles that ascribe responsibilities between families and individuals, as the principles of individual freedom and autonomy.