Reconstructing motherhood

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the impact of an adult child’s sexual minority disclosure on adult maternal identity. Research questions that guided this study are as follows: 1. How does an adult child’s sexual minority disclosure impact the psychosocial salience of a maternal identity? 2. How does a mother learn to reconstruct and develop a new maternal identity after disclosure? Maternal narratives were collected from nine mothers ranging in age from 45 to 65 using open-end interviews. Analysis of these narratives revealed three major findings. First, the sexual minority disclosure of an adult child produced cognitive dissonance (i.e. psychological disequilibrium) in mothers because homosexuality was considered contrary to the normative gender and sexual ideology learned during their own growth and development. Secondly, in response to this intrapsychic disorder, mothers engaged in introspection, reevaluated their maternal paradigms, and shifted their maternal frame of reference to include sexual diversity so as to support their child’s new identity and the various needs associated with that identity. Lastly, mothers evaluated each social context and selectively disclosed information regarding their children’s sexual orientation in order to manage the social perception of both their child’s sexual identity as well as their maternal identity. The amount and type of information socially disclosed depended upon three factors: 1) the nature and of the social relationship between a mother and those she disclosed to, 2) a mother’s preconception of how the information would be socially perceived and 3) the underlying social motives of disclosure. Two conclusions were drawn from this study: 1) The sexual minority disclosure of a child produces in mothers a sense of disequilibrium which called into question their efficacy as mother, and 2) mothers who experience an adult child’s sexual minority disclosure reconstruct a salient personal and social maternal identity by reexamining the sociocognitive orientations that shape and influence their maternal perspective as well as engaging in the social process of impression management.