Università di Torino, Torino, Italy.
Sociol Health Illn. 2024 Jun;46(5):966-983. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13742. Epub 2024 Jan 2.
This article aims to advance knowledge related to the concept of the 'shame-blame complex' by analysing the accounts and experiences of parents with cognitively disabled children. It draws on 29 interviews with parents of children with Down syndrome and shadowing sessions with one family, carried out in Italy. Results show how the feeling of shame as a consequence of being associated with a disabled child is turned into blame for bad parenting. The sources of this blaming process are twofold: firstly, neoliberalism has disseminated an intensive parenting model based on the imperative of individual responsibility and risk avoidance. Secondly, ableism acts as a network of processes and beliefs that produce a particular kind of self and body as the perfect and complete human being. Participants have been held responsible for their children's condition because they avoided prenatal screening or continued a pregnancy after receiving a positive result. Consequently, parents' moral culpability for their children's diversity and their social marginalisation were enhanced. Although the interviewees resist the shame of being associated with a cognitively disabled child and the blame for bad parenting, they seem unable to escape from the grips of the shame-blame complex. The latter has structural and cultural underpinnings. In an age of 'neoliberal-ableism', this complex is indeed a powerful weapon to erode the rights of families with cognitively disabled members.
本文旨在通过分析有认知障碍儿童的父母的叙述和经历，深入了解“羞耻-责备”情结的概念。研究采用了意大利的 29 名唐氏综合征儿童父母的访谈和对一个家庭的跟踪观察，结果表明，由于与残疾儿童有关而感到羞耻会转化为对不良育儿的责备。这种责备过程的根源有两个方面：首先，新自由主义传播了一种以个人责任和风险规避为基础的密集型育儿模式。其次，能力主义是一个由过程和信仰组成的网络，它产生了一种特殊的自我和身体，即完美和完整的人。参与者之所以要为孩子的状况负责，是因为他们回避了产前筛查，或者在收到阳性结果后继续怀孕。因此，父母因为孩子的多样性和社会边缘化而受到道德上的指责。尽管受访者抵制与认知障碍儿童有关的羞耻感和对不良育儿的指责，但他们似乎无法摆脱羞耻-责备情结的束缚。这种情结具有结构性和文化性的基础。在“新自由主义能力主义”时代，这种情结确实是一种削弱有认知障碍成员家庭权利的有力武器。
