Love as a value directing parents’ actions towards a disabled child unable to live independently after reaching adulthood

Abstract

Parental responsibility brings important values and feelings to life for both mother and father. New experience combines with giving and commitment. Parenthood becomes particularly difficult when a child is incapable of living alone. In such situations, parents refer to the perspective of love and concentrate on the progress in a child’s development. Writing this article, the author aimed at describing parenthood, performed by people who bring up wholly dependent children, in the context of seeking to define this process’ stages as well as actualised values. The studies use qualitative strategies (as the aim was to describe a socially constructed reality), with open interviews as a method. Collected narratives were categorised into four basic steps in the process of parenthood towards children incapable of living alone. They were as follows: opening up to a child, getting to know the child, understanding and acceptance. All these steps direct parental actions in terms of love and concern.