Accessibility Barriers Make Moms Mad

Accessibility Barriers Make Moms Mad!

Compared to mothers of able‑bodied and able‑minded children, mothers of disabled children consistently experience higher levels of stress, illness, and emotional distress (Singer, Ethridge, & Aldana, 2014). This distress is rarely understood in its full social and political context and often pathologized. Maternal madness is frequently framed as a personal coping issue located within individual mothers.

Mothers who conform to the status quo expectations of “Good Mothering” often become their disabled child’s most determined advocate. This advocacy work is essential for their children’s access and inclusion and has only recently begun to be recognized (Panitch, 2008). In Canada alone, there are more than 800,000 disabled children, and when their needs are unmet, mothers experience poorer health outcomes, increased caregiver burden, and increased emotional distress (Shikako et al., 2022). Over 70% of informal caregiving is provided by women, further concentrating this burden on mothers (Ontario Human Rights Commission [OHRC], n.d.). Compared to mothers of able-bodied/minded children, mothers of disabled children “experience more stress, illness, and…” madness (Singer, Ethridge, & Aldana, 2014).

As Panitch (2008) notes, there has been little scholarly work done to explore the accessibility barriers that mothers of disabled children face on a daily basis and the impact this has on their wellness. Being required to “mother as an activist,” and constantly fight against exclusion contributes directly to maternal madness (Panitch, 2008).

5 types of Accessibility Barriers

Using the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) as a guide, the sections below outline how accessibility barriers work to produce maternal madness.

Attitude

Attitudinal barriers include dominant “Good Mothering” and intensive mothering ideologies. Historical and modern narratives of mother‑blame compound the pressure on mothers of disabled children to conform with “Good Mothering” expectations. Mothers have been blamed for their children’s disabilities, including schizophrenia, autism and epilepsy, often under the guise of genetics or “poor parenting” skills (Singh, 2004). Instead of receiving increased social and financial support, mothers are pressured to medicalize their children to help them conform (Robertson, 2014). Failure to be a “Good Mother,” (a phenomena created by social attitudes), carries real consequences, including the risk of heightened state surveillance and intervention from child protection services and separation from her children.

Architecture

Many public spaces, such as playgrounds, schools, medical facilities, recreational centers, and restaurants remain inaccessible despite mandated legislation (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2025). This leaves mothers with the responsibility of pre‑planning every outing, calling ahead, and managing logistics that limit spontaneity and autonomy.

When environments are inaccessible, mothers might have to compensate physically by lifting, carrying, or modifying spaces, placing their own bodies at risk. Inaccessible spaces can also lead to social exclusion, missed appointments, skipped events, and fewer invitations.

Encountering unexpected architectural and structural barriers can create moments of emotional crises that mothers must manage for both themselves and their children. “When the environment does not support children’s embodiments, mothers’ advocacy cannot

succeed, regardless of their access to cultural capital or financial resources. Like the wheelchair user outside the rampless building, mothers’ individual efforts, alone, cannot restructure the architecture of school buildings…” (Warden, 2020, p. 149). It is a dangerous and false narrative that “Good Moms” can “fix it all.”

Information & Communication

Disabled children frequently receive support from multiple “helping professionals” across health, social, and educational systems. For example, a child may attend private applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy several days per week, receive speech-language pathology and physical therapy services outside of school, and, at school, be supported by a classroom teacher, learning resource teacher, autism specialist team, and an educational assistant. While this multidisciplinary involvement is intended to “help”, they often place a substantial coordination and communication burden on mothers, who are most often the primary managers of their child’s care.

Coordinating appointments, managing communication among professionals, learning about how each professional will support their child (seeking information), advocating across systems, and integrating recommendations into daily family life requires significant time, emotional labour, and cognitive effort. Access to clear, timely, and understandable information about available support, services, and resources is critical for effective care coordination. When information is inaccessible due to complex procedures, technical language, cultural insensitivity, or a lack of availability in the family’s primary language delays and limits access to resources.

Technology

Technological barriers are common, especially within publicly funded educational institutions. Barriers include, inadequate assistive devices (e.g., FM systems, captioned videos), untrained staff, and lengthy waitlists for equipment and services (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2025). Cost, bureaucracy, and income inequality further restrict access.

Mothers are expected to become experts and learn how to troubleshoot and teach their children how to use technologies that are not designed with accessibility in mind. Rapid technological changes can produce ongoing overload as mothers invest time, money and emotional energy into remaining up to date with the most modern technological tools that are meant to reduce their children’s barriers but instead increase their own responsibilities (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2022).

Systemic

Systemic barriers occur when attitudes, structures, technology, communication, and institutions work together and reinforce oppression. Schools are largely designed for able‑bodied students; healthcare systems have narrow diagnostic criteria that limit eligibility for supports; and workplaces remain inflexible to mothers. These conditions reduce mothers’ earning potential, increases their likelihood of poverty, isolation, frustration, exhaustion and distress while limiting her autonomy.

Why This Matters?

The problem here is not the child’s disability. Bixby (2023) explains that “…work examining the relationship between children’s disability and maternal health highlights that the child’s disability itself does not negatively affect maternal health; rather, raising a disabled child in the context of social and structural environments that fail to meet the needs of disabled children and their families produces worse maternal health.” Focusing solely on mothers’ psychological adjustment to overcoming accessibility barriers risks ignoring the political and social conditions shaping the her caregiving role (Knight, 2012). Maternal distress is often pathologized as illness rather than recognized as a response to systemic barriers (Ussher, 2011). Maternal madness is not an individual failure; it is systemically produced through exclusion, overload, and impossible expectations (Blum, 2007). Eliminating accessibility barriers would not only improve outcomes for disabled children but also allow their mothers to prioritize their own well‑being.