ABSTRACT
Maternal disability is a topic that figures only rarely in motherhood studies, and disabled mothers have only had intermittent presence in social policy research and social policymaking in the UK. Representations and analyses of disability alter over time and depend on a wide range of factors in any given context. This chapter demonstrates that while work has been produced that has explicitly engaged with disabled parents' experiences, in more, or often less gendered ways, the 'absences' are still frequent and notable, even in valuable contributions to motherhood studies. Disabled mothers, indeed disabled parents, have often been either absent or marginal in sociological and social policy writing on parenting. The literature on care has often degendered the recipient of care while highlighting the gendered nature of care as reproductive work. The actual loss of role, rather than the lack or obscuring of representation, is also featured in the literature.
