Mothers of children with food allergy: A discourse analysis of occupational identities

Occupational identity is a central concept within occupational science and exploration of how the occupational identity of mother is shaped by having a child with a disease is an important consideration within this field. Currently up to 550 million people worldwide experience food allergy (Fiocchi, Sampson, Bahna, & Lack, 2011). The majority are children and the disease has been shown to create significant disruption across their occupational repertoire. It has also been suggested that the occupations of mothers of children with food allergy may be affected, however there is a paucity of scientific inquiries into this claim. The purpose of this study was to explore how mothers of children with food allergy represent their mothering occupations. Discourse analysis was used to analyze text of three on-line blogs (356 posts) written by mothers of children with food allergy. Four occupational identities emerged from the data: mothers as change managers, mothers as allergy moms, mothers as warriors, and mothers as advocates. These findings reflect researcher interpretation of how mothers’ occupations were discursively represented following occupational disruption due to food allergy. This study advances the scholarship of food allergy and occupational science by providing the first known exploration of occupations relating to mothering a child with food allergy.