Ypothesize that some fathers would have narrated similar accounts as those analyzed here, we do not know how those accounts and the prevalence of accounts among fathers would vary. In addition, although our final sample included families from across the United States and from a range of incomes and education levels, we cannot claim our sample was representative of U.S. families who have an identified child with fragile X. Thus, we cannot generalize findings from this study to the larger population. Although we did recruit through I-CBP112 cost family support networks, a majority of the families were recruited through previous FXS studies and professionals in the field. The majority of families in the sample were not active in FXS networks. It is unclear how this variation may have affected mothers’ accounts. Although it may seem surprising to some that a majority of the women, many of them White, middle class, and educated, would cite their religion or faith as a source of support, and even more surprising that these mothers would situate their understanding of their child’s disability within a religious framework, when viewed in the larger U.S. context, this is not an unusual perspective. Religion is a pervasive and enduring feature of American life, and Americans are by far the most religious of all the highly industrialized nations (Pew Global Attitudes Project, 2002). Ninety percent of Americans believe in God or a higher power, 80 self-identify as Christian, and over half participate in some activity of a religious group at least once or twice a year (Davis Smith, 2009). Not all mothers in our study found their reconciliation through a religious lens, of course. There are many other perspectives for understanding disability, and, for this study, we did not systematically analyze nonreligious narratives of mothers’ perspectives on their lives. Nevertheless, nearly all the women we GGTI298 biological activity interviewed saw their children in positive terms, even if, as for Leslie (quoted above), those terms were not particularly religious. This observation is consistent with other studies that have found that parents and caregivers of people with disabilities work to find positive conceptions of their lives and of those in their care (see, e.g., Bogdan Taylor, 1989; Goetting Goetting, 1993). In addition, although religious beliefs figure into illness narratives cross-culturally, the specific ways they blend are certainly culture specific. In narratives, we can see how individual bodily experiences shape, and are shaped by, cultural meanings (Garro Mattingly, 2000). For the women we interviewed, all Americans, those cultural meanings are partly products of Christian notions of a personal God and individualistic piety, which are so prevalent in the United States. The reconciliation narrative identified here comes into being within that context, shaped in large part by local discourses that incorporate those aspects of American Christian thought. Through published stories, poems, and advice from family and friends, these women, like all storytellers, learned what kinds of stories made the most sense of their experiences within their cultural context. Hence, it is not surprising that the women who offered religious narratives in interviews were nearly all Protestant or Catholic. With only a small sample of mothers from Jewish or other religious traditions, we cannot offer any insight into whether religious narratives of disability might occur among these populations an.Ypothesize that some fathers would have narrated similar accounts as those analyzed here, we do not know how those accounts and the prevalence of accounts among fathers would vary. In addition, although our final sample included families from across the United States and from a range of incomes and education levels, we cannot claim our sample was representative of U.S. families who have an identified child with fragile X. Thus, we cannot generalize findings from this study to the larger population. Although we did recruit through family support networks, a majority of the families were recruited through previous FXS studies and professionals in the field. The majority of families in the sample were not active in FXS networks. It is unclear how this variation may have affected mothers’ accounts. Although it may seem surprising to some that a majority of the women, many of them White, middle class, and educated, would cite their religion or faith as a source of support, and even more surprising that these mothers would situate their understanding of their child’s disability within a religious framework, when viewed in the larger U.S. context, this is not an unusual perspective. Religion is a pervasive and enduring feature of American life, and Americans are by far the most religious of all the highly industrialized nations (Pew Global Attitudes Project, 2002). Ninety percent of Americans believe in God or a higher power, 80 self-identify as Christian, and over half participate in some activity of a religious group at least once or twice a year (Davis Smith, 2009). Not all mothers in our study found their reconciliation through a religious lens, of course. There are many other perspectives for understanding disability, and, for this study, we did not systematically analyze nonreligious narratives of mothers’ perspectives on their lives. Nevertheless, nearly all the women we interviewed saw their children in positive terms, even if, as for Leslie (quoted above), those terms were not particularly religious. This observation is consistent with other studies that have found that parents and caregivers of people with disabilities work to find positive conceptions of their lives and of those in their care (see, e.g., Bogdan Taylor, 1989; Goetting Goetting, 1993). In addition, although religious beliefs figure into illness narratives cross-culturally, the specific ways they blend are certainly culture specific. In narratives, we can see how individual bodily experiences shape, and are shaped by, cultural meanings (Garro Mattingly, 2000). For the women we interviewed, all Americans, those cultural meanings are partly products of Christian notions of a personal God and individualistic piety, which are so prevalent in the United States. The reconciliation narrative identified here comes into being within that context, shaped in large part by local discourses that incorporate those aspects of American Christian thought. Through published stories, poems, and advice from family and friends, these women, like all storytellers, learned what kinds of stories made the most sense of their experiences within their cultural context. Hence, it is not surprising that the women who offered religious narratives in interviews were nearly all Protestant or Catholic. With only a small sample of mothers from Jewish or other religious traditions, we cannot offer any insight into whether religious narratives of disability might occur among these populations an.
