98 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
than half were able to do so; a small fraction (22.9%) identified a benefit
after the death (“a silver lining” such as growth in empathy or not taking
life for granted) (Lichtenthal et al., 2013, p. 320). It is important to note that
meaning-making may involve consideration of why the death happened,
a type of causal attribution, but not always. Sometimes, the meaning may
be related to the benefit that came afterwards or to a focus on fate. Of par-
ents whose children died of natural causes, 61% were able to do some
meaning-making (often God’s will, a safer place, or medical reasons) and
benefit-finding was exhibited in more than three quarters of their sample.
Symptoms of complicated grief were found in both sets of parents but were
more pronounced among those whose child died due to violence.
A particularly challenging form of parental grief comes after a child dies
from complications related to a developmental disability. All parents cope with
the loss of the idealized child when a baby is born; parents whose child is ill
or has a diagnosed disability feel this loss acutely and chronically (Boss, Roos,
& Harris, 2011). Although prior theories asserted that parents of children with
disabilities had “chronic sorrow” (Olshansky, 1962), others contest that (Green,
2007; Morse, Wilson, & Penrod, 2000). Green (2007) argued that the lack of for-
mal and informal support is what aggrieves parents with such children.
In a study of mothers whose children with disabilities died, women often
felt that their love for their child and their loss were not validated (Milo, 2005).
The study found that members of the parents’ social network said things like
“Don’t you think it was for the best?”—a painful dismissal of their child’s
value. With so much of their selves involved with caring for their child, the
bereaved mothers in Milo’s study had to navigate a reworking of “Who am I
now?” Having wished for relief from the burdens of care, but also loving their
child and the gifts the child brought to their life, women struggled to make
meaning from the conflicted experience. They often noted that the child “made
me who I am today” and that they “[didn’t] believe this happened for no point
and no reason.” Milo asserted that mothers coped better if they originally were
given an accurate portrayal of the child’s prognosis and were encouraged to
take control where it was possible. Support groups were once again identi-
fied as the intervention of choice. When the group, or supportive profession-
als, helped parents recognize and accept the paradoxes of their experience,
they were more able to cope and actually be transformed positively by the
loss (Milo, 2005). Boss et al. (2011) also suggested that parents coped best by
identifying the paradox of loving one’s child while also feeling burdened, a
hallmark of ambiguous loss and chronic sorrow when parenting children with
disabilities.
Parental responsibility is unique to the parent–child bond. As losses of
self and sense of competence, in addition to the actual loss of the child, are all
experienced simultaneously (Rando, 1993), grief is made more complicated.
Couples often are stressed when each parent grieves differently, both due to
gender differences and individual coping abilities. These stresses may threaten
the relationship as the mutual support between partners is lost at a difficult
time when each hopes to be comforted by the other. Instead, guilt may be
displaced into blame, leading to further stresses in the relationship. This said,
despite the commonly held view to the contrary, divorce is not more common
after a child’s death (Schwab, 1998).