Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan, Second Edition

186 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan

involved with, and accepting of, their gay family member once he announced

his intention to parent. Adoption by gay men has become mainstream (see

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/us/foreign-couples-heading-to-america-for-

surrogate-pregnancies.html?_r=0) and we expect to see more comfort from

family members and the general public as it becomes more and more common).

Parenting is a hard job that entails many joys, but also losses. Both

straight and gay parenting couples need more support than is typically avail-

able. Shapiro and Gottman (2005) found that 2-day psychocommunicative-

educational workshops for couples making the transition to parenthood

helped them to build skills to cope with conflict and maintain friendship and

intimacy. Prior to parenthood, most couples are unaware of probable shifts in

their marital relationship. Deave, Johnson, and Ingram (2008) found that new

parents wished for more information about parenting and baby care (often

provided by birth units within hospitals) and also about typical changes in

marriages/ partnerships. Parents were surprised by the changes in their rela-

tionships. Workshops need to be redesigned to attract prospective parents in

order to increase their awareness of typical relationship changes and to actively

encourage couples to discuss these potential changes. Interactive websites

and mothers’ groups could be designed for supportive interventions as well.

Workplaces would do well to allow parental leave and support for all couples

as they navigate the transition to parenthood; the benefit to the next generation

and the support of the couple relationship can be well worth the investment.

Readings

Many, if not most, young adults are resilient and able to make meaning from

their experiences with loss and grief, despite the fact that most losses during

this time are off-time. The following case presentation of a young adult couple

who lost a child provides evidence of how both Lisa and Mark move through

the loss of their daughter by making meaning of their loss and by reconciling

their marital relationship in the process of working through their grief.

Loss of a Child: Case of Lisa

Roseanne Muscarella

Roseanne Muscarella received a Bachelor of Arts in social work from the Catholic

University of America in 1999 and her Master of Science in social work in 2002 from

Columbia University. Roseanne has worked in family service and health care settings

throughout her career, with a focus on palliative care and end-of-life care for the last decade.

In having worked as both a medical social worker in a hospice setting and presently as a

bereavement specialist, Roseanne has great passion for helping others work through and

attend to grief issues all along the continuum of palliative care and hospice care.

Case Presentation

Lisa is a 26-year-old Latina female who lost her daughter Marissa 2 years ago

to a malignant brain tumor, just shy of Marissa’s second birthday. Lisa reached