Gendered familialism: Notions of care among carers for children suffering from long-term illnesses

This paper is based on a minor study inquiring into the prevalence of the phenomenon of single mother led households, in Kerala, with differentially abled or terminally ill children. Instead of asking the question why the fathers desert these households, the paper explores the notions that hold the mother to the child through all hardship. The methodology involved a loose interview schedule keeping in mind Thomas’s seven key variables that affect different ways in which care is conceptualized. An elaborate yet insufficient welfare regime that reinforces gendered familialism as well as a discourse of morality of care and responsibility are found to lead to not only a feminization of precarity but also to a feminization of the notion of care itself. The paper concludes that effective change can only be brought about by intervening and correcting the structural inequalities through shift in the intended direction of policy.