Cushioning, Weathering, Place, and Community in Rural Grandmother-Mothering

Abstract

Place influences rural women's health when distance and lack of anonymity contribute to a reluctance to seek care. A qualitative design was used to explore relationships between place and the health of rural grandmothers raising grandchildren. The study generated findings concerning theory related to perceptual experience of rurality, identifying "Cushioning," as a basic social concept and "Weathering," "Paradoxical Place," and "Community Mothering" as subconcepts. Physical and mental wear and tear, distance, isolation and unraveling community mothering undermined "Cushioning" and reflected in self-health neglect narratives. Findings underscore the importance of place to the health of rural women raising grandchildren.

Place Knowing of Persons and Populations

“…The devastation of the terrain, built environment, and infrastructures by the 2010 earthquake, subsequent cholera epidemics, and tropical storms have inflicted further hardship on the beleaguered Haitian people (Ryan, 2011), providing somber reminders that disease and disability are the fallout of the physical and social context. When people are marginalized or displaced, due to the experience of disease or illness (Bender, Andrew, & Peter, 2010;Wilde, 1999), family crises (Thomas, 2011), socioeconomics (Farmer, 2003), political upheaval (Fadiman, 1997), or natural disasters (Ryan, 2011), their life experience is characterized by being out-of-place. The urban displacement experience of rural people from farming communities and the diaspora experience of refugees transcend culture; they are about place.…”

“…The need for a focused examination of place as different from the concepts of environment and context emanated from my research study of rural grandmothers raising grandchildren (Thomas, 2011). As with the grandmothers I studied, when individuals, communities, and populations mentally fuse the physical world and social dynamics into “organized world[s] of meaning” (Tuan, 1977, p. 179), the experience of space becomes place.…”

“…Rural and remote communities struggle with increased rates of diabetes, poor health, being uninsured, obesity, and preventable hospitalizations (Bennett, Olatosi, & Probst, 2008; Laditka, Laditka, & Probst, 2009; Lutfiyya, Lipsky, Wisdom-Behounek, & Inpanbutr-Martinkus, 2007). In my study of rural grandmothers raising their grandchildren, grandmothers struggled with poor physical and mental health and also grappled with the place experiences of physical and social remoteness and distance, describing them as both Isolation and Insulation, a weathering and welcoming dichotomy that they used to deal with the challenges of raising grandchildren in a rural location (Thomas, 2011).…”

Working with Rural Families: Issues and Responses When a Family Member Has a Mental Illness

“…Participants stated that this occurred both in a social context and in interactions with healthcare professionals. For rural grandmothers who are primary carers for their grandchildren, social exclusion exacerbated other challenges such as poverty, stress, and ill-health (Thomas 2011).…”

Geographical thinking in nursing inquiry, part one: locations, contents, meanings

“…(3) Between places and the nature and outcomes of healing and care, including specific types of clinical and caring interventions Angus et al, 2003;Hodnett et al, 2005Hodnett et al, , 2009Marshall, 2008;Mesman, 2009Mesman, , 2012. Finally, the entrenchment of clinical practice in local communities, and the nature and importance of the communities themselves, are frequently recurrent geographical themes (Hall, 1996;Bender et al, 2007;Pardo Mora & Gonz alez Ballesteros, 2007), including in the contexts of rurality (Bigbee, 1993;Shreffler, 1996;Leipert & Reutter, 1998;Bushy, 2002Bushy, , 2008Skelly et al, 2002;Tarlier et al, 2007;Thomas, 2011;Leipert & Anderson, 2012) and urbanicity (Affonso et al, 2004;Vandemark, 2007;Skott & Lundgren, 2009;Bender et al, 2010;DeGuzman & Kulbok, 2012;Thomas, 2013a).…”