Not being seen is part of parenting a disabled child

By Louise Kinross

An essay called The Invisible Woman has won the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize. It's written by Laura MacGregor, about parenting her son Matthew with complex medical problems and disabilities. "My job was to care around the clock and fade into the background," she writes in the piece. "Mothers were only noticed [by professionals] if they were a problem."

The title of the essay hearkened back to one of BLOOM's most-read stories, called The Invisible Mom, which was written by Sue Robins in 2013. In that piece, Robins reflects on the inability of elementary school moms to see her and her son Aaron, who has Down syndrome. 

She writes about the "gaggle of moms standing in a tight circle, waiting to pick up their kids... In the 10 years I've parented my son Aaron, I've never cracked that circle. I've walked past that circle hundreds of times and nobody has ever shifted, ever so slightly, to give me room to join in."

I thought this theme of invisibility was striking. It may mean doctors ignoring the health needs of a mother who pulls all-nighters caring for her medically complex child, or school parents looking the other way when they see the mother who wants her disabled son to have friends.

If we don't "see" what is right in front of us, we can pretend it doesn't exist. In an interview with CBC Books, MacGregor said: "Rather than being supported, I often felt abandoned, invisible and judged by the institutions and professionals that were meant to help. I wrote The Invisible Woman to illuminate the unsustainable responsibilities many mothers shoulder to ensure their child flourishes."

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