Holy and Hollow: The Emotional Construction of Maternal Exhaustion in Autism Inclusion in Brazil

Abstract

This article examines how mothers of autistic individuals in Brazil experience the emotional consequences of their caregiving roles in the context of workplace inclusion. Drawing on 23 in-depth interviews and using a grounded theory approach informed by stigma theory and affective events theory, the study explores how spiritualized and moralized expectations shape maternal experiences of strain and recognition. First, I challenge the dominant framing of benevolent stigma in the disability literature, which portrays stigmatized individuals as socially accepted but functionally limited. I propose the concept of existential stigma to describe how mothers are symbolically elevated as pure, chosen, and morally exceptional caregivers, a framing that appears affirming but imposes intense emotional demands and silences expressions of doubt or fatigue. Second, I question the widespread assumption that caregiver strain is a stable psychological state. Instead, I show how maternal exhaustion is socially constructed through the accumulation of morally charged events. By separating episodic violations from generalized emotional states, the study reframes exhaustion as a gendered emotional formation shaped by symbolic reverence and the spiritualization of maternal labor.