A test of parenthood: Dilemmas of parents of terminally ill adolescents

This article presents partial findings from a study that examined the proce ss experienced by parents (mainly, mothers) of an adolescent child with ter minal cancer. It focuses on two processes that characterize the parents' so cial world: a crisis in the parental role and a departure from the nonnativ e life cycle. These processes, and the parents' coping with them, were stud ied from the perspective of time and time management. One of the study's cl aims was that the terminal disease alters the definition of parenthood and causes the parents to depart from the normative life cycle. The study's pur pose was to find and explain the coping patterns used by the parents of ter minally ill adolescents. This article focuses on two of the various side ef fects discovered: the distortion of the subjects' rime world and the test o f parenthood.