Unto us a child is born: The trials and rewards of parenthood for people with learning difficulties

Very little is known about the lives and struggles of parents with learning difficulties (intellectual disability). Although high rates of parenting breakdown are reported in the literature, research has so far failed to represent their real-life experience of parenthood. Drawing on personal stories from a study of twenty families, this paper explores what it means to be a parent with learning difficulties and looks at the joys and heartaches that parenting brings.