Recent years have seen an explosion in the number of children diagnosed with invisible disabilities such as ADHD, mood and conduct disorders, and high-functioning autism spectrum disorders. Whether they are viewed as biological problems in brain wiring or as results of the increasing medicalization of childhood, the burden of dealing with the day-to-day trials and complex medical and educational decisions falls almost entirely on mothers. Yet few ask how these mothers make sense of their children's troubles, and to what extent they feel responsibility or blame. This book offers a groundbreaking study that situates mothers' experiences within an age of neuroscientific breakthrough, a high-stakes knowledge-based economy, cutbacks in public services and decent jobs, and increased global competition and racialized class and gender inequality.

Mother-Child Troubles, Past and Present -- "Welcome to Your Child's Brain": Mothers Managing Dense Bureaucracies, Medications, and Stigma -- "The Multimillion-Dollar Child": Raising Kids with Invisible Disabilities in the Context of Privilege -- "I Think I Have to Advocate Five Thousand Times Harder!": Single Mothers in the Age of Neuroscience -- En-gendering the Medicalized Child -- "A Strange Coincidence": Race-ing Disordered Children -- Mothers, Children, and Families in a Precarious Time.