The purpose of this study is to examine the levels of maternal stress, social supports and child-rearing attitudes of the mothers of handicapped children by comparing those mothers of normal children. The subjects were 100 mothers of mentally handicapped children from elementary schools for handicapped children as well as 100 mothers of normal children from elementary schools in Pusan. The results are as follows : 1) The mothers of handicapped children showed significantly higher in maternal stress than the mothers of normal children. 2) For social support, the mothers of handicapped children recognized that they received significantly more insociable and emotional support than the mothers of normal children, but not in economic and service support. 3) For child-rearing attitudes, the mothers of handicapped children shelved significantly lower in lax attitude but not significantly different in affective, strict. punitive attitude than those of normal children. 4) For the mothers of handicapped children, they tend to be more affective and lax in child-rearing attitude when they receive more social support, while they tend to be more punitive when they have less sociable support.