Demeter Press | The Pain Mothers Must Never Expose: Confronting the Silences of Maternal Life

Price: $39.95

Page Count: 345

Publication Date: July 2024

ISBN: 978-1-77258-502-5

In this collection, contributors reject the narrative that suggests that the pain of mothers must never be exposed. They allow their pain to wander outside the frame of the requisite pathos; individual pieces reveal pain to be a complex and intersectional practice that encompasses denial and disenfranchisement where pain is birthed and named; disorientation leading to a search for stable ground; destabilization that inspires non-normative mothering; and discovery as an active stance that transforms intergenerational pain. As contributors take up the challenge of unravelling their stories, they reach for a life-sustaining and hopeful shift in consciousness that allows them to listen to what pain has to offer without judgment; to imagine and create a different future for themselves, their children, and the world; and to let go of maternal pain and suffering as a way of being. Readers will be inspired by raw honesty, authenticity, and willingness to embrace story as a gift to self.

"Motherhood continues to be discussed in largely sanitized and romanticized ways. This book leans into the pain and trauma of motherhood but also maintains an awareness of mothering as a powerful and radical practice, making a great contribution to extending the existing discourse.”

- May Friedman, Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University

Introduction
Michelann Parr

Part One
Denial and Disenfrachisement – Birthing and Naming Pain and Suffering

Unadorned Birth
Maya Bhave

Replica
Rachel O’Donnell

Birth Trauma
Teela Tomassetti

After Birth
Libby Jeffrey

Part Two
Disorientation – Searching for Solid Ground

Lines, Your First Smile, Separation Anxiety
Leanne Charette

Confronting Ableism as a Disabled Mom
Debra Guckenheimer

I am a Mother, I am an Artist
Claire Haddon

Motherlines and Maternal Entanglements
Kate Antosik Parsons

Lingering Regrets Revisited
Mandy Brauer

Pandemic and Pandemonium: Emerging from Emergency
Terry Campbell, Alex Campbell

Part Three
Destabilization – Re-Imagining Non-Normative Mothering

Pain’s Wisdom: From Normative to Relational Mothering
Gertrude Lyons

Dragon Mothers: Possibilities and Experiences of
Mothers of Children with Incurable Disease
Júlia Campos Clímaco

Imagining Motherhood in a Post-Apocalyptic World: Reifying and Resisting Normative Motherhood in the Climate-Change Novels Clean Air by Sarah Blake and The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
Andrea O’Reilly

Part Four
Discovery – Transforming Intergenerational Pain and Suffering

Letting Go: An Exercise in Writing Through the Pain
Michelann Parr

If You Are a Mother (These Days)
Hannah Frostad

Songs for My Daughters
Susan Picard

Quiet as Kept
Drisana McDaniel

One Momma
Pamela Vickerson

Notes on Contributors

Michelann Parr, PhD is a white, able-bodied, cisgender woman, mother, daughter, sister, and scholar. She is the proud mother of three children (plus a son-by-choice) who range in age from thirty-four to thirty-eight, one of whom would identify her as a radical feminist. She has two grandchildren who benefit from her later-years wisdom. Michelann is full professor in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University. Recent edited collections include Writing Mothers: Narrative Acts of Care, Redemption, and Solidarity and Mothering Outside the LInes: Tales of Boundary-Busting Mamas.

Demeter Press will be closed from June 28th to July 12th. All book orders placed during this time period will be shipped out the week of July 17th.

The Pain Mothers Must Never Expose: Confronting the Silences of Maternal Life

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