Writing Mothers: Narrative Acts of Care, Redemption, and Transformation

Overview

The collection is organized in three movements that mirror the interdependent narrative acts of reflecting, re-imagining, and re-writing. By reflecting, we refer to conscious engagement with experience that makes meaningful connections between past, present, and potential futures, provides context for who we understand ourselves to be, and guides our awareness of the narratives shaping our lives. Only after we become conscious of tired narratives and ontological frameworks that no longer serve can we be free to re-imagine our experiences, to re-create and reconstruct the very foundations of meaning on which the emplotment of our lives is based. Finally, by re-imagining, we create opportunities to re-write all dimensions of experience (temporal, personal, and cultural) in ways that reclaim and redeem the narrative composition of our lives. When these narrative acts are engaged, we write alternate realities and open futures into existence. Each narrative act is illustrated in the collection by stories that most exemplify its function and power. As editors, we embarked upon this journey seeking answers, but we have come to realize that open questions and ongoing dialogue create the possibility for open futures. Our stories—those lived, those told, and those yet to be written—engage us in a quest to reclaim, to restore, and to transform our personal and social mothering spaces, leading us toward liberating social, cultural, and institutional narratives. 

Reviews

This eclectic collection of creative and critical essays reflects, re-imagines and re-writes maternal experiences….from the contemporary concept of "slow parenting"…to the extra challenges facing Indigenous mothers….to parenting autistic children ….to grandmothering while coping with the trauma of cancer. The editors encourage their readers to find inspiration to engage in their own "narrative acts." A passionate and personal book. --Laurie Kruk, Professor, Nipissing University and author of My Mother Did Not Tell Stories (2012) and co-editor of Borderlands and Crossroads: Writing the Motherland (2016). Writing Mothers blows open the discourse of mothering in our complicated age in many, often startling, directions. Mom blogs, mom clubs, mom theory, mom confession, mom trials, mom rage, mom illness, mom shame, mom despair, mom re-imagining, mom healing: a richly disturbing and ultimately nourishing reading experience, and a valuable addition to the oeuvre. --Di Brandt, author of questions i asked my mother and Wild Mother Dancing

Author Biography

BettyAnn Martin recently completed a PhD in Educational Sustainability from Nipissing University. Her most recent publication is the co-edited book Taking the Village Online: Mothers, Motherhood and Social Media (2016). Michelann Parr is Professor in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University. She holds a BA, BEd, and MEd from Nipissing University; her PhD work was completed at McGill University.