Parenting brings countless hopes and worries. But when external factors create fear and cast a shadow long and deep across motherhood, what happens to the act of mothering? Through personal and academic essays and poetry from Canada, the United States, and Palestine, these authors explore what it means to mother through times of struggle, uncertainty, danger, and change.

From doctors and professors, to writers and environmentalists, women of different ages, cultures, and backgrounds share their insights and perspectives on what it is to mother when life, society, and the very future of those you mother are precarious. Sharing ideas, best practices, models, research, and creative work, this book’s writers explore the decisions made by mothers and potential mothers in the face of violence and trauma, environmental and political upheaval, career insecurity, uncertainty in a new country, discrimination, and other barriers.

Anita Dolman is a poet, fiction writer, and professional editor, and a contributing editor for Arc Poetry Magazine. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies throughout North America. Her debut collection of short fiction, Lost Enough: A collection of short stories, was released by Morning Rain Publishing in 2017.

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Barbara Schwartz-Bechet, Ed.D., is the Interim Dean of the College of Education and Rehabilitation and a professor at Salus University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has worked in the field of education and special education for over twenty-five years, and received her doctorate in applied behavior analysis / emotional disturbance from Columbia University, Teachers College.

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Dannielle Joy Davis, Ph.D., is an associate professor of higher education at Saint Louis University. A graduate of the University of Illinois, she is the elected chair of the American Educational Research Association’s Spirituality and Education Special Interest Group. She has published over sixty refereed articles, chapters, commentaries, volumes, and reviews.

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