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.

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. As the first-born Italian granddaughter of immigrants, she learned how the world worked in a large extended family and consistently had maternal models to guide her through childhood, support her through the successes and struggles of being mom to three, and celebrate the wondrous moments of being nana to two healthy grandkids. In the spaces between actively and intensively parenting and grandparenting, Parr is the Elizabeth Thorn Chair in Literacy, focusing on literacy-based community outreach and family engagement; she also teaches and supervises at the graduate level. While not new to mothering and academia, she is relatively new to motherhood studies, first exploring the reciprocal relationship between motherhood and academia in “Baby Steps: That Was the Way To Do It!” which appeared in The Parent-Track: Timing, Balance, and Choice within Academia (2016).

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