This collection considers how maternal regret, as it is conveyed in remorse, resentment, dissatisfaction, and disappointment, troubles the assumptions and mandates of normative motherhood and how it is explored and critiqued in creative non-fiction, film, literature, and social media. Maternal regret is also examined in relation to the estrangement of mother and child and the remorse and grief felt by both mothers and children caused by the abandonment of mother or child. Finally, the collection explores how regret opens the space for maternal erudition, enlightenment, and evolution; and makes possible maternal empowerment. The book is organized by way of these three sections: the first ?Resistances? examines how maternal regret as conveyed in remorse, disillusionment, and resentment counters and corrects normative motherhood, the second, ?Renunciations? looks at how regret is experienced in mother-child abandonment, and the third, ?Reflections? explores how regret may be an opportunity for maternal knowledge and power. Overall, the collection serves to debunk and destroy the final taboo of normative motherhood that of maternal regret.. Mothers voicing regret, as journalist Kingston writes, ?signals a large groundswell of maternal reckoning, [one that] has been compared to the #MeToo campaign.?
?Introduction? Andrea O?Reilly
SECTION ONE: Resistances
?the alarm? Tracey Rowe
Chapter One: ??Out of bounds?: Maternal Regret and the Reframing of Normative Motherhood? Andrea O?Reilly
Chapter Two: ??I Don?t Want To Be a Mom Anymore?: Rhetoric of Maternal Resentment?
Lorin Basden Arnold
Chapter Three: ??Reimaging What Might Have Been? A Comparative Analysis of Abortion and Maternal Regret? Alesha E. Doan and J. Shoshanna Ehrlich
Chapter Four: ?Shocking Readers and Shaking Taboos: Maternal Body and Affects in It? Hiromi?s Work? Juliana Buriticá Alzate
Chapter Five: ?The Sublimation of Maternal Regret in HBO?s Big Little Lies (2017)? Rachel Williamson
Chapter Six: ??My Yes, My First and Only? Dealing with Assumptions of Regret about Family Size? Karla Knutson
SECTION TWO: Renunciations
Chapter Seven: ?The Children Leave: Maternal Abandonment in Two Munro Stories: ?Silence? (2004) and ?Deep-Holes? (2009)? Laurie Kruk
Chapter Eight: ?Love and Longing; Silence and Strife: What Went Wrong?? Jane Turo
Chapter Nine: ?My mother?s story? Kanchan Trapathi
SECTION THREE: Reflections
?Her Response (To Frost?s Question)? Victoria Bailey.
Chapter Ten: ?Pernicious Narratives Adoption and Disability Chronicles That Coarsen and Corrupt Their Readers? Martha Satz
Chapter Eleven: ?Time Machine? Jessica Jennrich
Chapter Twelve:? From Mourning to Greeting: The Predicament and Possibilities of Maternal Regret? BettyAnn Martin and Michelann Parr
Chapter Thirteen: ?Minjinaweziwin: Anishinaabeg Women?s Teachings on Maternal Regret? Renee E. Mazinegiizhigoo-kwe Bedard
Chapter Fourteen: ?(How) Can We Speak of This?? Opening into the Dark Spaces of Maternal Regret, Choice, and the Unknowable? May Friedman and Jacqui Gingras