Writing & Submitting
You do not have to submit a story to our Archive in order to write about your mother. But we would love it if you did.
You do not need to tell anyone you are writing about your mother. But later on you may wish to share.
Why Write Your Mother’s Story?
- to engage your creativity
- to honour your mother
- to lay her memory to rest
- to chronicle her life into stories you can share
- to remind yourself/your mother how feisty/loving/fearless/gracious/funny she is/was
- to separate her experiences and perspectives from your own
- to bring to light the truth of what happened
- to document the times she lived in and the choices she made
- to acknowledge the legacy she gave you through her thoughts, words and deeds
Why Share her Story?
- it initiates and enriches family discussions
- it’s a great team building exercise
- if you don’t share your mother’s story we won’t have any stories about women and we will have to watch car chases in movies forever and ever
The Mother Taboo is strong. Many people hold an unconscious but powerful fear that if they say anything about their mothers, she and everyone in their family will suffer great shame. The result of this has been that throughout history women have led secret lives: undocumented, unrecognized, undervalued.
It has also resulted in many people realizing they never knew their mothers, never bothered to ask, or remember the details of her life. Without examination these women remain shadow figures whose only value is determined by how good they were at mothering.
We will never know the history of women until we start talking about our mothers. Some women were bad mothers, but lovely people. Some women got lost in their own lives. Some women were heroic without validation. All of these lives deserve to be acknowledged and remembered. Unlike in our mothers’ time, we no longer have an oral tradition: today, if stories do not get written down, they will be lost.
All you need to write your mother’s story is the assignment and a deadline. You now have the assignment. You have 2 weeks to write. Go.
