Shattered Motherhood

Surviving The Guilt of a Child's Suicide

Donna F. Johnson

$24.95

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Spinifex Press
02 April 2025

Psychology; Coping with death & bereavement; Advice on parenting

For a mother, the death of a child under any circumstances is unbearable. When the child is severed from the mother’s life by his or her own hand, the cleaving is particularly brutal. It is a bereavement with no equivalence in human experience.

If you are a mother today, you are mothering in patriarchy. What that means, and how it might impact a mother grieving the loss of her child to suicide, is a subject Donna Johnson explores in this profound book. Johnson, in her counselling role in a police service, worked closely with mothers who lost a child to suicide, supporting them through those first traumatic days, weeks and months as the impact of suicide reverberated throughout their lives.

What struck her was the absence of specific supports for mothers and the prevalence of a type of paralysis in the mothers. The burden of overwhelming guilt, shame and a huge sense of failure – emotions not shared by the fathers of the children – impeded the possibility of mothers recovering from their child’s suicide. In Shattered Motherhood, Donna Johnson argues for specific supports for mothers in these circumstances; supports that meet their unique needs, recognise the depth of their suffering and provide them with proper care. Through a feminist lens, she considers the institutions of marriage, motherhood and the family as well as the suffering of mothers who have lost a child to suicide.

Johnson articulates her belief in the power of women coming together to name their own experiences, feel their own pain and search for their own solutions.

By: Donna F. Johnson
Imprint: Spinifex Press
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 180mm, Width: 135mm, Spine: 10mm
Weight: 170g
ISBN: 9781922964144
ISBN 10: 192296414X
Pages: 180
Publication Date: 02 April 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments Prologue Introduction 1. The First Year After the Suicide You just want to put yourself to sleep for a few months and maybe you’ll get through it 2. Five Years Later We’re expected to be better by now 3. How Partner Abuse Affects the Loss If I had left earlier, maybe my child would be here today 4. Maternal Guilt What kind of mother am I that this could happen to my child? 5. The Power of Women Talking But I was a good mother 6. Lessons from a Police Crisis Unit Never separate a mother from her child 7. Atonement: A Feminist Reversal Bibliography Index

Donna F. Johnson was born in Montreal, Canada. Her lifelong passion has been to uncover how the inferior status assigned to women plays out in their everyday lives, particularly in the domain of marriage, motherhood and the family. After graduating with a Masters in Psychology, Donna worked in a battered women’s refuge. She helped establish Canada’s first monument to women murdered by their intimate partners. She has worked as a crisis counselor in an urban police service, taught feminist social work at Carleton University and published countless essays describing the plight of abused women. She is on the Canadian team for Hague Mothers, a global campaign aimed at ending the injustices created by the Hague Convention for mothers and children fleeing abusive men. Shattered Motherhood: Surviving the Guilt of a Child’s Suicide is her first book.