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The High Bar: Using Storytelling to Define a Childless Mother's Identity
Abstract
This article utilizes storytelling through the use of vignettes to share the experiences of an administrator subjected to disrespect and the condescending nature of mainly students' mothers because she did not give birth to a living child. This author shares her personal story of experiencing motherhood at each phase of a child's life from birth to adulthood. Motherhood experiences occur through nieces, students, teachers, co-administrators, and neighborhood youth. Historically, the term assigned for a woman with no children is childless, barren, nullipara, voluntarily childless, and intentionally childless. I chose to coin the term mar-maternal for those women who did not choose not birth a living child but were still able to be a mother to others who needed motherly love. The paper explains the origin of the term and concludes with my reflections on a lifetime of being called various versions of “mother” and the memories attached.
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