Mourning the Dreams is an accessible and moving account of parents experiences of grief and recovery after losing an infant during pregnancy, childbirth, or within the first month of life. Drawing from the sociology of emotions, health research and psychology, her own experience, and a range of qualitative methods, Claudia Malacrida finds that bereaved parents not only grieve their child and its unrealized potential, but often find their personal experiences are at odds with social forces and prevailing assumptions about the nature of their loss and how they should react to is. She explores the meanings parents create as they face denial, silence, and other reactions from friends, family, communities, coworkers, the medical community, and even within spousal relationships. She also describes the courage and creativity of parents who create and negotiate meanings that help them grieve, recover, and manage relationships.

Mourning the Dreams is an accessible and moving account of parents' experiences of grief and recovery after losing an infant during pregnancy, childbirth, or within the first month of life. Drawing from the sociology of emotions, health research and psychology, her own experience, and a range of qualitative methods, Claudia Malacrida finds that bereaved parents not only grieve their child and its unrealized potential, but often find their personal experiences are at odds with social forces and prevailing assumptions about the nature of their loss and how they should react to is. She explores the meanings parents create as they face denial, silence, and other reactions from friends, family, communities, coworkers, the medical community, and even within spousal relationships. She also describes the courage and creativity of parents who create and negotiate meanings that help them grieve, recover, and manage relationships.

What does mothering mean in different cultures and societies? This book extensively applies biographical and narrative research methods to mothering from international perspectives. This edited collection engages with changing attitudes and approaches to mothering from women’s individual biographical experiences, illuminating how socially anticipated tasks of mothering shaped through interlinking state, media, religious beliefs and broader society are reflected in their identities and individual life choices. Considering trust, rapport, reflexivity and self-care, this collection advances methodological practice in the study of mothers, carers and childless women’s lives.