Grandmothers & Grandmothering

Kathy Mantas, associate professor of education at Nipissing University, is interested in: arts education; artful inquiry; creativity in teaching-learning; ongoing teacher and adult learning; holistic and wellness education; and motherhood and mothering studies. She is the editor of On Mothering Multiples: Complexities and Possibilities (2016) and co-editor of Middle Grounds: Essays on Midlife Mothering (2018).

• DedicationAcknowledgementsForewordGina ValleIntroduction & PostscriptKathy MantasChapter 1The Paradoxes of Grandmothering:An Autobiographical Experience of Two Lesbian Grandmothers in South AfricaFikile Vilakazi & Janette Zodwa MagubaneChapter 2North of the DiamondElizabeth Johnston AmbroseChapter 3Saying I Love You: Khmer-American StyleBunkong TuonChapter 4My Esther: Darkness and the ShineJoanne M. ClarksonChapter 5The Stories of Carolyn King of Parry IslandJennifer KingChapter 6Malleable MatterMaja A. NgomChapter 7Gail Peters Little: Relationship of Love and AbandonmentMarion G. DumontChapter 8Grandmothering in the Context of Criminal Justice: Grandmothers in Prison andGrandmothers as Caregivers When a Parent is ImprisonedLucy BaldwinChapter 9A Series of Four Poems, Variations on a Theme:The Mother of a New Mother, at Birth of a ChildJanet e. SmithChapter 10Grandmothers Near and FarMichele Hoffnung and Emily Stier AdlerChapter 11Walk Beside MeDebbie LeeChapter 12Have Moon Fairies Flown Away?: Evolving Role of Grandmothers in PakistanAnwar Shaheen & Abeerah AliChapter 13A Patchwork LifeGladys Loewen, Sharon Loewen Shepherd and William LoewenChapter 14Not a Fairy GrandmotherLorinda PetersonChapter 15When Wisdom Speaks Sparks Fly:Raging Grannies Perform Humor as ProtestCarole RoyChapter 16Nokmisag: BemnigyingMoktthewenkwe Barbara WallContributor Notes

Grandmothers and Grandmothering is an important collection that will help all readers honor the legacy of their grandmothers and foremothers. The stories, art, poems, and analysis herein complicate and expand our cultural expectations of grandmothers, while creating nuanced portraits of women who were much more than their grandmotherly role. This is an excellent book for anyone interested in revisiting treasured (or painful) pasts, as well as those looking toward a rich future as an elder. - Nicole L. Willey, PhD, Professor of English, Kent State University Tuscarawas // Grandmothers & Grandmothering: Weaving Creative and Scholarly Perspectives In Honour of Our Women Elders is a timely and vast look at the subject. This take on the topic t offers new research, and considerations, on the importance of grandmothers. The result is both highly instructive, and optimistic about the possibilities of this identity, and the many roles it fills. The book challenges our notions of traditional grandmothers/mothering and, in doing so, spurs the subject to new research and conversational opportunities. Requiring a modern rewrite, this book reshapes the folklore around elder knowledge production and indeed, weaves, creativity and scholarship in important ways, resulting in an important reengagement with and identity category prone to dismissal. - Jessica Jennrich Ph.D., Director of the Center for Women and Gender Equity, Grand Valley State University