Mothers are a topic on which almost everybody has an opinion, and always have. Now, however, those opinions are funnelled into and amplified on social media, where conversations turn ugly and advice is commercialised (read: the rise of the mumpreneurs). Often, social media is understood as a place where mothers can either show off or shut up.

It is from this idea of heightened scrutiny that Dangerous Ideas About Mothers takes its leave. With Contributors including Anne Manne, Catharine Lumby, Danielle Wood, Maria Tumarkin, Josephine Wilson, Quinn Eades, and Timmah Ball, the book confronts the issues that do not appear in many discussions of mothering. From divorce and over-burdened court systems, parenting children with a disability, to the big business of mummy-dom, to shifting ideas about fathers, to the increasing numbers of women who choose not to have children, Dangerous Ideas About Mothers, opens up a space where the taboo and unspoken can be voiced, and makes room for those marginalised by regular conversations around mothers and motherhood.

Meet the editors of Dangerous Ideas About Mothers, Camilla Nelson and Rachel Robertson in conversation with ANU’s Helen Keane for an exclusive Canberra event.