Overview

She never thought she could be a mother. Not after an abusive childhood. Not with a mind fractured by multiple personality disorder. And not with the fear that she might repeat her parents' mistakes. When Maggie Walters and her partner began the long, uncertain process of adopting three children from the Philippines, motherhood arrived first as waiting-fraught with paperwork, distance, and the quiet terror of hope. By the time her children came home, motherhood became both a reckoning and a revelation. Every tantrum, every silence, every ordinary chaos tested her deepest dread: what if I become my parents? To break the cycle, Maggie turned back to her own parents' hidden histories, uncovering the traumas that had shaped-and broken-generations. In learning their story, she began to rewrite her own. As her children grew up laughing, quarrelling, and living the carefree childhood she never knew, their wholeness became her healing. Fractured Motherhood is a raw and lyrical memoir of fear and resilience, love and repair-a story of inherited wounds, and of how family can be both the wound and the cure.

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9780648603832

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Reviews

""Fractured Motherhood is heart-felt, brave, and, ultimately, triumphant."" Cynthia Banham, author Mother Shadow "" Her story is a powerful testament to resilience and determination. When you want something badly enough, you move mountains to get it. Fractured Motherhood is a moving reminder that what feels impossible can indeed become possible."" Nin Mok, author Suddenly Silent and Still ""At its heart, Fractured is about choosing motherhood--and choosing to do it differently. A remarkable read!"" Anna Featherstone, author Honey Farm Dreaming ""Fractured Motherhood is Maggie Walters' moving follow-up to SPLIT. It's a quest to become the parent she never had - loving, present, safe. She takes us to opposite sides of the world, to the birthplaces of her parents and of her adoptive children. In both places she's looking for meaning, but in only one does she find love."" Matthew Roberts, Psychologist

Author Information

Maggie Walters is an Australian writer, speaker, and workshop facilitator whose work examines the intertwined realities of mental health and parenting. Her writing explores motherhood, adoption, intergenerational trauma, and identity, with a focus on how adults carry their own histories into the work of raising children.Drawing on lived experience, Maggie writes with clarity and compassion about fractured beginnings, attachment, and the slow, often unseen labour of care. Her work is widely embraced by clinicians in Australia and internationally as a non-academic companion to trauma-informed practice, while also offering recognition and reassurance to parents navigating complexity rather than ideals. She speaks regularly on mental health, parenting, and recovery, and leads workshops that centre honesty, responsibility, and hope.

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