Silence as Forced Loss of Self

Sor Juana was silenced by ecclesiastical authority, forced to renounce her writings and intellectual work. This historical reality illuminates how parents—particularly in restrictive contexts—lose themselves through enforced silence about their needs, doubts, and identities. When parental role demands complete selflessness and prohibits honest expression, a parent becomes a hollow vessel rather than a whole person. This concept examines how institutional, cultural, or family pressure to remain silent about the costs of parenting creates a slow erasure of the parent's own becoming. Reclaiming voice—speaking one's truth about the complexities of parental identity, the losses involved, and the intellectual or creative self that remains—becomes an act of justice. Silence perpetuates the illusion that good parents require no identity beyond their role.