In the stories of adoption, the mothers who gave birth were invisible. Exiled Mothers takes us on the artist Sharon Alward’s journey to recover her own repressed, secret, shaming memories from relinquishing her daughter in 1971. As she examines the social construction of relinquishment, adoption, and motherhood during the Baby Scoop Era we are introduced to many other Canadian mothers, who as young women—caught between love for their children and a social snare that demanded surrender—shared the same experience as Sharon that takes a lifetime to resolve. More than a film about adoption and loss, we witness an important period in the history of Western women as we emerge from the fog of a time when the judgment of so many, willfully separated masses of mothers from their children.