Parents should admit and articulate their negative feelings about parenting, share feelings of suffering with other parents, and nurture each other. On the basis of a new shared understanding, parents can then organize and work to redefine the nurturing role and humanize society and its institutions so that they better meet human needs. Soell's three stages of suffering can be applied to parental experience: the progression from silent, submissive pain, to articulated pain, and then to shared pain and a feeling of solidarity. (SS)