Unconditional Love In Lorrie Moore's How To Talk To Your Mother

Losing a parent is presumably an unthinkable concept for those lucky to have them alive, but sometimes the title of “parent” dies long before a body is placed in the ground. Toi Derricotte author of “Beginning Dialogues” unfortunately had to experience both the death of her mother’s title of “parent”, as well as her literal death. Derricotte’s parents had divorced when she was eighteen, and her father did not seem to play much of a role in her life; she was left to be raised by her mentally abusive mother. Her mother also had a tough road to walk growing up, having to face and deal with brutal issues like racism and bulling. Persevering through those tough times may be the underlining reason behind Derricotte’s mother’s negativity and abuse towards her daughter. Perhaps she just grew a thick skin at a very young age and had never learned how to feel, accept, or administer love. Derricotte’s had said: “She told me all my life she loved me, as if she completely forgot the hundred slights, humiliations, threats, and insinuations. Of course she loved me;

The passage “Talking Wrong” by Patricia Smith is a reflection of the author's memories and knowledge of her mother. She talks on how her mother has a need to start speaking ‘right’ and is going to take classes on correcting the way she articulates her words and formation of sentences. The author believes that her mother’s desire ‘to speak right’ is threatening and sad because she does not want her mother to be ashamed of her journey from Alabama to Chicago which makes her who she is. Smith starts reflecting on her views of her mother and her mother's perspective of herself through flashbacks and opinions of her mother to persuade the reader of her argument. This narrative offers the comparison of the author and her mother and the strategies

A mother’s words are the ones that ring loudest in a child’s ear, are passed down from generation to generation, and the one’s that hold a special place in a child’s memory and heart forever. Expectations and guidelines are set at a young age. Morals and values are learned throughout the years, and life lessons are taught through the wisdom passed down from a mother to a daughter. Every mother has a wish for their daughter to be the best they can be. But at what point does instruction and wisdom become simply words that have been said one too many times? The short story “Girl,” written by Jamaica Kincaid is presented to the reader as a list of instructions from a mother to a daughter on how to live life to the

On the eve of my twelfth birthday, my father sat me down to have a talk- He says, “Mary Amelia;” his using my full name and not what everyone usually calls me had me paying attention right away. “You’re my only daughter and you’re about to become a young woman. I don’t know much about what I, as a father, should tell you; however, with your momma gone, I feel it is my responsibility to say something in the way of trying to prepare you for womanhood…

Nancy Scheper-Hughes studies and observes the connections between the loss of infants and the mother’s ability to express maternal love in the shantytowns of Brazil in her article “Mother’s Love: Death without Weeping.” Studying documents, interviewing, and observing the everyday lives of mothers, were the fieldwork procedures she used to conduct her research. The results of her research provided evidence of two theoretical perspectives observed in the article, structuralism and materialism.

Since her mother's talk-story was one of the major forces of her childhood and since she herself is now talking-story in writing this book, stories, factual and fictional, are an inherent part of Kingston's autobiography. Finding one's voice in order to talk-story, a metaphor for knowing

A good mother will always have a never- ending supply of unconditional love for her child, no matter how difficult the child may be. Joy (Wes Moore’s mother), had complete unconditional love for all her children. Wes, being the most difficult child to handle out of the three, was the most loved by Joy. Wes would be in trouble at school and in the streets with his friends. When it became too much for Joy, she sent Wes to military school, which made a drastic change in his life for the better. At the time, Wes thought that his mother sent him away because she didn’t love him anymore. Turns out the decisions she made for him, whether it being good or bad, were all out of the love she had for her son. Mary (The other Wes Moore’s mother), also had

“You must raise children yourself to understand your parents’ love.” This passage is a common proverb to express the challenge of understanding parents’ love and intentions. Similar to the proverb, Amy Tan illustrates the process of recognizing mother’s intention in her short story “Two Kinds.” The mother and daughter confront because of the mother’s anxiousness in finding her daughter’s prodigy. As time goes by, through one important scene in the story, the daughter becomes aware of her mother’s love and comes to terms with herself. The significant scene is when Jing-Mei’s mother offers her the piano for her thirtieth birthday. With all the conflicts she had with her mother and within herself, from the important scene, Jing-Mei realizes that she is transformed from a “pleading child” into a “perfect contented” adult.

With her family members, Mama’s presence demands a universal respect. Everyone in the room listens to what Mama has to say, even if it’s not what they want to hear. Mama is the absolute leader among the women her family and her opinions are held in high regard. Cofer acknowledges this saying that even her own mother “did not possess Mama’s matriarchal power to command and keep everyone’s attention” (68). All of the stories that Mama tells are individual experiences or things that she has observed throughout her life. These stories all accumulate into a wealth of

There was such anger in her heart, she hadn’t known it was there until she was alone on her mule riding the iron-hard miles. She had never been a bad mother, never truly a bad wife. She’d cared for her children . . . had lain with her husband even when she was tired and unwilling because these are the duties of a wife and mother” (Alderman 51).

“Love you, mama, Miss you”(Aviv, 2), the words of three year old Adam to his mother who was placed with the Orange County Social Services. In Rachel Aviv’s article “ Where is your mother” thirty-nine year old, single working parent Niveen Ismail, “begged” them to return her son after she left Adam unsupervised at home whilst she was out. Niveen mentions that on this tragic day that, “It was mechanical-I wasn’t thinking anymore...I was just trying to survive” (Aviv, 6). She was overworked, undernourished and had just reached a “breaking point”. Months have gone by, the Egyptian mother complied to her case plan trying to learn to “Parent American style”, attending parenting classes in high hopes of Adam being returned to her. Despite her attempts, Adam was placed with a foster family, who was willing to adopt him if her parental rights were terminated. A mother who once abandoned her child, is a bad mother.

"I hate my mother," I told my teacher after she asked me why I wouldn't make a Happy Mother's Day card. I couldn't comprehend why I should make something for someone that I never saw. She only raised an eyebrow before she pasted that perfect smile on her face again. It seemed that no matter what I say, she would not relent on her insistence. The child I was, my patience for her quickly thinned, thus, in no time, I remarked with a frowning expression that she was acting ridiculously. The time moved forward swiftly then, and all I remember was my teacher's perfect smile becoming strained, my father being called to come after school, and the principal speaking to the both of us about how a second grader's—a child's behavior should be. When we

In our lives, we will not always be loved. People will lie to us, cheat us, and make us feel like we are absolutely worthless. In in end, however, we will always have the comfort of knowing that our parents will be there for us. Let’s face it though, nobody has a perfect relationship with their parents. At least one a day, if not more, an argument occurs between a parent and their child, causing hurt feelings and a lot of tension. Arguments can be formed based on very serious topics, the tiniest of problems, or even plain misunderstandings. Tension between a parent and their child is exemplified in both Confetti Girl by Diana Lopez and Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes.

David Michael Kaplan Another postcard from you today, Mother, and I see by the blurred postmark that you're in Manning, North Dakota now and that you've dated the card 1961. In your last card you were in Nebraska, and it was 1962; you've lost some time, I see. I was a little girl, nine years old, in 1961. You'd left my father and me only two years before. Four months after leaving, you sent me—always me, never him—your first postcard, of a turnpike in the Midwest, postmarked Enid, Oklahoma. You called me "My little angel" and said that the sunflowers by the side of the road were tall and very pretty. You signed it, as you always have, "Your only mother." My father thought, of course, that you were in Enid, and he

“There is no protection. To be female in this place is to be an open wound that cannot heal. Even if scars form, the festering is ever below” (Morrison 163). Toni Morrison, in her novel A Mercy, suggests that women in 17th century American society were constantly subjugated as inferiors no matter their class or privilege. Although Rebekka and Widow Ealing were both privileged, white women, they still faced the societal pressures that harmed the mother-child relationships among the slaves – Lina, Florens, and Sorrow. Each chapter of A Mercy is told from a different character’s perspective, allowing readers to understand the similarities among the female characters’ standpoints during this time period. By depicting the tribulations of motherhood that extend beyond society’s narrow stereotype, Morrison exposes how societal pressures of the late 17th century America influenced the complexities of motherhood.