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Mother to Mother Grade 10: Essay, Contextual Questions and Answers

Mother to Mother Grade 10 : Essay, Contextual Questions, and Answers

Content – Mother to Mother Grade 10: Essay, Contextual Questions and Answers

Mother to mother book summary.

Mother to Mother weaves back and forth in time, covering the narrator, Mandisa’s life from her early childhood, through the birth of her children, through her son, Mxolisi’s murder of the Girl, a white American driving through their township of Guguletu. This is interspersed with The Girl, Mandisa, and Mxolisi’s experiences on the day of the murder, and the morning after.

The novel also includes interludes in which Mandisa addresses the Mother of the Girl, asking rhetorical questions about the Girl’s life and upbringing, expressing her grief for the Girl’s death, and attempting to explain—but not justify— Mxolisi’s actions.

Chronologically, the novel begins with Mandisa’s childhood. She and her brother, Khaya, were raised in Blouvlei, but were forced to relocate to Guguletu by the South African government. This derailed the educations of many students, although Mandisa and Khaya were able to remain in school for a while, at least until Khaya impregnated his girlfriend, Nono, and Mandisa became accidentally pregnant through non-penetrative sex with her boyfriend, China.

Mama, Mandisa’s mother, is furious with her daughter, feeling that her pregnancy will embarrass the whole family, but eventually comes to love Mandisa and her newborn son. Mandisa’s parents force her to marry China, who is no longer interested in her romantically, and the two lived together unhappily for two years, until one day China runs away and disappears forever. Mandisa then moves into a hokkie of her own and does her best to raise Mxolisi, eventually having another child, Lunga, with a man named Lungile, and finally marrying a man, Dwadwa, with whom she has her youngest child and only daughter, Siziwe.

Mandisa recounts Mxolisi’s childhood. A talkative precocious boy, he stops talking for several years after witnessing the death of two older boys, Zazi and Mzamo. He regains his speech, but during his silence Mandisa realizes the resentment she feels for him, for interrupting her life with an unplanned pregnancy, and dramatically changing the course of her future.

As Mxolisi gets older he becomes involved in youth political movements, like the Young Lions. Increasingly radicalized and violent, this group burns cars, buildings, and even kills black South Africans around their township.

On the day of the tragedy, Amy is driving some of her black South African friends home from their university, when Mxolisi and others spot her in her car. A group of men converge, chasing her from the car, but Mxolisi is the man to stab and kill her. Mandisa discovers this later, spending the first night after the murder anxiously wondering if her son, who has not returned home, was somehow involved. A late-night police raid of Mandisa’s house furthers her suspicions.

In the morning, Reverend Mananga stops by and gives Mandisa vague instructions for how to see her son. She follows them and is briefly reunited with Mxolisi, whom she comforts and who comforts her, before he (presumably though not explicitly) turns himself into the police.

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Mother to mother characters

Main Characters

Mandisa Ntloko – Mother of Mxolisi and first person narrator
Mxolisi – Son of Mandisa, involved in the killing of Amy Biehl, AKA Boyboy, Michael, Hlumelo)
Amy Biehl – not part of the active storyline, but present in flashbacks, killed by a group of black teenagers, amongst others, Mxolisi

Secondary Characters

China – married (traditionally only) to Mandisa, father of Mxolisi, but not present in the active storyline.
Lungile – unmarried partner of Mandisa, one son (Lungisa)
Dwadwa – husband of Mandisa, father of Siziwe
Tata – Mandisa’s father
Mama – Mandisa’s mother
Tatomkhulu – Mandisa’s grandfather (Tata’s father)
Makhulu – Mandisa’s grandmother (Tata’s mother)
Mzamo and Zazi – friends of Mxolisi while he is still a small boy
Aunty Funiwe – Mandisa’s aunt, Mama’s younger sister
Khaya – Mandisa’s brother, married to Nono
Nono – Mandisa’s school friend, married to her brother

Questions per Chapters

Chapter 1 Questions

What is a lament?
How is this lament represented and who is it written for and by?
What is the purpose of the short introductory statement?
Quote two places that indicate that Mxolisi’s conception was unusual.
Discuss Mandisa’s portrayal of Mxolisi as a child.
Why does Mandisa refer to Amy as “a white girl” in paragraph 7?
Discuss why it appears as though Mxolisi and Mandisa have a strained relationship.
Why does Mandisa think that Amy was irresponsible for putting herself in such a dangerous position?
Explain the racial tension found in paragraph 13 and 15.
What is the irony found in paragraph 18?

Chapter 2 Questions

There are three storylines in this chapter. Which characters are being followed?
Identify and explain the metaphors in the following paragraphs: par 13; par 18; par 24
Comment on what you’ve learnt about Amy’s physical appearance and character traits.
Explain the illusion that Mandisa is trying to create in par 37 and why it fails.
Discuss the purpose of the writer’s explanation of the political background in par 44.
Explain the ritual in par. 45.
Explain Amy’s initial reaction when she offered her friends a lift.
Discuss Lumka’s inner struggle in par 60 to 64 and why it is so important to the story.
Discuss the scene of the burning car in par 88 and what we have learnt about the crowd of people that set it alight.
Comment on the following sentence: “The car is small.”

Chapter 3 Questions

Explain which storylines are being followed in this chapter
Identify and explain the metaphors in the following paragraphs: par 23; par 56; par 68; par 98; par 104.
Discuss the differences between Mandisa and Mrs Nelson’s social/ economic classes, highlighted in par 7, 9 and 13.
What is Mandisa’s normal routine on a Wednesday at work and how is this Wednesday different?
Quote Mandisa’s use of emotive words in par 46 that portrays her feelings towards Blouvlei.
Discuss Mandisa’s initial impression about Gugulethu when she arrived there as a child.
Quote an example of personification from par 47 and explain why she used this phrase.
Explain the difference between people’s attitudes toward each other in par 49 and then in par 74 – 88 and par 95 – 96.
Explain the simile Mandisa uses to describe the police in par 99
What can we tell from Mandisa’s words “I found myself doing something I had not known I still remembered”?
Why is she concerned for Siziwe’s safety in par 100?
Explain what happened to Mandisa in par 104 and how it affected her behaviour in par 106.
What is the purpose of the unanswered question “Where are your brothers?” in par 107?

Chapter 4 Questions

Explain where this chapter fits into the main storyline of the book.
Identify and explain the metaphors in the following paragraphs: par 17; par 29; par 43.
Quote two lines from par 5, 6 and/or 10 that give us the idea that Siziwe maybe knows more about what happened that day than what she is leading on.
What are the two things Mandisa is comparing in par 7?
Discuss the emergence of Mandisa’s victim complex.
Identify and explain the onomatopoeia found in par 13 and 43.
In par 31 the words “every day” are repeated three times. Comment on this.
Comment on the feeling of opposition Mandisa creates between the people of Gugulethu and the police in par 32. Quote to support your answer.
Comment on the last line of the chapter “They stabbed her.”

Chapter 6 Questions

Identify the emotive language in par 5 – 6 and explain the image that Mandisa is trying to create.
Identify and explain the metaphors in the following paragraphs: par8; par 29; par 50; par 59; par 61; par 69 – 72; par 88; par 102; par 135; par 189; par 200; par 205; par 206; par 213.
Identify and explain the uses of personification in the following paragraphs: par 10; par 11; par 50; par 56; par 59; par 60; par 64 (two occurences); par 143.
Identify and explain the uses of simile in the following paragraphs: par 11; par 44; par 95; par 135; par 143.
Identify and explain the uses of figurative language in the following paragraphs: par 147; par 205.
Explain the use of the words “those days” in par 15.
Identify the persuasive techniques used by Mandisa in par 19.
Why did Mandisa translate the words of the man in par 33?
Explain the community’s reaction to the rumour; when it came out, how they thought about it over time and after the plane dropped the flyers off.
Why does Mandisa paint the story of a happy life in par 57?
Identify examples of the metaphor of the flyers and explain what it means.
What did we learn about Mandisa’s father in par 125?
Identify the emotive words in par 134 and explain their use.
Identify and explain the contrast illustrated in par 148 to Mandisa’s memory of Blouvlei.
How can we see that Dwadwa is not fond of Mxolisi?
Identify the similarities between the nun in East London and Amy.
Comment on the structure the writer uses from par 175 to par 183.
Discuss Mandisa’s use of the quotation from chapter 1 in par 184.
Summarise the process of the degradation of the youth, as explained by Mandisa in par 191 – 207.
Identify and explain the emotive language in par 12.
Identify and explain the metaphors in the following paragraphs: par 12; par 14 (two occurrences); par 37; par 38; par 39; par 42; par 51; par 55; par 63.
Identify and explain the uses of personification in the following paragraphs: par 37; par 38.
Identify and explain the uses of simile in the following paragraphs: par 17; par 18; par 19; par 35.
Identify and explain the use of onomatopoeia in par 14.
Discuss the hyperbole in par 39.
The last paragraph of the chapter shows a big moment for Mandisa. What happened in that moment?

Chapter 7 Questions

There is a jump in the timeline from the previous chapter to the current one. Explain the purpose of the first paragraph to indicate the timeline that will follow.
Identify and explain the metaphors in the following paragraphs: par; 7; par 11; par 13; par 25; par 27; par 39; par 41; par 50; par 53; par 57; par 65; par 80; par 92 (two occurrences); par 95; par 130; par 131 (four occurrences); par 139; par 196 (two occurrences)
Identify and explain the uses of personification in the following paragraphs: par 7; par 45; par 100; par 133
Identify and explain the uses of simile in the following paragraphs: par 49; par 95; par 98
Identify and explain the uses of emotive language in the following paragraphs: par 7; par 10; par 36; par 106.
What in the chapter indicated that Mandisa’s relationship with her mother is not what it used to be in Blouvlei?
Comment on the use of intertextuality in par 119.
Explain what happened when Mandisa went into her gran’s room and her aunt Funiwe saw her.
Compare Mandisa’s initial reaction to the realisation that she was pregnant, to her thoughts at the end of the chapter.

Chapter 8 Questions

Discuss China’s reaction to seeing that Mandisa is pregnant by referring to his body language. Quote and interpret the metaphors used to emphasize his body language and facial expressions.
Describe the emotional response that Mandisa had to China’s disbelief.
Name two positive things that happened when Hlumelo was born.
Shortly discuss Mandisa’s induction ceremony in her new home by focusing on the reactions of her new family members. The purpose is to ultimately identify how her new family feels about her.
Par 230: “I shrunk because he was.” Discuss what feelings Mandisa reveals towards her son in this sentence.
Discuss Mandisa’s emotional response to China’s disappearance and the changes she had to make to her life as a result.
Explain what happened in par 259 – 278, focusing on Mxolisi’s point of view of the events.
What did Mandisa and her family do to try to get Mxolisi to speak again?

Chapter 9 Questions

Discuss the metaphor found in par 17: “he will immediately donate that person to me.”
Discuss how the following metaphor found in par 99 ties into the theme of presience : “…he will come here dragging such a thorny bush of a scandal, you won’t know what to do with yourself or where to hide your eyes.”

Chapter 10 Questions

Discuss how the British took advantage of Nongqawuse’s failed prophecy.
Discuss the various emotions present in Mandisa and Mxolisi’s interaction.

Chapter 11 Questions

Discuss the metaphor Mandisa uses in par 7 in an attempt to take the blame for the murder away from her son.
In par 10 – 12, Mandisa comes to a stark realisation about her community and the way their children are raised. What did she realise?
In par 16 – 28, something special happens to Mandisa. Discuss what happened and the significance of the event.
How is Mandisa trying to console Amy’s mother in par 31?

Chapter 12 Questions

Discuss the monologue Mandisa has with Amy’s mother in the beginning of Chapter 12.
Comment on the techniques used by the writer in the remainder of the chapter, to build tension up to the climax, where Amy is killed.
In par 74, Mandisa says: “Died when the time and place and hands were all in perfect congruence; cruel confluence of time, place and agent.” Discuss this statement and how it ties into the theme of contingency.
Discuss the final sentence of the chapter and what it finally reveals about Mandisa’s opinion of her son.

Mother to Mother Themes

Colonialism and Apartheid
Family, Tradition, and Obligation
Fate and the Fragility of Human Plans
Motherhood and the Nature of Home and Family
The nature and the role of Education and Knowledge
The Human Condition

Character Analysis: Mother to Mother

Mandisa character analysis:.

The novel’s narrator, Mandisa is also referred to as Molokazana and Nohenhake by her husband China’s family. Mandisa is the early middle-aged mother of three: Mxolisi, Lunga, and Siziwe. Born in Blouvlei to Mama and Tata, she has one brother Khaya. Mandisa was a respectful, hardworking child and talented student, whose life was first disrupted by her family’s forced relocation to Guguletu, and then by her surprise pregnancy.

Mandisa and her then-boyfriend, China, had purposefully avoided having penetrative sex, but they conceived anyway, and Mandisa has her first son, Mxolisi. Out of duty, Mandisa marries China, and the two are unhappily married for two years. However, one day China leaves for work and never comes back, leaving Mandisa to fend for herself. As she pieces her life back together and starts anew, Mandisa comes to resent Mxolisi for disrupting her life. Mandisa then conceives a second child with a man named Lungile, who, like China, also leaves her.

She eventually marries a man named Dwadwa, with whom she has her youngest child and only daughter, Siziwe. Out of all of Mandisa’s children, Mxolisi becomes the biggest troublemaker and the most politically charged. When he gets into hot water for stabbing and murdering The Girl—a white college girl who had ventured into Guguletu, earning her the attention of an angry mob, of which Mxolisi was a part—Mandisa feels great guilt regarding Mxolisi’s life and crimes. She feels responsible for him, and is made to feel responsible for his murder of The Girl by people in her community. The book, which she narrates, is a way for her to come to terms with her son’s actions, and to apologize to The Mother of the Girl for her hand in Mxolisi’s upbringing, while also explaining the factors beyond their control that lead to the tragedy at the novel’s centre.

Mxolisi Character Analysis

Mandisa’s oldest son, and her only son with China. He is originally named Hlumelo, but China’s family renames him, claiming their right to do so, as grandparents traditionally name the baby. Mxolisi is twenty, but still in the equivalent of middle or early high school, both because of his own truancy and because of the abysmal school system. Mandisa and Mxolisi have a troubled relationship; she blames him for his own conception (he was unplanned), and, because she had never had penetrative sex before giving birth, she blames Mxolisi for essentially taking her virginity.

Mandisa, however, tries to compensate for resenting her son by paying more attention to him, at the expense of her other children, Siziwe and Lunga, who accuse her of favouring their brother. Mxolisi began his life as a sweet child, but when he witnessed the police murder his friends, Zazi and Mzamo, he stopped speaking for several years. He eventually regained his speech, and Mandisa sent him to school, where beatings from teachers discouraged him from continuing to pursue his education.

He dropped out without Mandisa’s knowledge to work and help her support the family, but she convinced him to return. Eventually he became politically active, and joined the Young Lions, spending his days patrolling the neighbourhood, sometimes fighting for his education, but often harassing members of his own community. Mxolisi becomes caught up in a mob that forms around the car of a white university girl when she drives in Guguletu—a place that is extremely unsafe for white people—and when the violence escalates, he stabs and kills The Girl. Mxolisi clearly feels guilt and regret for what he’s done, which he confesses to Mandisa in their final conversation in the novel. Although not depicted, he likely turns himself in, and spends time (if not the rest of his life) in jail.

Mama Character Analysis:

Mama, whose name is Kukwana, is married to Tata, and has two children, Mandisa and Khaya. Mama is a strict parent, calling in her children while other parents allowed their sons and daughters to continue to play, expecting them to do many chores around the house, and demanding academic excellence. Mandisa, however, has a relatively good relationship with Mama until she hits puberty, at which point Mama becomes obsessed with Mandisa’s virginity, forcing her to undergo vaginal examinations to ensure she hasn’t had sex. Though she balks at the invasive examinations, Mandisa takes Mama’s warnings to heart and refuses to have penetrative sex with her boyfriend, China.

Over time, though, Mandisa begins to refuse the examinations, and Mama banishes Mandisa to live with her grandmother (Mama’s own mother), Makhulu, in Gungululu. Mama, a member of a local church, is concerned with her own social standing and the stigma Mandisa’s pregnancy could bring upon the family. She cares about her own social capital more than her daughter’s wellbeing, and so when Mandisa does finally become pregnant—despite not having penetrative sex— Mama is ashamed and embarrassed, and unable to bring herself to help her daughter. Once Mxolisi is born, however, Mama warms to him and begins to forgive Mandisa for having sex and getting pregnant out of wedlock, accepting her back into her life.

CHIN A Character Analysis:

Mandisa’s first boyfriend, and the father of Mxolisi. In his youth, China was a respectful teenage boy, a good student with a bright future, and never pressured Mandisa for sex, carefully listening to and acknowledging her boundaries. When Mandisa moves away to live with Makhulu in Gungululu, China writes her frequently, and presumably stays faithful. However, when he discovers Mandisa is pregnant, his entire demeanour changes.

He scathingly accuses Mandisa of cheating on him—after all, the pair have never had penetrative sex—and believes that she’s trying to trick him into taking responsibility as the father of the child. Although he and his family are eventually convinced to acknowledge Mxolisi as part of their bloodline, and China and Mandisa marry out of duty, China never forgives Mandisa or their son for ruining his future. He is forced to drop out of school to work and support the family, and, after two years of unhappy marriage, runs away, never to be heard from again. Mandisa feels similarly, and throughout her life she resents Mxolisi for getting in the way of her own plans for her life.

A my Character Analysis:

The white girl whom Mxolisi stabs and murders when she drives into Guguletu—a place that is extremely dangerous for white people like herself. Mandisa believes that The Girl was driving through the town in order to drop of her black friends from college, who had warned her about the risks of going to Guguletu, which she had promptly brushed off. As soon as the Guguletu residents spot a white person in their town, though, they begin to chant, “One settler, one bullet,” and a mob forms around The Girl’s car, rocking it menacingly.

The crowd swiftly turns violent, as they chant that Boers (white people in South Africa) are dogs—“AmaBhulu, azizinja!” When Mxolisi fatally stabs her, he is treated like a “king.”

Although a fictional character, The Girl based on Amy Elizabeth Biehl, an American Fulbright Scholar studying in South Africa, who was murdered by a group of young black South Africans. The story is occasionally told from The Girl’s point of view in the third person, but these passages are always Mandisa mournfully imagining what The Girl’s final moments were like. The Girl’s internal life is not known, instead it is constructed by Mandisa. Mandisa creates a book-smart, kind- hearted, dedicated friend, who nonetheless doesn’t fully understand the racial dynamics of South Africa.

Makhulu Character Analysis:

Mandisa’s maternal grandmother and Mama’s mother, who lives in Gungululu. When Mandisa stops submitting willingly to Mama’s invasive “virginity checks,” Mama banishes her to live with Makhulu, despite the fact that Mandisa has never even met the woman. Luckily, Makhulu is a kind caretaker, keeping Mandisa “sane” and “bodily alive,” making sure to cook food she knows Mandisa likes, and making sure she feels love even if Mama abandoned her. Much less judgmental than Mama, when Makhulu discovers that Mandisa is pregnant, she accepts the truth: that this was an accident and Mandisa should not be blamed. Instead, Mandisa should be comforted, supported, and accepted by her family.

Lunga Character Analysis:

Mandisa’s second son, and her only son with Lungile, who eventually leaves her just like China did not long after she gave birth to Mxolisi. Lunga is small for his age, especially compared to his brother. Unlike Mxolisi he is not (yet) involved in student protests, and more regularly attends school. Both Lunga and his sister, Siziwe, accuse Mandisa of preferring their older brother, Mxolisi, to them. In actuality, Mandisa deeply resents Mxolisi for changing the course of her life, but she does shower him with extra attention to make up for her resentment.

Sizwe Character Analysis:

Mandisa’s youngest child and only daughter, and Dwadwa’s only biological child. Both Lunga and Siziwe accuse Mandisa of preferring their older brother, Mxolisi, to them. This is partly true, as Mandisa objectively does give Mxolisi more attention than her other two children. However, this is because Mandisa deeply resents Mxolisi for ruining her life and blames him for his own surprise conception (Mandisa and her then-boyfriend China never had penetrative sex, but got pregnant anyway). Mandisa gives her eldest son more attention to make up for holding such a fierce grudge against him.

Khaya Character Analysis:

Mandisa’s brother, and Mama and Tata’s son. Like Mandisa, Khaya is a smart, well-behaved child. He and Nono, Mandisa’s close friend, begin dating when they are all teenagers, and Khaya eventually impregnates her. Unlike Mandisa, who Mama feels has brought shame to the family, Mama does not see Khaya as responsible for his girlfriend’s pregnancy, illuminating a double standard in her treatment of her children based on gender.

Dwadwa Character Analysis:

Mandisa’s husband, and the father of her youngest child and only daughter, Siziwe. Dwadwa is a good man, who treats Mandisa’s first two children, Mxolisi and Lunga, as his own (their fathers are China and Lungile, respectively). Still, Mandisa remains the primary parent of her three children, and is more involved in the internal and external lives of all of her children than Dwadwa is with his biological daughter and adopted sons.

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Mother to Mother

52 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface–Chapter 1

Chapters 3–4

Chapters 5–6

Chapters 9–10

Chapters 11–12

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Summary and Study Guide

In writing Mother to Mother, Sindiwe Magona drew inspiration from a real event: the murder of a white American named Amy Biehl by young black men in 1990s South Africa. The crime caused shockwaves around the world, not least because Biehl herself had come to South Africa to combat apartheid—the system of segregation and discrimination that relegated black South Africans, as well as other people of color, to second-class citizenship.

On the face of it, then, Biehl's murder was an incomprehensible and counterproductive attack on someone trying to make amends for the injustices of colonialism and apartheid. Mother to Mother, however, sets out to render the murder comprehensible (if not excusable). By tracing the life and upbringing of a young man named Mxolisi—a kind of amalgam of Biehl's real-life killers—Magona works to show her readers the pernicious effects of colonialism and apartheid, which cause their victims to become "lost creatures of malice and destruction" (v).

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Mother to Mother, however, is narrated not by Mxolisi himself but by his mother, Mandisa. In the opening pages of the novel, Mandisa speaks directly to Biehl's mother, pleading for compassion on her son's behalf; if Biehl's mother understood Mxolisi's past, Mandisa says, she would understand why he acted so violently.

From there, Mandisa launches into the narrative proper, imagining contrasting scenes from the day of the murder: the student attending her classes in Cape Town, and Mxolisi and his friends, in the segregated suburb of Guguletu , roaming the streets in frustration and rage. Mandisa cuts away before the murder itself, settling into the narrative pattern that will define most of the novel: Mandisa's recollections of the days and hours following the murder, interspersed with lengthy flashbacks to her past.

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Through the flashbacks, we learn more about the traumas that have defined Mandisa's (and, later, Mxolisi's) life. As a young child, Mandisa was forced from her home in Blouvlei by the South African government's increasingly strict policies on racial segregation. As a teenager in Guguletu, she briefly knewhappiness with her boyfriend China , but her unexpected pregnancy cast a pall over both their future prospects; the two left school and married, though China abandoned his wife and son, Mxolisi, when the latter was only a toddler. In the years following China's departure, Mandisa entered into relationships with two more men, and eventually gave birth to two more children: her younger son Lunga, and her daughter, Siziwe. Mandisa's relationship with Mxolisi, however, remainedboth uniquely close and somewhat complicated—a byproduct of the "unusual way in which he came to this world" (40). What's more, traumatic events marred Mxolisi's early childhood—particularly the violent deaths of two of his friends at the hands of the police. For all his intelligence and sensitivity, then, Mxolisi grew up somewhat troubled, eventually becoming a leader in a group known as the "Young Lions." Ostensibly an anti-apartheid organization, this group increasingly takes out its anger on the innocent residents of Guguletu—and, ultimately, on the American student who ill-advisedly travels there.

Meanwhile, in the present, Mandisa leaves her job as a maid early as a result of unrest in Guguletu—the aftermath of the attack on the student. Once home, she struggles to locate her children amidst the chaos, and she discovers that Mxolisi is missing.He fails to turn up that evening, but the police, who are searching for him, do. Some time after the violent raid, Mandisa receives mysterious instructions that lead her to a house, where she finds Mxolisi in hiding. He admits that he participated in the murder, and the two tearfully embrace.

In the final pages of the novel, Mandisa again addresses the student's mother, commiserating with her and wondering what to do next. Finally, she returns to imagining the day of the murder itself, describing both Mxolisi and Biehl as unwitting victims of centuries of oppression and hatred.

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100 interesting questions to ask your mom on Mother's Day and beyond

Moms are everything.

They're caretakers-in-chief, doctors-in-residence, taxi drivers, commanders of the kitchen, activities directors and, well, you get the drift.

Think you know all there is to know about your special lady? Chances are pretty good that you don't.

That's because, to you, she's simply Mom. For that reason, it can be easy to forget that beyond being yours, she has passions, dreams and experiences we know nothing about.

“Here’s the thing, the women in our lives , we think of them in terms of their role,” Maureen Taylor , photo and family historian, tells TODAY.com. "It’s our mom or our grandmother . We don’t think about necessarily them as the people that they were before they became a mom or a grandmother."

By asking your mom the following questions, you'll get to know her on a deeper level.

"Knowing more about the women in our family connects us to our past, but also projects us into the future," Taylor adds.

Your mom's answers may lead to more questions, including: "What are our descendants going to be like? What are my daughter’s kids going to be like? What are they going to pick up from this unbroken line of the women in our family?"

That said, as we learn more about our mothers, we also learn more about ourselves.

"It gives us a sense of who we are. It fits us into the greater family puzzle, how all the pieces fit together," Taylor says.

Read on for the best questions to ask your mom about everything from her elementary school days to the relationships that have shaped her most.

If you could have lunch with anyone (living or deceased), who would it be and why?
What's your favorite song and what does it remind you of?
What's the first thing you can remember from your childhood?
If you could time travel, would you go back in history or into the future and why?
Which subject did you like best in school? Least?
What scent or smell makes you feel nostalgic and why?
What's the first vacation you ever took and where did you go?
What was your biggest childhood fear?
If you could change your name, what would it be?
What's your favorite season of the year and why?
What's your favorite holiday and why?
What's the most difficult challenge you've had to overcome?
What do you remember most about your parents?
What's the name of the first street you lived on?
Did you have any childhood pets? What were their names?
What's one thing you want people to remember about you?
If you got a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it?
What was the biggest challenge of becoming a mother?
What was your favorite toy as a child?
What was your first job?
If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
What's your biggest regret?
What's the biggest unchecked box left on your bucket list?
What were your grandparents like?
What's your favorite type of food?
What's the most trouble you ever got into as a child? As a teen?
What's the biggest difference between today's society and when you were young?
What's one thing you'd change about yourself if you could?
What were you like in school? Shy? Outgoing? Popular? Quiet?
What's one article of clothing you wish you still had?
If you could pick one family recipe to pass on, which one would it be?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
If you could go back and relive one day in your life again, which one would it be and why?
What issue do you feel passionate about and why?
Is there anything you'd be willing to die for?
What's one movie you can watch over and over?
If you were stranded on a desert island with only one book, which one would you pick?
What's your favorite color?
What's your favorite flower?
What instrument do you wish you could play?
Who's your favorite comedian?
What accomplishment makes you feel most proud and why?
What's the best advice you ever got?
If you could back in time and talk to your younger self, what would you say?
What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?
What's your favorite candy?
Who's someone who helped shape the person you are today?
What TV sitcom best represents your life?
What's something that makes you sad?
Do you consider yourself a spiritual person?
What were your 15 minutes of fame?
What was the first car you ever drove?
Which do you prefer? The beach or the mountains?
What's the biggest lesson you've learned about life?
Is there a time you failed at something and how did you deal with it?
What's the first thing you thought/did when you discovered you were going to be a mother?
What's one thing you wish you hadn't spent a lot of money on?
Do you consider yourself a pessimist or an optimist?
What's your favorite way to spend a day to yourself?
What's your biggest pet peeve?
What's something interesting about your siblings?
What's something you wish you'd known as a child?
What's a kindness that someone did for you that you've never forgotten?
Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
What was your first day of school like?
What's your most treasured possession?
What's something you wish people knew about you?
What's your favorite joke?
Who was your first love?
When was your first kiss?
Who's your hero and why?
Are you still friends with anyone you went to school with?
Who's the one person who knows you better than anyone else?
Would you rather hike the Appalachian Trail or lounge by the pool?
What's the last concert you went to?
Who's the smartest person you know?
What's your favorite family memory?
Who's one person you'd let pick out clothes for you?
What's the worst haircut you've ever gotten?
What's the strangest thing you've ever eaten?
What's one sport you wish you could do?
What historical event interests you the most?
What's the best job you've ever had and why?
Would you ever move back to your hometown (or would you ever leave your hometown)?
What's the most romantic thing anyone ever did for you?
Have you ever saved someone's life?
If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?
Do you believe in the paranormal?
What's the strangest unexplained experience you've ever had?
What's your favorite animal and why?
Are there any friends from your past you wish you still talked to?
Were you ever bullied and what did you do about it?
What's one thing you wish your parents had done differently?
What's your favorite board game? Card game?
What's something about yourself you didn't know until someone told you about it?
If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
What's your favorite thing to drink?
What's your biggest worry?
What's your least favorite type of music and why?
What's the next vacation you have planned. Where are you going?

While you're at it, get to know the other people in your life

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Sarah is a lifestyle and entertainment reporter for TODAY who covers holidays, celebrities and everything in between.

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95 Motherhood Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best motherhood topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 simple & easy motherhood essay titles, 🔎 most interesting motherhood topics to write about, ❓ research questions about motherhood.

Motherhood is the completion of a woman’s life Since a woman can become a mother even at teenage, there is need for a change in the stereotypical ideas held by people that motherhood is the completion of a woman’s life.
Shifting the Centre: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing About Motherhood The author is very categorical in that it is necessary to put the role of the woman of color in the same position as that of the white one since this ensures that cultural identity […]
Racism and Motherhood Themes in Grimke’s “Rachel” In addition, her mother kept the cause of the deaths of Rachel’s father and brother secret. In essence, the play Rachel is educative and addresses some of the challenges people face in society.
Marketing Plan About Maternity and Children Hospital in Saudi Arabia Depending on the magnitude of the distortion, the impact will vary, and this may injure the image of the firm in the corporate world.
Motherhood Penalty as a Sociological Concept This paper describes the importance of the concept of “motherhood penalty” for sociological theory, relates this issue to the feminist theory, and analyses the results of a laboratory experiment dedicated to motherhood penalty consequences for […]
Motherhood and Maternity: Gwen Harwood’s Poetry The language used in many of her poems lacks a clear rhyme and at times is borderline prose, and yet still it manages to pluck at the strings located in a reader’s heart, painting vivid […]
Marianismo and Maternity in the Film “Baby Shower” The author initially explains the concepts of marianismo and mariana identity by stating that they originated in the legacy of the Catholic Church, in which women are seen as “subservient and docile”; the reason for […]
The UAE Maternity Law and Women’s Employment Behaviour The working women in the UAE have the right to avail a hundred days extended leave on the completion of their maternity leave if they are not physically fit.
The Motherhood Penalty vs. the Fatherhood Bonus In the article “The Motherhood Penalty vs.the Fatherhood Bonus,” Claire Cain Miller discusses differences in compensation between mothers and fathers. One sentence that stood out to me from the article is that “Mothers were offered […]
Racial Inequality in the National Health Service Maternity Care The purpose of this paper is to analyze the available research on the issues of racism within the National Health Service of the United Kingdom.
Motherhood and Death Themes in World Literature This is the place she unwinds and gives her the courage of raising the children and facing the task of raising a family.
The UK Maternity Care in Black Women Experiences The aspect of maternity care in the context of racial and ethnic disparities has now become one of the most challenging social issues in the UK.
Maternity Care for Asylum Seekers and Refugees In the process of the study, Judith Nabb focuses on a set of particular issues representing interest to her personally and being relevant in the course of general medical care studies, such as the level […]
The Motherhood Myth in the W. E. Film The movie wants the audience to realize that motherhood is not culturally compulsory, and there are no reasons for a woman to desire becoming a mother only because of her community imposing the ideas of […]
The Concept of Motherhood Penalties The issue of the motherhood penalty is important in modern society because apart from being bizarre and retrogressive, it compounds the problem of the gender pay gap and other inequalities that women have been experiencing […]
Lesbian Motherhood: Identity Issues In the studies of Moore and Hequembourg, the problems of lesbian and black lesbian mothers are explored, while it is pointed out that women of color and those belonging to lower classes appear to be […]
Abigail Adams’ Views on Republican Motherhood At a time when the word “tyranny” was in regular use by the revolutionaries to describe the British king, she was applying that odious term to the habitual tendencies of men to abuse their power […]
Motherhood in “The Bean Trees” by Barbara Kingsolver There are special difficulties that stand in the way of a woman who wants to have independent, fulfilling life, which is the child care, that in some cases remain only woman shoulders, obtaining the desired […]
Ethical Argument for Surrogate Motherhood If couples do not consider themselves in a position that allows them to bear children themselves, a surrogate arrangement can be the only way of creating a full family.
Motherhood From Biological and Moral Perspectives In Containing Women: Reproductive Discourse in the 1980s by Valerie Hartouni’s the idea of importance of metaphorical link between the heart of the would-be mother and her child is the leading one: “Situated in opposition […]
“The Joys of Motherhood” by Buchi Emecheta The ‘Theme of this book could be suitably applied in the modern days, where there is a serious drift/immigration to The West and European countries in the quest for a greener pasture.
The Concept of “Motherhood Penalty” in Workplaces The technological revolution of the 21st century and the financial meltdown that occurred in 2008 have created an environment that increased the size of the lumpen bourgeoisie, which precipitated the tragedy of the commons associated […]
Mary’s Divine Motherhood and Perpetual Virginity Therefore, one can probably notice that Christ is considered to be a God on the basis of Mary’s virginity; while, on the other hand, Christ is recognised to be a man according to Mary’s role […]
Society’s View on Single Motherhood The society’s view on single motherhood might be subjective without the understanding of social dynamics and evaluation of the institution’s capacity to address single parenthood.
“Motherhood” in American Families The social construct of motherhood as being in the confines of a heterosexual marriage context has over the time been challenged with increasing cases of single parenthood, more so single mothers.
Prenatal and Post Natal Motherhood The statistical procedures mentioned in the study included data collection techniques, sampling methods, the null and alternative hypotheses, probability distributions, the level and type of test done, and the rejection criteria on the significance of […]
Assessing the Impact of Single Motherhood on Public Health Due to the impending health problem facing single mothers, this study seeks to assess the impact of single motherhood on the UK public health system.
The Theme of Motherhood in John Irving’s Works John Irving, the author of the novels the Cider House Rule and A Widow for One Year focuses on the theme of motherhood through the description of the main characters.
Cost-Effective, Safe Motherhood Interventions in Low-Income Countries
Teenage Motherhood and Sibling Outcomes
The Long-Run Labour Market Consequences of Teenage Motherhood
How Does Motherhood Affect Self-Employment Performance
An Experience of the Wonders of Pregnancy and Motherhood
Impact of Adolescent Motherhood on Secondary Schooling
The Ethical and Moral Dilemmas of Surrogate Motherhood
Balancing Between Motherhood and Career
Classed and Gendered Experiences of Combining Employment and Motherhood
The Social Evolutionist’s Views of the Humanity and the Way the Motherhood
Single Motherhood and Child Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa
How Much Do Educational Differences in Single Motherhood Matter
The Importance of the Role of Being a Mother and the Sacrifices of Motherhood
Does Lone Motherhood Decrease Women’s Happiness
Cultural Coloration Between Motherhood and Working
The Effects of Longer School Days on Adolescent Motherhood
Republican Motherhood and the Cult of Domesticity
Adolescent Pregnancy and the Challenges of Teen Motherhood
Does Motherhood Affect Productivity, Relative Performance, and Earnings
Teenage Motherhood and Long-Run Outcomes
Postpartum Depression and the Social Construction of Motherhood
The Different Factors Involve in Motherhood and Parenting
Regulating Lesbian Motherhood: Gender, Sexuality and Medically Assisted Reproduction
How Motherhood Affects the Social and Emotional State of a Woman
The Connection Between Childhood Poverty, Early Motherhood, and Adult Social Exclusion
Should the Surrogate Motherhood Arrangement Be Legalized
The Impact of School Starting Age on Teenage Marriage and Motherhood
The Relationship Between Marriage Market Prospects and Never-Married Motherhood
Does Adolescent Motherhood Affect the Education and Labor Market Outcomes of Mothers
How Much Does Motherhood Cost Women in Social Security Benefits
Feminism and Changing Perceptions of Motherhood
Discussing Pregnancy and Motherhood Privileges
Pregnancy and Motherhood for Adolescent Girls
Prevalence and Risk Factors for Early Motherhood Among Low-Income
How Delayed Motherhood Affects Fertility Dynamics in Europe
Slavery and Social Construction of Motherhood
Does Single Motherhood Hurt Infant Health Among Young Mothers
Careers and Motherhood: Policies for Compatibility
The First Recognized Surrogate Motherhood Arrangement
The Motherhood Wage Penalty and Its Determinants
What Is the Real Meaning of Motherhood?
Is Maternity and Motherhood Same?
What Is So Great About Motherhood?
What Is the Hardest Stage of Motherhood?
What Things Symbolize Motherhood?
What Is Another Word for Motherhood?
What Are the Different Types of Motherhood?
What Is the Difference Between Motherhood and Parenting?
What Is the Main Role of a Motherhood?
What Are the Challenges of Motherhood?
What Is the Value of Motherhood?
What Is the Best Part of Motherhood?
What Does Motherhood Feel Like?
How Does Motherhood Change Your Life?
What Skills Does a Mother Need?
What Are the Responsibilities of Mother?
What Is the Best Age for Motherhood?
What Is Toxic Motherhood?
Is Motherhood a Relationship?
What Makes a Mother Successful?
What Do Mothers Need the Most?
Is Motherhood a Concept?
What Is the Mental Load of Motherhood?
Does Motherhood Come Naturally?
Why Is Motherhood So Exhausting?
Pregnancy Essay Topics
Infant Research Topics
Parenting Research Topics
Surrogacy Questions
Postpartum Depression Paper Topics
Gender Differences Questions
Women’s Rights Titles
Gender Roles Paper Topics
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Descriptive Essay

Descriptive Essay About My Mother

Descriptive Essay About My Mother - A Guide to Writing

Descriptive Essay - What You Need to Know

A descriptive essay is a type of essay that uses words to describe an object, person, experience, or place. The purpose of writing this type of essay is to provide the reader with a vivid and clear description of something. The writer must use sensory details, such as sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste to make the reader experience the topic.

When writing about a person such as your mother, you need to describe the characteristics that make her unique. It can include personality traits or experiences that make her special.

Reading a few essay samples will help you out! So read on to find good examples and tips.

How to Write a Descriptive Essay About My Mother - 8 Easy Steps

Writing a heartfelt and vivid descriptive essay about your mother requires careful consideration.

Here, we'll guide you through the process step by step, helping you express your feelings and admiration effectively:

Step 1: Choose a Focus

Decide on a specific aspect or trait of your mother that you want to describe. It could be her appearance, personality, nurturing qualities, or a particular event that showcases her character.

Step 2: Brainstorm Descriptive Words

Make a list of adjectives and descriptive words that come to mind when you think about your mother. Try to capture the essence of her being.

Step 3: Create an Outline

Organize your thoughts by creating a descriptive essay outline . Decide on the structure, such as the introduction, body, and conclusion, and what aspects you'll cover in each section.

Step 4: Start with a Hook

Begin your essay with an engaging hook or an anecdote that draws the reader in. It can be a personal memory or a captivating description of your mother.

Step 5: Descriptive Details

In the body of your essay, use sensory details to paint a vivid picture. Describe her appearance, mannerisms, and the emotions she evokes. Incorporate the descriptive words from your brainstorming list.

Step 6: Emotions and Memories

Share your personal emotions and memories associated with your mother. How does she make you feel, and what experiences have shaped your relationship with her?

Step 7: Use Metaphors and Similes

Employ metaphors and similes to enhance your descriptions. Compare her to elements from nature, objects, or anything that can add depth to your portrayal.

Step 8: Show, Don't Tell

Instead of simply stating qualities, show them through actions, interactions, and specific examples. Let the reader experience her through your words.

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Examples of Descriptive Essay About My Mother

Exploring essay examples can provide valuable insights for crafting an essay that deeply connects with your readers.

Below, you'll find both a descriptive essay about my mother and an analysis of its content.

Why This Descriptive Essay Works

Here are several reasons why this descriptive essay is effective:

Emotional Connection

The essay immediately establishes an emotional connection with the reader through its theme of a mother's love. The use of descriptive language and personal anecdotes invites the reader to empathize and relate to the feelings and experiences described.

Vivid Imagery

The essay employs vivid imagery to paint a clear picture of the mother and her attributes. The descriptions of her eyes, hands, voice, and smile create a sensory experience for the reader, making them feel as if they are present with the author.

The essay uses symbolism effectively to convey the depth of the mother's love. The mother's eyes, for example, symbolize her wisdom and the shared experiences with the author. The use of the mother's hands as a source of healing symbolizes her nurturing and caring nature.

Structure and Flow

The essay is well-structured and flows seamlessly from one descriptive element to another.

It begins with a general introduction, moves into specific descriptions, and ends with a strong, heartfelt conclusion. This organization keeps the reader engaged and ensures a logical progression of ideas.

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Emotional Impact

The essay's emotional impact is profound. It not only describes the mother's physical attributes but also delves into the intangible qualities that make her special. The reader is left with a deep sense of appreciation for the role of a mother and the love she provides.

Relatability

The essay's theme of maternal love is universal, making it relatable to a broad audience. Most readers can connect with the feelings of love, protection, and guidance that the author describes.

If you still find it challenging to write a descriptive essay, consider these additional examples for guidance.

Descriptive Essay About My Mother PDF

Descriptive Essay About My Mother My Hero

Descriptive Essay Example About Mother

Descriptive Essay About My Mother 200 Words

Descriptive Essay On My Mother's Kitchen

Sample Descriptive Essay About My Mother

Here is a video of another short essay example about mother:

Want to read descriptive essays on other topics as well? Here are more descriptive essay examples that will help you out!

Tips to Write a Descriptive Essay About Mother

Now that you’ve read the examples, let’s look at some tips that will lead you to essay writing success.

Start with the Basics

Begin by brainstorming ideas of what makes your mother special and why she is important to you. Think about her personality traits, accomplishments, quirks, and unique qualities. In addition, consider the ways that your mother has influenced you and shaped your life.

You can also practice your writing skills with other descriptive essay topics . So write away!

Create an Outline

Once you have all of your ideas written down, create an descriptive essay outline that will guide the structure of your essay. This should include sections for your introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

Capture Her Essence

Use vivid language to capture the essence of who your mother is. Utilize descriptive words and phrases that will help your reader understand who your mother is and what she means to you.

Show, Don’t Tell

Instead of simply telling the reader about your mother’s traits or accomplishments, use stories and examples to illustrate them. This will make your essay more interesting to readers.

Keep Your Tone Consistent

Maintaining a consistent tone throughout ensures a cohesive narrative without feeling disjointed or scattered. This keeps readers interested until they reach their conclusion!

Don’t Forget the Conclusion

Summarize the main points of your essay in your conclusion and provide a call to action for readers. Maybe you’ll leave them feeling inspired or motivated to do something special for their own mother.

Revise & Edit Diligently

Revision is key when putting together any written piece. Read over your work multiple times and fix any errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. Also improve any awkward phrasing or unclear ideas that might not be conveyed effectively enough.

To sum it up,

Writing a descriptive essay about your mother doesn't have to be difficult. With our guide and examples, you can easily write an effective essay that will make your mother proud! So get started today, and create the perfect essay for her!

By following these tips and examples, you will find it easier to write a meaningful descriptive essay about your mother. Good luck!

Looking for a professional descriptive essay writer to write it for you? We're right here for you!

You can trust our custom essay writing online for all your essay needs. We offer top-notch essay writing help to you get the best grade possible. Our essay writers are experienced and qualified to handle any essay topic with ease.

So get a high-quality descriptive essay writing service to make your essay stand out!

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Keep reading

Essay on Mothers Love for Students and Teacher

500+ words essay on mothers love.

There is nothing that can come close to the love that a mother feels for her children. Women are inherently good mothers. Till birth women carry their young and then continue their love & affection throughout their childhood and even into adulthood. Every Mother always makes sure that their children are safe and happy throughout their childhood. It is the love for their child that a mother feels that drives these feelings. No one can describe in words the feeling that a mother has towards her children. In fact, most people do not understand unless they become a mother themselves. Love always encourages us in any falls which come in life. She is the only person who has no demands except our best future.

Mother as a Caretaker

A Mother always wants best for her child and never compromise on anything related to her child. Parents protect their child from any difficult situation and provide him all comfort that they can afford. Mothers love is not only about pampering her child but also about letting her child know the moral and cultural values.

A good upbringing makes the better future of a person and a mother does an excellent job to give the best future for her child. She converts a house into a home; she works as a superwoman because to keep managing household works and to fulfill all family members’ requirement on time is no easy task at all.

If we talk about working ladies than we can’t even imagine how she would manage all things together. I am proud of my mother who has nurtured me along with doing a job and also managing home properly.

Read 500 Words Essay on Mother here

Mother as a Best Friend

After birth, a child finds his mom as the first friend who plays with him along with extra care and nourishment. She interacts with her child as a friend and keeps watching all her child’s activities.

A mother never feels tired while playing with her child and always fulfills all his demands without thinking of her. A mother is like an angel for her child.

Mother as a Mentor

Without any expectation, a mother keeps on working for the betterment of her child. She plays all roles including mom like a mentor, a teacher, a friend, a caretaker.

She loves her child more than any other thing in this world but sometimes she becomes little strict towards her child for making him capable to fight with different circumstances comes in life. Mother gives us that power with which we become able to accept them and get success.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Mother – A Special Person of Our Life

When a child born; it is the mother who easily understands the feelings or requirements of her child. She spends every second around her child for fulfilling his all needs. Since childhood, our mother keeps telling us what is wrong and what is right in a manner to build us as a good human being and also encourage us to do good things in life.

She loves and cares us without any personal greed. The fragrance of a mother can easily be recognized by her newborn child. Since birth, a child is being observed by his mother. For providing a child all comforts she does all needful.

All mothers are pure by heart and want all the best things in their child’s life whether it is any toy, clothing, education and the values. Motherhood is the best part of life a lady can have. It is a full-time job without any salary but it worth’s a lot for a child. Mother’s love is something that can feel, mothers love is like a blessing by God, mothers love is everything. People who escape from the love of their mothers are really very unfortunate.

We as a child always take our mother for granted but without her our life becomes worthless. Mother is a precious gift by God which we need to keep with love and care. She does her job of motherhood with a pure heart and complete devotion. The first teacher is a mother for any child and if he keeps learning life’s lessons under her guidance nothing can stop him in achieving the heights of success.

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Mother to Mother

Sindiwe magona, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

The Legacy of Colonialism and Apartheid

Every part of the lives of the black South Africans at the center of the novel are influenced and informed by the legacy of white European colonialism and apartheid . Although decades of oppression and forced relocation affects every aspect of the black South Africans’ lives, the murder at the center of the novel is specifically a result of racist policies and reflects the specific tensions and resentments of the murderer Mxolisi ’s generation. Mandisa …

Family, Tradition, and Obligation

The members of the black South African families at the center of Mother to Mother rely on each other and their larger community for support and structure. In a country where many social support systems and government help have failed, black South Africans are left only with the strong, tight-knit communities and family units that have carried them through since before colonization. These groups, tied by proximity, blood, and tradition, offer a sense of comfort…

Language, Storytelling, and History

Through songs, letters, chants, legends, and prayers, as well as uses of African languages like Xhosa , the characters in Mother to Mother are able to express more than they could through straight prose or monologues. In each of these instances, language serves a deeper purpose as it brings people together and reminds them of their shared experiences. For instance, Mandisa ’s grandfather, Tatomkhulu , tells her the story of a prophetess named Nongqawuse …

Sigmund Freud’s Theory on the Mother-Son Relationship: an Analysis

This essay is about Sigmund Freud’s theory on the mother-son relationship, particularly through the Oedipus complex. It explains how Freud believed boys develop subconscious desires for their mothers and view their fathers as rivals during the phallic stage of development. The essay discusses how this complex is resolved and its impact on personality and relationships. It also touches on criticisms of Freud’s theory and modern perspectives that emphasize emotional bonding and attachment. Despite criticisms, Freud’s ideas on early family dynamics continue to influence psychology and therapeutic practices, highlighting the lasting impact of his work on understanding human behavior.

How it works

Sigmund Freud, acknowledged as the patriarch of psychoanalysis, introduced a plethora of theories that have profoundly impacted the field of psychology. Amidst his manifold concepts, his insights into the mother-son relationship emerge as both seminal and contentious. Freud’s elucidation of this intricate dynamic is chiefly encapsulated within his broader construct of the Oedipus complex, positing that young boys harbor subconscious yearnings for their mothers while regarding their fathers as adversaries. This proposition has ignited fervent discourse and remains a focal point of inquiry in psychological and cultural realms.

Freud’s postulation asserts that during the phallic stage of psychosexual maturation, spanning ages three to six, boys cultivate an intense emotional attachment to their mothers, characterized by a blend of affection and possessiveness. Freud postulated that boys unconsciously entertain aspirations of supplanting their fathers and monopolizing their mothers’ affections. This amalgam of sentiments and fantasies is what Freud denoted as the Oedipus complex, drawing parallels to the eponymous figure from Greek mythology, who unwittingly slew his father and wedded his mother.

As per Freud, the resolution of the Oedipus complex signifies a pivotal juncture in a child’s development. He hypothesized that the trepidation boys experience regarding their maternal desires precipitates castration anxiety, apprehension of retribution from their fathers. To assuage this anxiety, boys commence identifying with their fathers, assimilating their traits and values. This process, Freud contended, facilitates the formation of their superegos, internalized ethical benchmarks guiding their conduct. Successful navigation of the Oedipus complex engenders a harmonious equilibrium in relationships and fosters the cultivation of a coherent adult identity.

Freud’s exploration of the mother-son relationship extends beyond the purview of the Oedipus complex, delving into the enduring repercussions of this primal interplay. He suggested that unresolved Oedipal sentiments might manifest in adulthood as neuroses or maladaptive relationships. For instance, individuals who haven’t reconciled their Oedipal conflicts may grapple with authority figures or encounter relational challenges, gravitating towards partners reminiscent of their mothers or evincing possessive tendencies.

Detractors of Freud’s theory contend that it excessively fixates on libidinal impulses, sidelining other salient facets of the mother-son relationship. Contemporary psychologists often underscore the significance of attachment and emotional bonding over Freudian psychosexual stages. Attachment theory, for instance, underscores the indispensability of a secure emotional bond between mother and child for optimal development. Scholars like John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth have demonstrated that secure attachment fosters superior emotional regulation, social adeptness, and resilience in children, challenging Freud’s emphasis on sexual rivalry and desire.

Notwithstanding these critiques, Freud’s theories have indelibly permeated both psychological discourse and popular culture. The notion of the Oedipus complex has been explored across various artistic mediums, reflecting enduring intrigue in Freud’s postulations. Moreover, Freud’s spotlight on early childhood experiences and their ramifications on adult personality continues to inform therapeutic modalities. Psychoanalytic therapy, for instance, often entails an exploration of unresolved childhood conflicts and their bearing on present behavior and relationships.

Contemporary psychoanalysts and therapists have expanded upon Freud’s framework, amalgamating it with contemporary theories and empirical findings. While the Oedipus complex may not garner universal acceptance in its original formulation, its underlying tenet—that early familial dynamics profoundly mold an individual’s development—remains influential. Present-day therapists may scrutinize a client’s parental relationships as part of a holistic understanding of their psychological concerns, even if they diverge from strict adherence to Freudian doctrine.

In summation, Sigmund Freud’s exposition of the mother-son relationship, particularly through the prism of the Oedipus complex, furnishes a thought-provoking lens on human development. Despite critiques and revisions, the core proposition that early parental relationships wield significant influence over personality and behavior enjoys widespread recognition. Freud’s oeuvre encourages a profound exploration of the subconscious psyche and its sway over our existence, stimulating both professionals and laypersons to contemplate the profound ramifications of childhood experiences. As psychology evolves, Freud’s contributions endure as a foundational, albeit occasionally contentious, cornerstone in unraveling the intricacies of human behavior.

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Here’s to the ‘middle moms’ who are navigating motherhood between preschool and prom

fizkes/Shutterstock

Middle moms are straddling two worlds.

By Christine Organ June 3, 2024

When you become a mother, you hear all about life with little kids—the exhausting newborn phase , the restless toddler stage and the wild preschool years —and you hear all about the bittersweetness of raising teens . But what you don’t hear enough about are the middle years and what it’s like to be a middle mom, when you don’t have little kids anymore but they aren’t big kids either. Middle moms are in the thick of it in every possible way.

Some people call these years the “ sweet spot ”—and for good reason. You’re no longer wiping bottoms and changing diapers, but you’re needed for a bedtime snuggle and a hug before getting on the school bus. Your kids still want you to go to the public pool with them, but you can sit on the edge and chat with other parents. You are needed—but not too needed.

Related: When it all feels never-ending, just remember how fast time passes by

Children’s book author Emily Rousell captured what it’s like to be a middle mom in a recent Instagram post. “There’s no longer a baby on her hip, but she’s not misty-eyed marveling over caps and gowns,” Roussell writes. “She’s far enough into motherhood to know how fast it all goes, but not yet fully through the land of little. She’s in the space that lingers between babies and bigs.”

When you’re a mom in the middle years, your kids aren’t hanging off your legs anymore, but they will still lean in when watching a movie together. Because you’re less touched out, you have the emotional space to take it all in. You can let out a deep contented sigh.

As a middle mom, there is more predictability to your days. Sleep regression is a thing of the past and you have a morning routine. But there is still a delightful chaos to the everyday. The house is messy, loud and wild—but in a way that almost makes sense.

Being a middle mom is a state of mind

Being a mom in the middle is more than just remnants of little kid gear, but a state of mind. It is knowing that you are in the “sweet spot,” as they call it, but also knowing that it is a fleeting moment in time. It is knowing that you are on the precipice of a major shift in motherhood and your kids’ lives. You are excited for what’s to come and also a little scared too. It is feeling overwhelmed and pulled in a million directions, but also feeling like you’re in a holding pattern, waiting for those inevitable changes.

Middle moms don’t take the moments of freedom for granted. We know how precious alone time is, and we soak it up. But we also know that we will one day have too much alone time, so we read one more bedtime story. We watch another Pixar movie. We dish out popsicles to the neighborhood kids when they come over. You are acutely aware of the growing silence that is melting into the home and the family as their kids become more independent, busy with school and sports and friends.

Related: Dear Son: You will never be too old to need your mama

Middle moms see the eye rolls and hear the exasperated sighs of tweens . We worry about what’s to come. But we push it aside, telling ourselves we aren’t there yet. We tell ourselves that we have several years before college visits and graduations. But if we’re really honest with ourselves, there’s a tiny voice in the back of our head reminding us that they were right, it really does go fast. Too fast.

Middle moms are in the thick of it. Middle moms are straddling two worlds, with one foot in the world of nap times and Peppa Pig and another foot in the world of adolescent hormones and independence. Middle moms are in the sweet spot— exhausted, pulled in a million directions, and loving every minute of it.

A version of this post was published September 15, 2022. It has been updated.

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To the teen girls at the swimming pool, exactly how to talk about hygiene with tweens, no, my life didn’t ‘start’ the day i became a mom, if you don’t live near your village, here’s how to create one , our editors also recommend....

Sade Robinson's mother, attorney answer questions about wrongful death lawsuit

S tanding outside of the Milwaukee County Public Safety Building Tuesday, Sade Robinson's family answered questions about the wrongful death suit they filed against the man charged in Robinson's killing.

"This is very traumatic. Emotionally, daily, dealing with trauma. Me and my daughter," Sheena Scarbrough, Robinson's mother, said.

Attorney Verona Swanigan spelled out the family's pain in the 30-page wrongful death lawsuit against Maxwell Anderson.

Read lawsuit

"The family would like to protect their rights and protect the image of their daughter," Swanigan said.

The lawsuit demands damages be paid to the family as well as all proceeds from the sale of Anderson's home. It's the same home, near 39th and Oklahoma, where investigators say Anderson took Robinson to follow a first date on April 1.

Swanigan said she served the papers to Anderson Tuesday. He has 45 days to respond from jail.

"Nothing about this scenario could ever be in a parent's mind as something that could possibly happen," Swanigan said.

The lawsuit also demands Anderson not benefit financially from the alleged crime.

"The images of him, as well as the images of Sade Robinson, should remain. Those rights remain with the families. They should have the rights if there was ever a television show or movie that was produced or an interview done," Swanigan said.

Someone found Robinson's severed leg along Lake Michigan last month. Other remains, believed to belong to Robinson, turned up in the days and weeks following her disappearance. Robinson was never seen again after investigators said she and Anderson returned to his home after the date.

The house has since been sold.

"After the sale, it is believed, based on the facts and witnesses thereto, that a finger belonging to Ms. Robinson was located at the property," the civil lawsuit said.

WISN 12 News reporter Kendall Keys asked Swanigan if this is something law enforcement disclosed to the family.

"No. This is something that community members located and the community members are willing to testify to," Swanigan said.

The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office disputed the claim. In a statement to 12 News, a spokesperson said, "At no point during this ongoing investigation into Robinson’s death has a finger or any other body part been discovered by MCSO, the Milwaukee Police Department or any other involved law enforcement agency at Anderson’s home or on his property."

The statement went on to say no reports have been filed by any private citizens about a discovery of that nature.

The wrongful death suit came before the state proved Anderson guilty. WISN 12 News spoke with legal expert Dan Adams. He called the timing unusual.

"There is simply no statute of limitation and no reason to bring this suit now. Certainly, his lawyers will ask to stay that case because he can't really defend a civil case until the criminal matter is over. So her family, was really done a disservice by her new lawyer," Adams said.

Anderson pleaded not guilty to homicide, mutilation and arson charges and is in jail on a $5 million bond. He is scheduled to be back in court Wednesday.

READ MORE: Sade Robinson's mother, attorney answer questions about wrongful death lawsuit

CHECK OUT WISN: Get the top Milwaukee news weather and sports. With the day’s biggest stories and ones you may have missed, our Wisconsin news team has you covered.

New Jersey man stabs mother to death while she was sleeping: police

HOWELL TWP., New Jersey -- A New Jersey man has been arrested after allegedly stabbing his mother to death while she slept, police say.

The attack took place in the early hours of Monday at approximately 1:30 a.m. when 25-year-old Robert Parody of Howell Township, New Jersey, reportedly entered his mother's bedroom on Porter Road while she slept and stabbed 61-year-old Loretta Parody in the chest, according to a statement from the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office released on Monday.

"An investigation involving members of the Major Crimes Bureau and the Howell Township Police Department revealed that Robert Parody had entered his mother's bedroom and stabbed her in the chest while she slept," authorities said. "He remains lodged at the Monmouth County Correctional Institution pending a detention hearing."

The Howell Township Police Department responded shortly after 1:30 a.m. and reported to the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office Major Crimes Bureau that a stabbing had taken place.

"The first arriving officers quickly located Robert Parody and took him into custody without incident, while Loretta Parody was transported to a local hospital for emergency treatment, where she was later pronounced deceased," authorities said.

Police did not reveal a possible motive in the case or whether the suspect or the victim were known to authorities before the attack.

The case has now been preliminarily assigned to Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Bogner, Director of the Major Crimes Bureau, and anyone with information regarding this case is being urged to contact MCPO Detective Josh Rios at 800-533-7443 or Howell Township Police Sergeant Nick Saltzman at 732-938-4111.

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‘I Am Going to Kill Somebody!’: Viral Video of Small Girl Yelling and Cussing at NYPD Cops After Her Mother Is Wrongfully Accused Draws Strong Reactions

A video of a little girl defending her mother after the parent appeared to be wrongfully accused of shoplifting has sparked debate on social media.

The video, which was first posted on TikTok by @theorginalityshow, shows a girl who looks to be no older than 9 years old screaming at two cops as they appear to detain her mother. The emblem on one of the officers’ uniforms shows that they are employed by the New York Police Department.

Viral Video of Small Girl Yelling and Cussing at NYPD Cops After Her Mother Is Wrongfully Accused Sparks Mixed Reactions Online

“Leave my mother alone!” The girl yells before pausing to take a breath. “Before it be a motherf-ing problem,” she continues while censoring the profane word.

The camera then pans to the mother, who is standing diagonally from a male officer, with an umbrella, purse, and Zara bag scattered on the ground. A dispatcher on the officer’s radio then describes the suspect as a Black woman with long braids wearing a white T-shirt and white baseball cap.

“Which glasses did I steal from Moncler’s?” the mother, who is wearing a gray mid-length dress and sneakers, asks the male cop.

“Mommy, I know who did it,” the girl interjects. The video then cuts away before returning to the woman repeating the question. The girl turns to the person behind the camera and points and yells, “Stop recording it, now! You should not be recording it without our permission!”

The mother confirms that the person was filming the interaction for her safety while holding back the girl from further confrontation. The child then reveals to the officers that the suspect they’re looking for is her aunt and is not her mother.

“Do she have a f—-king white T-shirt on? No!” she yells, this time using colorful language. “On my soul, leave my mother alone!”

A third officer appears in a second video and tries to calm down the girl as she continues to have a meltdown.

“I am going to kill somebody! I am going to punch somebody in the face. Leave me alone,” the child yells. As the child seemingly tries to calm down, her mother starts to explode on the cops shortly before she is handcuffed, sending the girl on another emotional spiral. She breaks down in tears after seeing her mother in the back of a patrol vehicle. Her mother asks one of the officers to comfort the girl.

“Juju, listen. Mommy is asking you to calm down. Please calm down, OK,” the cop tells the girl. He then allows her to kiss her mother goodbye.

The first video on the interaction between Juju and her mother was viewed over 1.4 million times on TikTok and was reposted on X and Instagram.

Many viewers empathized with the small girl, who they concluded pleaded because she was afraid for her mother, while others said that her behavior seemed to be triggered by some deeper issues.

“The tone, the language, the anger, this child has seen & been through a lot already,” one viewer wrote. “She is scared for her life,” another viewer wrote in all caps.

However, some viewers were critical of the language used by the child. “So sad on so many levels. Her mouth and disrespect is disheartening,” one user wrote.

Still, the criticism was scarce as most viewers applauded the young girl for her strength in standing up for her mother and her intelligence while pointing out the apparent injustice.

“That girl is braver than most adults. Bless her deep love and protection for her mother,” one viewer wrote. “It’s sad that she has to defend her mother like this,” wrote another.

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‘I’m Down to Make Some Bad Choices’: Mississippi Cops Who Tortured Black Men Were In Disturbing Group Chat with Shocking Texts About Shooting and Abusing Citizens, Report Shows

Mother to Mother Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer sections of our study guides are a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss literature.

Ask a question and get answers from your fellow students and educators.

Browse Questions

Mother to Mother

Mxolisi is a victim of circumstance in an apartheid-ridden south africa. based on the first three chapters of the novel, critically discuss the extent to which you agree with this statement., how does mandisa work to humanize moxolis throughout the novel does she succeed in changing the reader's perception of him, which characters are in focus, from which/who's point of view, significance in chapters 4 of mother to mother, what is the plot for chapter 6, comment on what you’ve learnt about amy’s physical appearance and character traits., setting of story, ritual in paragraph 45, discuss why it appears as though mxolisi and mandisa have a strained relationship, mxolisi in mother to mother, "why did you not stay out"comment on mandisa's appointment of blame in this sentence, 7.6 explain the author’s use of indicating the lapse of time above each chapter” (3), why does mandisa refer to amy as" a white girl"in paragraph 7, mother to mother, chapters 1-4, how relevant is the theme throughout the novel, mother to mother chapter 13, who is the speaker of these words, and to whom are they addressed, how is this lament represented and who is it written for and by, life changing experiences for mxolisi, one of the central themes in mother to mother is the impact of authoritarian rule on south african society, from its inception up to the early 1990's.

Marian Robinson, Michelle Obama's mother, dies at 86

Barack and Michelle Obama announced Robinson's death in a statement.

Marian Robinson, former First Lady Michelle Obama's mother, died on Friday at the age of 86, according to the family.

Robinson was a fixture in the Obama White House and resided there during his tenure to help watch over the first couple's daughters, Sasha and Malia.

Michelle Obama said in a post on X that her mother "was the same steady backstop for our entire family."

PHOTO: President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, along with daughters Malia (left) and Sasha, sing during the finale of TNT's "Christmas in Washington" on Dec. 15, 2013, in Washington, DC.

"Her wisdom came off as almost innate, as something she was born with, but in reality it was hard-earned, fashioned by her deep understanding that the world's roughest edges could always be sanded down with a little grace," the family said in a statement.

MORE: Michelle Obama on post-White House life, seeing her daughters 'adulting' and her new book

Born and raised in the South Side of Chicago, Marian Lois Shields would go on to study teaching before getting a job as a secretary. She married Fraiser Robinson in 1960 and the couple had two children, a son Craig in 1962 and a daughter Michelle in 1964.

Michelle Obama and Robinson talked about their strong bond growing up during an interview on "Good Morning America" with Robin Roberts in 2022.

PHOTO: In this Sept. 6, 2012, file photo, First lady Michelle Obama applauds with her mother Marian Robinson during the final day of the Democratic National Convention, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"Way back, you would have a little kitchen table...folks would come over...and you had with your children. PB and J, wasn't it, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?"

"That one's her. The rest of us didn't have PB and J, she just refused to eat anything else for breakfast," Robinson joked.

"Okay, alright, don't tell them all my secrets," Michelle Obama responded.

The family said that Robinson was very encouraging to her daughter when she "married a guy crazy enough to go into politics."

"At every step, as our families went down paths none of us could have predicted, she remained our refuge from the storm, keeping our feet on solid ground. On Election Night in 2008, when the news broke that Barack would soon shoulder the weight of the world, she was there, holding his hand," the family said.

PHOTO: Marian Robinson, mother of First Lady Michelle Obama, arrives with granddaughters Sasha and Malia Obama for the 57th Presidential Inauguration, on Jan. 21, 2013.

When the Obamas moved into the White House, Robinson agreed to move in after "a healthy nudge," to help raise the first couple's girls.

Marian Robinson, mother of Michelle Obama, dies at 86

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"'Just show me how to work the washing machine and I’m good,' she’d say," the family said.

MORE: Michelle Obama shares special Mother's Day message honoring Marian Robinson

The family noted that Robinson tended to prefer to stay upstairs and not hobnob with the guests that frequented the White House, with one exception: Pope Francis.

PHOTO: Pope Francis walks alongside President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama upon arrival at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, on Sept. 22, 2015.

"Over those eight years, she made great friends with the ushers and butlers, the folks who make the White House a home. She’d often sneak outside the gates to buy greeting cards at CVS, and sometimes another customer might recognize her. 'You look like Michelle’s mother,' they’d say. She’d smile and reply, 'Oh, I get that a lot,'" the family said.

Robinson returned to Chicago after Obama's second term ended and remained active in the family's life.

Three weeks ago Michelle Obama posted a photo of her and her mother on her Instagram page celebrating Mother's Day.

The cause of her death was not immediately revealed.

Robinson was survived by her children, her son and daughter-in-law and six grandchildren.

"In our sadness, we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life. And we will spend the rest of ours trying to live up to her example," the family said in a statement.

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Man sentenced to 40 years to life for killing mother after argument over video game volume

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire man has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for fatally stabbing his mother after the two had argued about the volume of the video games he was playing.

Thomas Humphrey, 47, was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and arson in the November death of Linda Tufts, 70, inside their Goffstown home.

“The brutality of this crime simply makes it too dangerous not to impose a very lengthy state prison sentence,” Judge William Delker said.

A prosecutor said Humphrey, who lived in the basement, stabbed Tufts multiple times and then lit her body on fire. The prosecutor said the two had recently argued about how loud he was playing video games on the PlayStation she had just given him for his birthday, WMUR-TV reported .

Police said they found Humphrey at the bottom of the basement stairs with self-inflicted wounds, holding a knife.

The Associated Press sent an email Wednesday to Humphrey’s lawyer seeking comment on his behalf. Humphrey had previously pleaded not guilty to the charges.

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When Prison and Mental Illness Amount to a Death Sentence

The downward spiral of one inmate, Markus Johnson, shows the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill.

Supported by

By Glenn Thrush

Photographs by Carlos Javier Ortiz

Glenn Thrush spent more than a year reporting this article, interviewing close to 50 people and reviewing court-obtained body-camera footage and more than 1,500 pages of documents.

Published May 5, 2024 Updated May 7, 2024

Markus Johnson slumped naked against the wall of his cell, skin flecked with pepper spray, his face a mask of puzzlement, exhaustion and resignation. Four men in black tactical gear pinned him, his face to the concrete, to cuff his hands behind his back.

He did not resist. He couldn’t. He was so gravely dehydrated he would be dead by their next shift change.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

“I didn’t do anything,” Mr. Johnson moaned as they pressed a shield between his shoulders.

It was 1:19 p.m. on Sept. 6, 2019, in the Danville Correctional Center, a medium-security prison a few hours south of Chicago. Mr. Johnson, 21 and serving a short sentence for gun possession, was in the throes of a mental collapse that had gone largely untreated, but hardly unwatched.

He had entered in good health, with hopes of using the time to gain work skills. But for the previous three weeks, Mr. Johnson, who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, had refused to eat or take his medication. Most dangerous of all, he had stealthily stopped drinking water, hastening the physical collapse that often accompanies full-scale mental crises.

Mr. Johnson’s horrific downward spiral, which has not been previously reported, represents the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill. Many seriously ill people receive no treatment . For those who do, the outcome is often determined by the vigilance and commitment of individual supervisors and frontline staff, which vary greatly from system to system, prison to prison, and even shift to shift.

The country’s jails and prisons have become its largest provider of inpatient mental health treatment, with 10 times as many seriously mentally ill people now held behind bars as in hospitals. Estimating the population of incarcerated people with major psychological problems is difficult, but the number is likely 200,000 to 300,000, experts say.

Many of these institutions remain ill-equipped to handle such a task, and the burden often falls on prison staff and health care personnel who struggle with the dual roles of jailer and caregiver in a high-stress, dangerous, often dehumanizing environment.

In 2021, Joshua McLemore , a 29-year-old with schizophrenia held for weeks in an isolation cell in Jackson County, Ind., died of organ failure resulting from a “refusal to eat or drink,” according to an autopsy. In April, New York City agreed to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of Nicholas Feliciano, a young man with a history of mental illness who suffered severe brain damage after attempting to hang himself on Rikers Island — as correctional officers stood by.

Mr. Johnson’s mother has filed a wrongful-death suit against the state and Wexford Health Sources, a for-profit health care contractor in Illinois prisons. The New York Times reviewed more than 1,500 pages of reports, along with depositions taken from those involved. Together, they reveal a cascade of missteps, missed opportunities, potential breaches of protocol and, at times, lapses in common sense.

A woman wearing a jeans jacket sitting at a table showing photos of a young boy on her cellphone.

Prison officials and Wexford staff took few steps to intervene even after it became clear that Mr. Johnson, who had been hospitalized repeatedly for similar episodes and recovered, had refused to take medication. Most notably, they did not transfer him to a state prison facility that provides more intensive mental health treatment than is available at regular prisons, records show.

The quality of medical care was also questionable, said Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, Sarah Grady and Howard Kaplan, a married legal team in Chicago. Mr. Johnson lost 50 to 60 pounds during three weeks in solitary confinement, but officials did not initiate interventions like intravenous feedings or transfer him to a non-prison hospital.

And they did not take the most basic step — dialing 911 — until it was too late.

There have been many attempts to improve the quality of mental health treatment in jails and prisons by putting care on par with punishment — including a major effort in Chicago . But improvements have proved difficult to enact and harder to sustain, hampered by funding and staffing shortages.

Lawyers representing the state corrections department, Wexford and staff members who worked at Danville declined to comment on Mr. Johnson’s death, citing the unresolved litigation. In their interviews with state police investigators, and in depositions, employees defended their professionalism and adherence to procedure, while citing problems with high staff turnover, difficult work conditions, limited resources and shortcomings of co-workers.

But some expressed a sense of resignation about the fate of Mr. Johnson and others like him.

Prisoners have “much better chances in a hospital, but that’s not their situation,” said a senior member of Wexford’s health care team in a deposition.

“I didn’t put them in prison,” he added. “They are in there for a reason.”

Markus Mison Johnson was born on March 1, 1998, to a mother who believed she was not capable of caring for him.

Days after his birth, he was taken in by Lisa Barker Johnson, a foster mother in her 30s who lived in Zion, Ill., a working-class city halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee. Markus eventually became one of four children she adopted from different families.

The Johnson house is a lively split level, with nieces, nephews, grandchildren and neighbors’ children, family keepsakes, video screens and juice boxes. Ms. Johnson sits at its center on a kitchen chair, chin resting on her hand as children wander over to share their thoughts, or to tug on her T-shirt to ask her to be their bathroom buddy.

From the start, her bond with Markus was particularly powerful, in part because the two looked so much alike, with distinctive dimpled smiles. Many neighbors assumed he was her biological son. The middle name she chose for him was intended to convey that message.

“Mison is short for ‘my son,’” she said standing over his modest footstone grave last summer.

He was happy at home. School was different. His grades were good, but he was intensely shy and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in elementary school.

That was around the time the bullying began. His sisters were fierce defenders, but they could only do so much. He did the best he could, developing a quick, taunting tongue.

These experiences filled him with a powerful yearning to fit in.

It was not to be.

When he was around 15, he called 911 in a panic, telling the dispatcher he saw two men standing near the small park next to his house threatening to abduct children playing there. The officers who responded found nothing out of the ordinary, and rang the Johnsons’ doorbell.

He later told his mother he had heard a voice telling him to “protect the kids.”

He was hospitalized for the first time at 16, and given medications that stabilized him for stretches of time. But the crises would strike every six months or so, often triggered by his decision to stop taking his medication.

His family became adept at reading signs he was “getting sick.” He would put on his tan Timberlands and a heavy winter coat, no matter the season, and perch on the edge of his bed as if bracing for battle. Sometimes, he would cook his own food, paranoid that someone might poison him.

He graduated six months early, on the dean’s list, but was rudderless, and hanging out with younger boys, often paying their way.

His mother pointed out the perils of buying friendship.

“I don’t care,” he said. “At least I’ll be popular for a minute.”

Zion’s inviting green grid of Bible-named streets belies the reality that it is a rough, unforgiving place to grow up. Family members say Markus wanted desperately to prove he was tough, and emulated his younger, reckless group of friends.

Like many of them, he obtained a pistol. He used it to hold up a convenience store clerk for $425 in January 2017, according to police records. He cut a plea deal for two years of probation, and never explained to his family what had made him do it.

But he kept getting into violent confrontations. In late July 2018, he was arrested in a neighbor’s garage with a handgun he later admitted was his. He was still on probation for the robbery, and his public defender negotiated a plea deal that would send him to state prison until January 2020.

An inpatient mental health system

Around 40 percent of the about 1.8 million people in local, state and federal jails and prison suffer from at least one mental illness, and many of these people have concurrent issues with substance abuse, according to recent Justice Department estimates.

Psychological problems, often exacerbated by drug use, often lead to significant medical problems resulting from a lack of hygiene or access to good health care.

“When you suffer depression in the outside world, it’s hard to concentrate, you have reduced energy, your sleep is disrupted, you have a very gloomy outlook, so you stop taking care of yourself,” said Robert L. Trestman , a Virginia Tech medical school professor who has worked on state prison mental health reforms.

The paradox is that prison is often the only place where sick people have access to even minimal care.

But the harsh work environment, remote location of many prisons, and low pay have led to severe shortages of corrections staff and the unwillingness of doctors, nurses and counselors to work with the incarcerated mentally ill.

In the early 2000s, prisoners’ rights lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Illinois claiming “deliberate indifference” to the plight of about 5,000 mentally ill prisoners locked in segregated units and denied treatment and medication.

In 2014, the parties reached a settlement that included minimum staffing mandates, revamped screening protocols, restrictions on the use of solitary confinement and the allocation of about $100 million to double capacity in the system’s specialized mental health units.

Yet within six months of the deal, Pablo Stewart, an independent monitor chosen to oversee its enforcement, declared the system to be in a state of emergency.

Over the years, some significant improvements have been made. But Dr. Stewart’s final report , drafted in 2022, gave the system failing marks for its medication and staffing policies and reliance on solitary confinement “crisis watch” cells.

Ms. Grady, one of Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, cited an additional problem: a lack of coordination between corrections staff and Wexford’s professionals, beyond dutifully filling out dozens of mandated status reports.

“Markus Johnson was basically documented to death,” she said.

‘I’m just trying to keep my head up’

Mr. Johnson was not exactly looking forward to prison. But he saw it as an opportunity to learn a trade so he could start a family when he got out.

On Dec. 18, 2018, he arrived at a processing center in Joliet, where he sat for an intake interview. He was coherent and cooperative, well-groomed and maintained eye contact. He was taking his medication, not suicidal and had a hearty appetite. He was listed as 5 feet 6 inches tall and 256 pounds.

Mr. Johnson described his mood as “go with the flow.”

A few days later, after arriving in Danville, he offered a less settled assessment during a telehealth visit with a Wexford psychiatrist, Dr. Nitin Thapar. Mr. Johnson admitted to being plagued by feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness and “constant uncontrollable worrying” that affected his sleep.

He told Dr. Thapar he had heard voices in the past — but not now — telling him he was a failure, and warning that people were out to get him.

At the time he was incarcerated, the basic options for mentally ill people in Illinois prisons included placement in the general population or transfer to a special residential treatment program at the Dixon Correctional Center, west of Chicago. Mr. Johnson seemed out of immediate danger, so he was assigned to a standard two-man cell in the prison’s general population, with regular mental health counseling and medication.

Things started off well enough. “I’m just trying to keep my head up,” he wrote to his mother. “Every day I learn to be stronger & stronger.”

But his daily phone calls back home hinted at friction with other inmates. And there was not much for him to do after being turned down for a janitorial training program.

Then, in the spring of 2019, his grandmother died, sending him into a deep hole.

Dr. Thapar prescribed a new drug used to treat major depressive disorders. Its most common side effect is weight gain. Mr. Johnson stopped taking it.

On July 4, he told Dr. Thapar matter-of-factly during a telehealth check-in that he was no longer taking any of his medications. “I’ve been feeling normal, I guess,” he said. “I feel like I don’t need the medication anymore.”

Dr. Thapar said he thought that was a mistake, but accepted the decision and removed Mr. Johnson from his regular mental health caseload — instructing him to “reach out” if he needed help, records show.

The pace of calls back home slackened. Mr. Johnson spent more time in bed, and became more surly. At a group-therapy session, he sat stone silent, after showing up late.

By early August, he was telling guards he had stopped eating.

At some point, no one knows when, he had intermittently stopped drinking fluids.

‘I’m having a breakdown’

Then came the crash.

On Aug. 12, Mr. Johnson got into a fight with his older cellmate.

He was taken to a one-man disciplinary cell. A few hours later, Wexford’s on-site mental health counselor, Melanie Easton, was shocked by his disoriented condition. Mr. Johnson stared blankly, then burst into tears when asked if he had “suffered a loss in the previous six months.”

He was so unresponsive to her questions she could not finish the evaluation.

Ms. Easton ordered that he be moved to a 9-foot by 8-foot crisis cell — solitary confinement with enhanced monitoring. At this moment, a supervisor could have ticked the box for “residential treatment” on a form to transfer him to Dixon. That did not happen, according to records and depositions.

Around this time, he asked to be placed back on his medication but nothing seems to have come of it, records show.

By mid-August, he said he was visualizing “people that were not there,” according to case notes. At first, he was acting more aggressively, once flicking water at a guard through a hole in his cell door. But his energy ebbed, and he gradually migrated downward — from standing to bunk to floor.

“I’m having a breakdown,” he confided to a Wexford employee.

At the time, inmates in Illinois were required to declare an official hunger strike before prison officials would initiate protocols, including blood testing or forced feedings. But when a guard asked Mr. Johnson why he would not eat, he said he was “fasting,” as opposed to starving himself, and no action seems to have been taken.

‘Tell me this is OK!’

Lt. Matthew Morrison, one of the few people at Danville to take a personal interest in Mr. Johnson, reported seeing a white rind around his mouth in early September. He told other staff members the cell gave off “a death smell,” according to a deposition.

On Sept. 5, they moved Mr. Johnson to one of six cells adjacent to the prison’s small, bare-bones infirmary. Prison officials finally placed him on the official hunger strike protocol without his consent.

Mr. Morrison, in his deposition, said he was troubled by the inaction of the Wexford staff, and the lack of urgency exhibited by the medical director, Dr. Justin Young.

On Sept. 5, Mr. Morrison approached Dr. Young to express his concerns, and the doctor agreed to order blood and urine tests. But Dr. Young lived in Chicago, and was on site at the prison about four times a week, according to Mr. Kaplan. Friday, Sept. 6, 2019, was not one of those days.

Mr. Morrison arrived at work that morning, expecting to find Mr. Johnson’s testing underway. A Wexford nurse told him Dr. Young believed the tests could wait.

Mr. Morrison, stunned, asked her to call Dr. Young.

“He’s good till Monday,” Dr. Young responded, according to Mr. Morrison.

“Come on, come on, look at this guy! You tell me this is OK!” the officer responded.

Eventually, Justin Duprey, a licensed nurse practitioner and the most senior Wexford employee on duty that day, authorized the test himself.

Mr. Morrison, thinking he had averted a disaster, entered the cell and implored Mr. Johnson into taking the tests. He refused.

So prison officials obtained approval to remove him forcibly from his cell.

‘Oh, my God’

What happened next is documented in video taken from cameras held by officers on the extraction team and obtained by The Times through a court order.

Mr. Johnson is scarcely recognizable as the neatly groomed 21-year-old captured in a cellphone picture a few months earlier. His skin is ashen, eyes fixed on the middle distance. He might be 40. Or 60.

At first, he places his hands forward through the hole in his cell door to be cuffed. This is against procedure, the officers shout. His hands must be in back.

He will not, or cannot, comply. He wanders to the rear of his cell and falls hard. Two blasts of pepper spray barely elicit a reaction. The leader of the tactical team later said he found it unusual and unnerving.

The next video is in the medical unit. A shield is pressed to his chest. He is in agony, begging for them to stop, as two nurses attempt to insert a catheter.

Then they move him, half-conscious and limp, onto a wheelchair for the blood draw.

For the next 20 minutes, the Wexford nurse performing the procedure, Angelica Wachtor, jabs hands and arms to find a vessel that will hold shape. She winces with each puncture, tries to comfort him, and grows increasingly rattled.

“Oh, my God,” she mutters, and asks why help is not on the way.

She did not request assistance or discuss calling 911, records indicate.

“Can you please stop — it’s burning real bad,” Mr. Johnson said.

Soon after, a member of the tactical team reminds Ms. Wachtor to take Mr. Johnson’s vitals before taking him back to his cell. She would later tell Dr. Young she had been unable to able to obtain his blood pressure.

“You good?” one of the team members asks as they are preparing to leave.

“Yeah, I’ll have to be,” she replies in the recording.

Officers lifted him back onto his bunk, leaving him unconscious and naked except for a covering draped over his groin. His expressionless face is visible through the window on the cell door as it closes.

‘Cardiac arrest.’

Mr. Duprey, the nurse practitioner, had been sitting inside his office after corrections staff ordered him to shelter for his own protection, he said. When he emerged, he found Ms. Wachtor sobbing, and after a delay, he was let into the cell. Finding no pulse, Mr. Duprey asked a prison employee to call 911 so Mr. Johnson could be taken to a local emergency room.

The Wexford staff initiated CPR. It did not work.

At 3:38 p.m., the paramedics declared Markus Mison Johnson dead.

Afterward, a senior official at Danville called the Johnson family to say he had died of “cardiac arrest.”

Lisa Johnson pressed for more information, but none was initially forthcoming. She would soon receive a box hastily crammed with his possessions: uneaten snacks, notebooks, an inspirational memoir by a man who had served 20 years at Leavenworth.

Later, Shiping Bao, the coroner who examined his body, determined Mr. Johnson had died of severe dehydration. He told the state police it “was one of the driest bodies he had ever seen.”

For a long time, Ms. Johnson blamed herself. She says that her biggest mistake was assuming that the state, with all its resources, would provide a level of care comparable to what she had been able to provide her son.

She had stopped accepting foster care children while she was raising Markus and his siblings. But as the months dragged on, she decided her once-boisterous house had become oppressively still, and let local agencies know she was available again.

“It is good to have children around,” she said. “It was too quiet around here.”

Read by Glenn Thrush

Audio produced by Jack D’Isidoro .

Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice. He joined The Times in 2017 after working for Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald and City Limits. More about Glenn Thrush

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Mother to Mother Essay Questions
The Question and Answer section for Mother to Mother is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. Chapter 4. Chapter 4 teaches us about womanhood in Guguletu. Before Mandisa knows to worry about Mxolisi, it is Siziwe she worries about. Siziwe is vulnerable in the chaos, and on her way home, Mandisa worries that her ...
Mother to Mother Grade 10: Essay, Contextual Questions and Answers
Tatomkhulu - Mandisa's grandfather (Tata's father) Makhulu - Mandisa's grandmother (Tata's mother) Mzamo and Zazi - friends of Mxolisi while he is still a small boy. Aunty Funiwe - Mandisa's aunt, Mama's younger sister. Khaya - Mandisa's brother, married to Nono. Nono - Mandisa's school friend, married to her brother.
Mother to Mother Study Guide
Mother to Mother is based on a real life murder—Amy Elizabeth Biehl, an American Fulbright scholar studying in South Africa was murdered by a group of young black men. Magona took this tragedy and fictionalized it, imagining a single boy was responsible for the murder, and investigating his life and his history. The best study guide to Mother ...
Mother to Mother Essay Topics
Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Mother to Mother" by Sindiwe Magona. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Mother to Mother: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis
Analysis. Mandisa begins with an address to the Mother of the Girl. She acknowledges her son, Mxolisi, killed the Mother's daughter. Mandisa explains that, since the murder, her community has been blaming her for her son's actions, but she argues that she has never had any control over him. Right away, the novel introduces the idea that ...
Mother to Mother Themes
Mother to Mother study guide contains a biography of Sindiwe Magona, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes.
Family, Tradition, and Obligation Theme in Mother to Mother
The members of the black South African families at the center of Mother to Mother rely on each other and their larger community for support and structure. In a country where many social support systems and government help have failed, black South Africans are left only with the strong, tight-knit communities and family units that have carried them through since before colonization.
Mother to Mother Summary and Study Guide
7,750+ In-Depth Study Guides. 4,800+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries. Downloadable PDFs. Subscribe for $3 a Month. Mother to Mother, however, is narrated not by Mxolisi himself but by his mother, Mandisa. In the opening pages of the novel, Mandisa speaks directly to Biehl's mother, pleading for compassion on her son's behalf; if Biehl's mother ...
100 Questions to Ask Your Mom: Funny, Interesting and Juicy
100 interesting questions to ask your mom on Mother's Day and beyond Discover the person behind the parent with these questions about her life experiences, passions and more. April 13, 2023, 7:55 ...
GR.10 NOVEMBER P2
GRADE 10 ENGLISH HL P2 - NOVEMBER 2020 (QP) 9 MOTHER TO MOTHER - SINDIWE MAGONA Answer EITHER QUESTION 8 (essay question) OR QUESTION 9 (contextual question). QUESTION 8: MOTHER TO MOTHER - ESSAY The novel, ' Mother to mother ' pits two mothers against each other who have both "lost" innocent children under a cruel apartheid system. Critically discuss the extent to which you agree ...
Essay on Mother for Students
500 Words Essay on Mother for School Students. First of all, Mother is a word which fills everyone with emotions. A Mother is certainly the most important human being in everyone's life. Mother's Love for her child certainly cannot be compared with anything. Her level of forgiveness is unmatchable. A Mother is capable of forgiving any ...
95 Motherhood Essay Topic Ideas & Examples
Motherhood is the completion of a woman's life. Since a woman can become a mother even at teenage, there is need for a change in the stereotypical ideas held by people that motherhood is the completion of a woman's life. Theme of Motherhood in Poem "Daystar". The text of this work demonstrates a short episode from the life of a mother ...
Descriptive Essay About My Mother
The essay uses symbolism effectively to convey the depth of the mother's love. The mother's eyes, for example, symbolize her wisdom and the shared experiences with the author. The use of the mother's hands as a source of healing symbolizes her nurturing and caring nature. Structure and Flow.
Essay on My Mother for School Students & Children
500+ Words Essay on My Mother. My mother is an ordinary woman she is my superhero. In every step of my, she supported and encouraged me. Whether day or night she was always there for me no matter what the condition is. Furthermore, her every work, persistence, devotion, dedication, conduct is an inspiration for me.
Essay on Mothers Love for Students and Teacher
500+ Words Essay on Mothers Love. There is nothing that can come close to the love that a mother feels for her children. Women are inherently good mothers. Till birth women carry their young and then continue their love & affection throughout their childhood and even into adulthood. Every Mother always makes sure that their children are safe ...
Mother to Mother Summary and Analysis of Author's Preface
Summary. In the preface, author Sidiwe Magona describes Amy Biehl 's death to give the reader important background information about the event off of which the novel is based. As a resident of Guguletu, Magona was down the block when her neighbor's son participated in the killing of Amy Biehl. She is positioned in a prime location to tell the ...
Essay on My Mother for Students and Children in English
Long Essay on My Mother 500 Words in English. Long Essay on My Mother is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10. Introduction. The well-known English writer Rudyard Kipling once said 'God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers'. The statement highlights the importance and role of a mother as to not less than that of God.
Mother to Mother Themes
Language, Storytelling, and History. Through songs, letters, chants, legends, and prayers, as well as uses of African languages like Xhosa, the characters in Mother to Mother are able to express more than they could through straight prose or monologues. In each of these instances, language serves a deeper purpose as it brings people together ...
Essay on Mother
FAQ's on Mother Essay. Question 1. What is the best definition of the word Mother? Answer: A mother is a female parent of the child. She gives birth and also takes care of the child. She's full of warmth and love. She acts as a teacher, a friend, a doctor and plays all roles for the betterment of her children.
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Mother to Mother Grade 10: Essay, Contextual Questions and Answers

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Character Analysis: Mother to Mother

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