{"id":15435,"date":"2011-05-06T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=15435"},"modified":"2011-05-06T10:32:48","modified_gmt":"2011-05-06T14:32:48","slug":"strong-and-wise-mothers-no-children-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/06\/strong-and-wise-mothers-no-children-please\/","title":{"rendered":"Strong and Wise Mothers; No Children, Please"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dear Lorin:
\nThis Mother\u2019s Day, I\u2019d like to give my mom a thoughtful gift as a gesture of my deep love and respect for her. I\u2019d like to give her a book with a strong, wise female character whom she might resemble. Do you have any suggestions?
\nLaurel <\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, I made that mistake once: I gave my mother To the Lighthouse<\/a><\/em>\u2014and told her that Mrs. Ramsay reminded me of her. She didn\u2019t much like the comparison. Mrs. Ramsay is certainly strong and wise, and we<\/em> want our mothers to be strong and wise, but so often our mothers have ideas of their own. I suggest Lydia Davis\u2019s Collected Stories<\/a><\/em>, which contains not only tributes to strong and wise mothers (including Mrs. D) but also funny and sympathetic stories about mothers under pressure. <\/p>\n

My mother has an etiquette question: is it impolite to say when being seated in a restaurant \u201cAway from children please,\u201d given that she has four children (but they are adults and she didn\u2019t take them to restaurants until they had manners). \u2014A friend<\/em><\/p>\n

This one I checked with my own mother, who managed a restaurant when my sister and I were children, and has pronounced views on restaurant etiquette. Her view: away from children, by all means! I feel the same. It is always depressing to see adult conversation sacrificed to the whims of some little psycho in a high chair, playing fort-da with its knife and fork. I think our mothers were absolutely right to leave us at home (even if, in my case, this has left me with an unslakable and expensive weakness for eating in restaurants, and for eating late, and generally for the company of grownups … )<\/p>\n

Happy Mother\u2019s Day to all!<\/p>\n

Have a question for <\/em>The Paris Review? E-mail<\/a> us.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lorin: This Mother\u2019s Day, I\u2019d like to give my mom a thoughtful gift as a gesture of my deep love and respect for her. I\u2019d like to give her a book with a strong, wise female character whom she might resemble. Do you have any suggestions? Laurel Yes, I made that mistake once: I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[57,189,451,456,576,2257,969],"class_list":["post-15435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-the-paris-review","tag-advice","tag-children","tag-gifts","tag-lorin-stein","tag-lydia-davis","tag-mothers-day","tag-virginia-woolf"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStrong and Wise Mothers; No Children, Please by Lorin Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"May 6, 2011 \u2013 Dear Lorin: This Mother\u2019s Day, I\u2019d like to give my mom a thoughtful gift as a gesture of my deep love and respect for her. 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