A Gift for My Mother

Poverty is very prevalent all over the world today. In Africa for instance poverty is very common, and many people starve everyday. In the countries where people feel poverty, there is also a big distinction between the rich families and the poor. But how does this affect the children? Do they feel the poverty and the distinction? This is a very relevant theme in the short story “A Gift for My Mother” by Viv McDade. The lead character comes from a poor family, and her mother is frustrated by the fact that they don’t have enough money. So the child of this family goes out to pick some flowers, and she sells them to the richer people so the family can get some more money and to make her mother happy.

It is a first person narrator who is telling the story, so the narrator is also the lead character. The lead character is a girl called Lucy, and we know she is ten because she says so herself. She cares a lot about her family, because she practically only talks about her parents in the story. She doesn’t tell a lot about her father, but when he comes home from work, she immediately runs out to him. Acceptance from her parents is also very important to her. There are several examples of this. One of them is when her father comes home and she runs out to meet him. In this scenario she says:
“I was the only one who could spell illiterate,” I tell him.
“Fantastic. You’re the best speller I know.” 1
This is the first thing she tells him, so the need of approval is very important to her. She is also very eager to impress her mother. The entire short story is about how she wants to impress the mother with a gift. In a way you can say she goes through a lot when she wants to surprise her mother. First she picks the flowers to sell, and then she goes from door to door to sell the flowers. This shows that Lucy is willing to do a lot for her mother. In a way it is interesting that the author hasn’t written anything about how Lucy feels with the mother’s rejection. Lucy only tells that she goes back with the money, but doesn’t say anything about her feelings and thoughts about the reaction from the mother. At any rate it is clearly that the mother’s reaction comes as a surprise to Lucy.

The short story takes place in South Africa because of the South African leaves and flowers that are mentioned in the text. The poverty in the family of the lead character also shows us that it takes place in Africa because poverty is, as mentioned before, a very big problem in this part of the world. The setting in the short story is described as poor and the environment is not the best. The lead character comes from a poor family, and the mother is very dissatisfied with their social status. An example of this is where the father comes home from work, and he and the mother discuss what he has earned:
“How much is there this week?” Asked my mother, and she gave a little laugh.
“As much as I’ve earned, that’s how much.”
“What you’ve earned isn’t enough for us to live on.”
“Then die on it,” he said, walking out of the kitchen, “because it’s all there is.” 2
This short conversation gives you the impression that the mother is not at all content with her life. She also says to Lucy that if she had her time, she would have nothing but the best. She is clearly referring to the richer families in their neighbourhood. She is comparing her own status with the richer people around her, and that makes her very discontented.

The main theme in the short story is the strained relationship between parents and child. The child or the lead character is trying hard to make her parents proud. It probably comes from the mother’s obviously dignity and pride. This pride affects the child because it can really see that the mother is not satisfied with her life and social status. Therefor the child tries hard to make her mother satisfied by making her proud of the child. So for that reason there is a very strained relationship between the mother and the child Lucy in the short story “A Gift for My Mother”. So you can say that the moral in the short story is, that when a family is very poor like Lucy’s, it makes the child thinking that it has a lot of responsibility. Lucy feels she has to do something to make her parents and especially her mother happy. She also feels she has to earn some money herself, so the family can live a normal life without thinking about money all the time. So Viv McDade is really trying to say that poverty affects the children in the family a lot in a negative way.