Happy Mother's Day

From my mother Mary Ellmann's book Thinking About Women (1968), an excerpt from the preface, an imagined dialogue between an interviewer (I) and the author (ME) (at page xii):

I.        It cannot be wrong to urge understanding.
ME.   No, it must be right in social work. But in novels, say, misunderstanding reasserts itself. its resilience is apparent, and one feels a grudging admiration for resilience, the admiration one might feel for a viral strain which all the aspirin in the world won't eradicate.
I.        Then really, you relish confusion -- or even sore throats.
ME.    I said it was a grudging admiration. There's an enormous number of opinions about women, and I will admit I'm impressed by the regularity and the intensity with which they are expressed. Some are more plausible than others, but their plausibility or implausibility isn't so much the point. It's their reiteration. 

 Carefully expressing no opinions, I simply say: Happy Mother's Day!