Go Ask Your Mother

-- Interview by Deneen L. Brown

Alice and Maureen Chua

Alice Chua, 88, a former physical education teacher and champion basketball player and swimmer, and daughter Maureen Chua, 61, an obstetrician and gynecologist.

The Chuas are natives of China who emigrated to the Philippines. Maureen Chua came to this country as a medical student and, one by one, brought her parents and siblings over. She has supported her mother for years.

Maureen: Mom, you played basketball with the boys. You traveled around the world . . . You were so unconventional. Why were you so different from other women of your time?

Alice: I don't know why. My mother had bound feet. She was a very traditional Chinese woman.

Maureen: I remember. We used to laugh--her feet were so tiny.

Alice: I went to school away from home when I was little. The Chinese always wanted their families to stay together. However, my mother gave me permission to go studying abroad. Because one of my friends went to [the town of] Jimei in China to study, she let me go also . . . So I wasn't as bound to family traditions. I wasn't like other girls who just stayed at home, doing housework and gossiping all day.

Maureen: Why didn't you have bound feet?

Alice: Although my mother had bound feet, she was very open, very optimistic and hopeful, progressive, even. She sent me away to college, which was rare . . . My mother wanted me to have a better and much different life from hers. Her life was so restricted.

Maureen: Growing up in the Philippines, it was so prestigious to go to medical school. All the best students went. Did you want me to go to medical school?

Alice: Not really. It's because the Philippines had "Philippinization" back then. Everything was nationalized. We had to pay an "alien fee" to send you to school because we were Chinese. My husband [Maureen's father] had a degree in engineering, but he couldn't practice engineering. The one exception was medicine. There would have been no future for my children if they majored in another field. Medical school was their only choice.

Maureen: Do you have anything you want to tell me?

Alice: You were the eldest. Everything we have is because of you -- this beautiful house to live in, the refrigerator always full of any kind of food. You were the trailblazer, coming to America first. You are a good daughter. I'm very lucky.

-- Interview by Brigid Schulte, translated from the Fujian dialect by Catherine Chen

Susan and Porter Shreve

Susan Shreve, 66, a novelist and professor in the MFA program at George Mason University, and son Porter Shreve, 38, a novelist and director of the MFA program in creative writing at Purdue University.

Porter: I was kicked out of nursery school, sixth grade and college. How did you react to my being an impossible child?

Susan: Unfortunately, from the very beginning I thought you were right in a way that really no parent ever should. I was very proud of the fact that you didn't adapt to institutions. At my age, I think there's a case for institutions, but this was the '70s, and I thought that institutions ground people down to a kind of mediocrity. So I admired this in you. I had a little of that myself . . . But what surprised me was when you were first kicked out of nursery school . . . There were two teachers and 14 students and [your] father was headmaster of the upper school . . . To have that happen seemed to me to take an extraordinary amount of ingenuity. [So] there were a lot of trying moments . . . My mother [who] was a much more orderly person than I [said], "Trust him, don't trust them--for the rest of your life."

Porter: In my latest novel, the protagonist is a mother about your age whose three adult children live far from home. This upsets her so much that she does something drastic to bring them back. When you read Drives Like a Dream, did you feel that the mother in the novel was you?

Susan: I didn't feel from the beginning that it was me, but as I read on, there [were] some gestures that were similar, there was a similarity of my own intense desire to have my children living next door, and there was some particular line that I used when I was a single mother of four . . . It was, "I'm at the end of my rope" . . . The kids, of course, would make fun of me, but I'd say it again and again. In any case, I was visiting with a friend of mine whose opinion I respect, and she said: "This couldn't possibly be you. You never would have thought to give your children granola for breakfast."

-- Interview by Patricia E. Dempsey

The Shreves will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at 1 p.m. at washingtonpost.com/liveonline.

Gladys Covington and Vicki Meade

Gladys Covington, 85, assisted living resident, and daughter Vicki Meade, 51, owner of Meade Communications in Annapolis.

Vicki: You've been widowed twice. You never expected to get divorced, but recently you split up from John [third husband]. And I'm separated, too. We are in parallel situations. Would you ever consider marrying again, and is life better with a man in it, and why?

Gladys: I wouldn't rule it out. But it would have to be what seems to me a 50/50 thing--make him as happy as he would make me. Then I would say, "Why not?" Having a companion is always a wonderful thing, but if you are at a stage where it's more of a drag to take care of someone because he can't hold up his end, I would say, "No" . . . It's got to be a happy thing . . . I personally like men, and I love to have a man, and, actually, I always do. I have one now. Of course, we're not married . . . but we eat together, and we laugh together . . . At this age a good mate is someone who still has a sense of humor. Number one--it's very important. Sex appeal is something that no matter how old you get, it's not a matter of the sex itself, it's the idea that the man has a certain something that makes you feel that you'd like to put your arms around him . . . You have to have a feeling that you would like that person to be close to you. The feeling doesn't go away. In fact, you don't have to have twin beds-- you can have a double. You wanted the truth. You're getting it.

-- Interview by Patricia E. Dempsey

Gail and Tim Paster

Gail Paster, 60, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, and son Tim Paster, 27, a bond trader at Goldman Sachs.

Tim: I've chosen the financial world for my career. Were you surprised or disappointed that I took a different track from you?

Gail: No, not at all. It's been pretty clear for a while, Tim, that the working world is a whole lot happier place for you than the school world was . . . You're now where you have to work for people, and the challenge really is processing a lot of numerical information in a very short period of time and acting on it quickly. I think that is something that energizes you and excites you in a way that nothing else has, except maybe the blackjack table, which is the same thing. One of the things in Tim's last year of college, he decided he wanted to learn how to count cards. He wasn't taking many credits, so in his spare time he was going to the casinos pretty often, and I was terrified because I thought somebody was going to kneecap you . . . Anyway, I'm glad that you've . . . put your gambling energies into an appropriate avenue.

Tim: When I was growing up, I remember you reading and grading papers while I was watching TV. Since this job gets you out of the house a lot more, would you have taken the job when I was between the ages of 8 and 16?

Gail: To do this job properly there are a lot of evenings out. It would have been a hard choice, for sure, and I personally don't think that teenagers need parents less than little kids--I think in some ways they need someone to be in the house, on call even, more . . . I would also say that another important part of our family life is dinner . . . To me, a lot of your ability as an adult to resolve conflicts and to know how to talk to your kids absolutely comes from hours spent at the dinner table . . . I remember at the dinner table once, when you played [junior varsity] football . . . and I said, "Timothy, how about instead of actually playing football . . . the two teams would just take testosterone measurements on either side, and whichever team had a higher testosterone level would win the point?" And you said, "How about if we see which of us can punt a feminist over the goal post?" It was growing up with a feminist mom . . . that made you say that, I would say.

[They both laugh]

-- Interview by Patricia E. Dempsey

Cora Masters Barry and Tamara Masters Wilds

Cora Masters Barry, 60, the wife of D.C. Council member and former mayor Marion Barry, is founder of the Recreation Wish List Committee, a nonprofit group that provides donations and funding to D.C. recreation programs. Tamara Masters Wilds, 30, who is Cora Barry's daughter from a previous marriage, is working on her doctorate in American studies at the University of Maryland, where she is also an instructor.

Tamara: How did you manage to get through the difficult times as a single parent without letting us know about them?

Cora: Oh, God. I was raised by a woman who could do a lot with a little.

She is now 92, raised six kids by herself--college-educated, every one. She finished college at 67, went to the University of Oklahoma, got a PhD, ran for president of the United States, listed among the minor candidates. She was fiercely independent and big on education. She was a revolutionary . . . We were never told we couldn't do anything. Never had roles related to gender.

My girls, well, you were in workshops, acting and dancing. I was a professor at the University of the District of Columbia. I had a good job . . . And I had a great big kitchen and a support system . . . We never had bad times. I always had money for food and housing. I was able to take us traveling . . . I wanted to expose you guys to other cultures because if you know about other cultures, you can't make fun of them.

Tamara: We didn't want for anything. The older you get, the more you can appreciate that.

Cora: I think childhood should be about building memories . . . I had friends who struggled. I was always going to have

a job. All I had to do was manage the money. [Tamara and sister Lalanya

Masters] had great fathers who were very much involved. When I traveled all over the world, they were with their fathers.

Tamara: It's amazing how she had a plan. When I think about having my own kids, I think, "How in the hell am I going to do that?'' . . . Do you think I will be able to handle kids?

Cora: You are strict, really no-nonsense. But you'll do a good job. Me, I'm in the grandmother mode. I want to love them and spoil them. It's a mother's responsibility to build character. But they will come to my house, and they can watch TV and eat all the candy they want.

-- Interview by Deneen L. Brown