Recently I read an extract of a memoir by a Nigerian-American woman, an Economist and a writer, in the Washington Post.

   The woman-author was one of the seven girls in the family. Her mother, with no support from her husband, was running the family. She was not happy about the number of girls and often expressed her shame and distress.

   The author studied well, went to the U.S. and married a white drunkard, to have children with white skin. She could never forgive her mother and it disturbed her a lot. When she approached a therapist, she was advised to write down the good and bad qualities of her mother.

    On reading the list, the therapist remarked: "Your mother is like a beautiful white laced dress with a red stain on it. If you focus on the red stain, you miss the beautiful self-sacrificing mother she is." After this, the author reconciles and meets her mother, who was bed ridden.....