The only answer to this, and it isn't an entire answer, said Father Travis, is that God made human beings free agents. We are able to choose good ove… - Louise Erdrich

When women age into their power, no wind can upset them, no hand turn aside their knowledge; no fact can deflect their point of view.

I prefer to have some beliefs that don't make logical sense.

It is difficult for a woman to admit that she gets along with her own mother — somehow it seems a form of betrayal, at least, it used to among other women in my generation. To join the company of women, to be adults, we go through a period of proudly boasting of having survived our own mother's indifference, anger, overpowering love, the burden of her pain, her tendency to drink or teetotal, her warmth or coldness, praise or criticism, sexual confusions or embarrassing clarity. It isn't enough that she sweat, labored, bore her daughters howling or under total anesthesia or both. No. She must be responsible for our psychic weaknesses the rest of her life. It is alright to feel kinship with your father, to forgive. We all know that. But your mother is held to a standard so exacting that it has no principles. She simply must be to blame. (p20)