“Ouch, ouch, ouch…these questions hurt.”reacted Susie Morgenstern on discovering the list of ritual questions in the Parents’ Life section. An American who arrived in France in 1967 after meeting the mathematician Jacques Morgenstern (1937-1994), she became a mother there “with the certainty of being born for this suicide mission”, according to the formula used in his autobiography My 18 exiles (The Iconoclast, 2021, released in paperback in 2023). With the eldest, Aliyah, she co-wrote Terminale! Everybody get off (L’Ecole des loisirs, 1985), a book in which mother and daughter compare their versions of the same events. As for the second, Mayah, the stories of her school days have nourished The Sixth (L’Ecole des loisirs, 1984), a star book in school libraries, published forty years ago. “Motherhood is not an exact science. It is made of blunders, words spoken without thinking, excessive ambitions, psychological shortcomings, and laziness too. The criticisms are often justified.”she writes again in her autobiographical story.
Read also (2021): Article reserved for our subscribers “My 18 Exiles”: Susie Morgenstern’s New Beginnings
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His daughters are now 57 and 53 respectively. Some 150 books have been published since then, including the latest, The Headless Return (Les Arènes, 44 pages, 14.90 euros). Paradoxically, while the French school was her nightmare, it is within it that she has set the action of most of her books. At 79, Susie Morgenstern is still working on a dozen projects, she has become a grandmother, even a great-grandmother, invented the verb « grandmerder », which means looking after your grandchildren at times that are not necessarily chosen, and has writing projects with them.
The first time you felt like a mother?
Since first grade. I was always the tallest in class, and I took on the role of mother. Everything I always wanted to be! Not a supermodel, not a movie star, not a pop singer, just a mom. I’m not the tallest anymore, but now I’m the oldest everywhere I go, more like everyone’s grandmother.
Oddly enough, when I became a real mother at 22, it didn’t seem right to me. I didn’t have the maturity required. Motherhood was both the greatest adventure of my life and the greatest failure. But I have just become a great-grandmother, the crowning glory of my life! I was a completely imperfect mother, but I have improved a lot as a grandmother.
Read also: “Podcasts about motherhood have eased my fears as a mother-to-be”
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Have you ever cried in front of your children?
Yes! I could be a professional mourner. I should be hired for funerals. Too bad I can’t be at mine! When I started crying during the credits ofHannah and her sisters [film de Woody Allen de 1986] – the credits! – one of my daughters said to me: “Mom! The movie hasn’t even started!” I never excluded my children from the spectacle of my sobs. They saw me cry in my arguments with my husband.
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