Short Stories About Mothers: 10 Classics Explained
Quick answer: Ten classic short stories about mothers, from The Revolt of Mother and The Rocking-Horse Winner to The Home-coming and The Price of Milk, summarised and compared for readers.
Mother stories are the ones readers argue with, because everyone is an expert. The writers here knew that and gave their mothers the hardest cases: a house never built, a son who wins money for her, a boy sent away for being difficult, a baby nursed for wages.
The collection begins with mothers who act, moves through mothers who fail, and ends with a girl of thirteen who is nobody's mother and has to be one anyway. Each title links to a page that summarises the story and explains its ending.
The stories
The Revolt of Mother by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Sarah Penn, promised a new house forty years ago, watches her husband raise a fine barn on the very spot. When he goes to Vermont for a horse she moves the beds, the stove and the children into the barn.
The Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence. Hester is a beautiful woman who knows she cannot love her children and covers it with expensive care, and her house whispers for money. Her son sets out to stop the whispering.
Odour of Chrysanthemums by D. H. Lawrence. Elizabeth Bates, pregnant and angry, puts the children to bed while her husband's supper dries in the oven. When his body is brought in, his old mother arrives too, and the two women wash him together.
How We Kept Mother's Day by Stephen Leacock. A family decides to give Mother a perfect holiday and organises a car trip, then finds the car has room for everyone but one. She cooks the dinner, and tells them afterwards it was the best day of her life.
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield. Mrs Sheridan runs the party from her bedroom, chooses the hats and, when her daughter Laura wants it cancelled for a dead carter, tells her not to be absurd. That evening she fills a basket with leftover sandwiches.
The Home-coming by Rabindranath Tagore. Phatik's mother, at her wits' end with a wild fourteen-year-old, lets his uncle take him to Calcutta. He runs away in a fever and comes back, and the last word he says is hers.
The Price of Milk by Premchand. Bhungi, a sweeper woman, is called to nurse the landlord's newborn son and does so for years, while her own boy grows up on what is left. After her death the boy lives outside the landlord's gate with a dog.
Desiree's Baby by Kate Chopin. Madame Valmonde, who found Desiree as an infant at her gate and raised her, visits the plantation to see the new baby and looks at it a long time. She tells Desiree to come home whenever she likes.
The Doll's House by Katherine Mansfield. The Burnell girls' mother lets them invite every child at school to see the new doll's house, two at a time, except the washerwoman's daughters. Kezia, the youngest, disobeys, and Aunt Beryl is the one who catches them.
Sleepy by Anton Chekhov. Varka, thirteen, rocks a crying baby through the night for a shoemaker's wife who slaps her for dozing, and dreams of her own mother begging on a road. By morning she has found a way to sleep.
Reading them together
The collection's argument is that mothers in fiction are judged by what they do with a house. Sarah Penn moves one; Mrs Sheridan runs one; Hester's whispers through its walls; Bhungi is not allowed inside one. The two Lawrence stories are the hinge, a mother who cannot love and a wife who discovers she never did, and both end with a body on a bed.
Leacock's comedy and Chekhov's horror bracket the collection. In one a mother does all the work on her own holiday and calls it happiness; in the other a child does all the work of mothering and calls it, at last, sleep.
If you want to write about mothers
What writers can take from this
- Read The Revolt of Mother and How We Kept Mother's Day together; the second is the first with the revolt removed.
- Lawrence's two stories are best read in the order given, with a pause between.
- The Home-coming and Sleepy are both about a child sent to live with strangers; note where each writer stands.
- In The Garden Party, track Mrs Sheridan's hat; it does more than the dialogue.
- The Price of Milk is a hard read and a short one; give it a quiet half hour.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which a mother makes one decision about her house that her family will discuss for the rest of their lives, and show only the afternoon on which she makes it.
Questions
What is the best short story about mothers?
The Revolt of Mother is the standard American choice, and The Rocking-Horse Winner the most discussed. The Home-coming is the most read in South Asia.
Which short stories about mothers are good for students?
How We Kept Mother's Day, The Home-coming, The Doll's House and Desiree's Baby are short and clear. The Revolt of Mother suits classes on gender and property.
Which classic story about mothers is the shortest?
How We Kept Mother's Day, at about fifteen hundred words. Sleepy and Desiree's Baby are each around two thousand.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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