{"id":9218,"date":"2019-05-12T16:50:41","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T20:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/?p=9218"},"modified":"2019-05-13T09:31:38","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T13:31:38","slug":"on-mothers-day-a-tribute-to-a-mother-who-doesnt-celebrate-mothers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/on-mothers-day-a-tribute-to-a-mother-who-doesnt-celebrate-mothers-day\/2019\/05\/12\/","title":{"rendered":"On Mother\u2019s Day, a Tribute to a Mother Who Doesn\u2019t Celebrate Mother\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My siblings and I are pretty lucky, because our mother may be the smartest person in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me reassure you that this is not just our biased opinion. Everyone who knows her well thinks the same thing — including my wife, who told me today, on Mother’s Day, that my Mom’s remarkable brainpower should be the focus of this profile.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Not that my mother has any time for Mother\u2019s Day. Unsentimental in the extreme, she disparages such holidays as manipulative.)<\/span><\/p>\n

I first had an inkling of her intellectual superpower when, after underperforming on an important test in middle school due to numerous trivial distractions (baseball, model rockets, general silliness), I received some stern comments of disapproval from my father.<\/span><\/p>\n

When my mother rushed to my defense, he countered as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

Look, no one is as smart as your mother. Most people have to study to do well in school.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I assure you this was said without the slightest exaggeration.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first person in her family to attend college, she graduated early then followed the path of many women of her generation — married at 21, done having three children by 26 (!), she could have continued down this path of domesticity without anyone even noticing. <\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what most women did. <\/span><\/p>\n

But she went back to get a graduate degree (abandoning little me at home, sob), then started a successful career as a food writer, continuing to work as a journalist (Newsday<\/em>, New York Daily News<\/em>, Bon Appetit<\/em>) for many years. In 2000, as the internet took off, she <\/span>won a James Beard award for Best Internet Writing.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

As this point, I know what you\u2019re thinking — <\/span>how could a food writer be the smartest person in the world?\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Surely that honor must go to a neuroscientist, a mathematician, a scholar of ancient histories, some super-linguist who speaks 20 languages.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, here are a few examples:<\/span><\/p>\n