That Only a Mother

by Judith Merril

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction, Classics, Horror, School, Audiobook

18 pages, Unknown Binding

First published June 1, 1948

About the author

Josephine Juliet Grossman

aka Cyril Judd (with C.M. Kornbluth)

Judith Josephine Grossman (Boston, Massachusetts, January 21, 1923 - Toronto, Ontario, September 12, 1997), who took the pen-name Judith Merril about 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist.

Although Judith Merril's first paid writing was in other genres, in her first few years of writing published science fiction she wrote her three novels (all but the first in collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth) and some stories. Her roughly four decades in that genre also included writing 26 published short stories, and editing a similar number of anthologies.

Reviews

[Richard Derus]

Real Rating: 3.5* of five

A very ableist take on the burdens of parenthood. Wouldn't do so well in today's climate.... A Cold-War atomic nightmare writ domestic, though very very disturbingly real. The Cold War's end and the lack of an atomic war being actually fought after 1945 rendered it sort of, well, moot in a curious way. I think the Zeitgeist preferred this, a woman's story about the beguiling monomania of motherhood, to a polyphonic tale about a husband without a lot of affect, a child with A Fate, and a hubristic woman who happened, more or less by accident, to be a mother, like in "Dead Center." (Which is an altogether superior story.) Ear readers can experience it here free.

[Alex]

This is an excellent and complexly dark story. You can listen to it for free over on PseudoPod. http://pseudopod.org/2017/05/15/pseud...

[Scott Doherty]

An amazingly creepy short story written in 1948 and set in the WW3 era of the 1950s. Unlike in many other depictions of how WW£ would be this is a prolonged war, which does not destroy all civilisation at once - but extensive use of nuclear bombs causes radiation poisoning and has led to a rash of mutated babies. The story is about Margaret who is pregnant and it details her fears of giving birth to a mutant and of disturbing tales of infanticide by the fathers of deformed babies. However all does seem well when a beautiful child is born to the world or is it? It’s a short quick read with wonderful creepy vibes

[Riju Ganguly]

Capturing the greatest of all fears of the cold-war era, this dark story is going to pierce the thickest of skins, despite we all knowing that something is coming!
And I read it this morning! Man, the day suddenly looks gloomier. Better find something chipper, and fast!

[Sami Eerola]

A choking and terrifying short scifi horror story. I can understand why this is a classic. Even when the plot twist is revealed to not be in today's age original, it was still impactful.

The saddest thing is that i could not find a copy of this story in any short story collection here in Europe. Only in US and too expensive for my taste (i will not pay 15€ just for one short story that i may not like). The only free version that i could fine was a audio book stream from seudopod.org
Link: http://pseudopod.org/2017/05/15/pseud...

[Adam]

-Read in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One-

Definitely a product of the cold war and fears of nuclear war and radioactive fallout. A story about the ‘power’ of a mother’s love.

[Antero Tienaho]

Kertakaikkisen mainio scifi-novelli.

Judith Merrill maalaa 1948 julkaistussa tarinassa päättäväisen täsmällisesti kauhistuttavan kuvan lähitulevaisuuden 50-luvusta, jossa ydinsota häilyy ”idyllisen” perhearjen taustalla.

Tämä on ansaitusti klassikko. Lisäksi tämä on kuunneltavissa ilmaiseksi täällä: http://pseudopod.org/2017/05/15/pseud.... Esipuheineen alle puoli tuntia. Lämmin suositus!

[Brayden Raymond]

This is a weird one, and I feel it is meant to be this way. To make the reader feel uncomfortable by what's occuring. As a very clear anti-war feeling permeates the whole of the story. The ending leaving the reader as uncomfortable as the father as the reality sets in of what his Daughter truly Is. This type of story I think will remain relevant as long as the threat of Nuclear war is hanging over Humanities head.

[Mia Nebel]

fears of radiation and what the result of the Cold War will be on the nuclear family….. like a little time capsule and the last page made my hackles rise up! says a lot about womanhood/motherhood during this time too. writing a paper on this so if anyone wants to hear about my takes on the disruption to the patriarchal roles during this time….

[Kay]

Read for school
The authors voice and foreshadowing were excellent

[Kara]

Wow. Fears of the Nuclear Age taken to a whole new level. Quite the shocker ending!

[Natcha♡]

I didn't see that twist coming.

[Tim Pendry]

Set in 1953 but written in 1948 (well before the invention of the ICBM), this story captures all the Atomic era fears of ordinary Americans about the effects of radiation on human reproduction and has added piquancy because it is written by a woman.

This is quite skilled piece, building up our expectation of the 'punch line' by allowing the mother to offer hints of what is to come (which she simply refuses to acknowledge herself) through her reports of interactions with other people.

However, closer scrutiny suggests that the father's surprise should be no surprise given earlier communications with a maternity nurse but the story requires its punch line so that's that. Interesting though because it articulates what must have been a private fear for many parents.

History has proved it to have been an exaggerated fear but the fear was rational enough. I and others born in the mid-1950s in Britain almost certainly have trace strontium in our bone growth from the covered up Windscale incident in 1957 and who knew what that meant then.

[Emmy]

Logging this book just so I can talk about it even though it’s so short. I just wrote about this short story for class and it’s done so well, in Only a Mother children are born with mutations following WW3 which makes them somehow more than human yet these children are greatly feared by society and people desire them all destroyed. In the beginning of the story you can already see the onset of Maggie’s hysteria and denial, she refuses the news and even is dedicated herself severely to her work since she’s afraid of even being alone at home with a news article. The paragraph where the news is reporting on the mutations and Maggie starts to repeat NOT MY BABY shows she’s already so deep in her delusions she won’t even consider the possible of having to lose her child for it’s super humanness. This story is different than other SF in that humans are the monstrous ones who are the feared as opposed to the actual monster which really flips the expected genre and storytelling which is why I wanted to read it so bad as soon as I heard of it. Awesome love herrrr

[J_BlueFlower]

That Only a Mother
by Judith Merril
Read July 2023
In The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One 1929-1964

At the very least 4 stars: Early science fiction featuring fear of mutations and seen from a women's perspective.

Is it denial? Or maybe she doesn’t know? The mutation hunting nurse apparently let the baby pass, so maybe Margaret truly believes everything is alright. Whatever is missing will grow out. Notice Hank says “This may be your first baby, but I had five kid brothers.” suggesting Hank does not expect her so know what a baby should look like.

Also there is an open ending “His fingers tightened on his child“, could mean two different things.

[danica]

It's a little silly to tout this as horror sci-fi or anything similar. It's definitely 1940s science fiction—set in the 1950s, nuclear wars and testing have occurred way more than they ever did, and there's a nifty kitchen which makes your food for you—but that's pretty much it.

The entire plot is that the woman gives birth to a baby with no arms or legs and who can speak like a young kid when she's only several months old. That's not even scary. You just have a paraplegic worm baby. I guess her not realizing that the baby is deformed is "scary", but I was hoping the baby was gonna become evil or something... You know, like most infant prodigies.

[Glen Engel-Cox]

While our worries about nuclear war and its aftermath have subsided somewhat (although the current state of Russia makes one wonder), for a time in the 40s and 50s, it was household fodder. As one of the few women writing SF at the time, Merril tackled subjects men avoided: pregnancy, childbirth, and rearing. The mother in the story, unfortunately, does show an irrational tendency common to how male writers portrayed women, although in this case, there’s plenty cause. The ending is devastating and quite effective.

[Jimgosailing]

A look at the effects of radiation on the unborn, the mother’s love for her child, and the father’s reaction: which would have been typical at the time, 1948, when this story was written. Hersey’s Hiroshima had just been published in 1946. And the dangers of radiation on the unborn were little understood, much of the information from Japan being censored. And I look at the story as looking at radiation poisoning as something unnatural. I don’t think this story would have been written about a naturally occurring differentiation.

[Cally Jean]

I just want to say I located this short story online... On the creepypasta wiki? Anyway, this was a nice, mid-20th century sci-fi tale. You got your background nuclear war, you got your doting housewife, you have the whole story depending on the twist ending. I liked it, but was it anything special? No.

[Karen K - Ohio]

In a post nuclear holocaust a pregnant woman fears for her unborn baby due to her husband’s potential exposure to radiation during the seemingly endless World War III. Geneticists claim the worse mutations could “be predicted and prevented”. And in fact fathers murdering their mutant babies has become common. An unusual early sci-fi story as it is told completely from a woman’s point of view.

[Laur-Marian Mertea]

The fact that I've listened to this story, instead of reading it, really helped. Overall the idea is simple and probably fairly common for those years, but the author does a great job and still delivers a good read, although you can see the punchline from a mile away.

2.75/5

[Andy Hickman]

“That Only a Mother” by Judith Merril

“His fingers tightened on his child – Oh God, she didn't know.”

Clever and ghastly story about atomic horror, and the denial that accompanies our progression towards weaponisation – a real twist on the “nuclear family”.

[Sofia]

very good short story, it takes place in a world that has suffered a lot from radiation, and this woman wants her baby to be born healthy, like all mothers do, i did enjoy very much, much more than what i thought i would, i recomend this story

[Jurjen Abbes]

Het is een kort verhaal, dus ik hou mijn recensie ook kort: een fascinerende en erg indrukwekkende vertelling die je helemaal meeneemt in de angst die heerste tijdens de Koude Oorlog. Met bovendien een einde dat je niet meteen loslaat. Aanrader, maar weet waar je aan begint!

[Another Steph]

Short story read for sci-fi class. Great twist!

[Anthony Salazar]

As the sci-fi genre grows, older content seems to fade and lack excitement. That's the case with this short story--though I do suspect it being popular when originally published.

[Mark Collins]

Mutations follow prolonged nuclear war.

[Donyae Coles]

I'm not sure how I felt about this whole thing. I don't think this story would have worked in other time than it was written in.

[Željko Filipin]

Consequences of a long atomic war. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964 #12.

[Laura]

I read this one for a course on sci-fi