Boys rarely mention their mother in their essays on their father. However, when these straightforward writers discussed their mother, they started with a description of their father and his role. By contrast, the girls' essays on their fathers include nearly without exception also the mother. The girls' memories of their fathers are often episodic. The materials on the mother are more concentrated, consisting of a smaller number of episodes that combine several individual memories, and there is less description of activities.
Many girls construct their memories of their mother as a trajectory.
This trajectory spans the time from childhood to the present, and the texts proceed from one moment of harmony to another. The apparent triviality of many of the important memories of their parents that the boys and girls recount is one of the central features characterising the materials. The parent and the child have done the shopping or gone fishing, baked coffee bread and watched the telly. Many learning experiences have similarly stuck to the young people's mind. They have particularly valued a parent's undivided and unhurried attention.