raising the motherhood bar

Last night I read the last page of "The Grapes of Wrath"
to my ten-year-old son, with whom I've been steadily progressing through several classics I missed growing up. My worries that some of Steinbeck's material might be a bit too intense have been counterbalanced by the facts that:

a) He's learning about a world outside our privileged 'burb;
b) He has been sleeping through some of it anyway;
c) I just can't bring myself to keep rereading Roald Dahl, much as we both love him.

What drove me to blog, however, is more this question: How about that Ma Joad? Of all the literary portraits of mothers, was there ever a more haunting, complex icon? Haunting, especially, in the sense that she, absolutely alone, and by pure emotional force, kept her "fambly" going?

"She's a fictional character, mom!" my son said, when I expressed my admiration.

He's right, of course. So why is it that I've already gotten in the habit of imagining Ma Joad wagging her stout finger at me when I give way to anger or crave solitude or forget to put the gravy in the corn pones....?

p.s. Does anyone think Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" would give my son nightmares?
p.p.s. Thank you, Jennifer! You made my day!