Mother to Mother teaches us that all actions have consequences?

Mother to Mother asks who should be held responsible for events like the murder of Amy Biehl. Should baby Mxolisi be held responsible for the death of his teenage friends? Should he be held responsible for the dissatisfaction his mother has for her own life? When Mandisa is desperate to find her silent son some help, she sees a sangoma with China's father. The woman speaks directly to the four-year-old: "For shoulders so tender, so far from fully formed, great is the weight you bear. You hold yourself and you are held... responsible" (108). Mandisa is told to forgive her son and to free him of the responsibility of being alive.

There are other actions to which Mxolisi must be held responsible. Mandisa never questions her son's guilt in the death of Amy Biehl, and she takes on the immense burden of the shame of his actions. She does, however, question how absolute his responsibility might be. When Mxolisi commits the murder, he is one of twenty who stabs Amy, part of an angry mob of people chanting war chants against the oppressors. Not only was he being influenced by a crowd mentality, but Mxolisi was also operating off a deep hatred for white Africans—a hatred that he has been taught as a child. Mxolisi was a political leader in his community. "My son was only an agent," Mandisa writes, "executing the long-simmering dark desires of his race. Burning hatred for the oppressor possessed his being" (146).