Tom Plate

Opinion | Why the mum of Stanford admissions scandal student Yusi Zhao is mother of the year in my books

The mother of Yusi Zhao was willing to pay any price – US$6.5 million in this case – to see her daughter get an education of value. Let’s be real: it’s a mother’s nature to go to great lengths for her children, and universities need extra funding to thrive

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Tom Plate

Published: 3:00am, 7 May 2019Updated: 3:58am, 7 May 2019

All mothers are special, of course, as we are about to be reminded with the coming of Mother’s Day this Sunday. Not everyone gets to have their own annual day (not surprisingly, there’s none for newspaper opinion writers, for example) and, heaven knows, mothers do deserve this annual ritualistic swelling of our guilt glands.

This year, with my own mother having passed away long ago, I began to think about admirable, living mothers – indeed, to propose whom one might plausibly celebrate as International Mother of the Year (imagining such an honorific).

Obvious nominees abound, but mine will surprise you and while I doubt many will agree, you should respect my view; I’ve given it some thought.

And no, it’s not Meghan Markle – the former American actress who is now, thanks to Prince Harry, the Duchess of Sussex – and who has just given birth to her first child. Another great choice: Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, who last year became but the second national leader in modern times to give birth while in office.

But no, my nominee for Mother of the Year is very controversial: it’s former Stanford sophomore Yusi Zhao’s mother in China.