Consider the storyline of Ibu Dewi, a mother of two teenagers in Surabaya. She confides that her husband has not taken her on a date in over eight years. "If I ask for romance," she says, "he thinks I want expensive jewelry. I don't. I want him to ask me about my day. I want him to see me."

This is where the most dramatic plot twist occurs in the cerita seorang ibu . Because romance is a form of attention, when the attention stops, the mother begins to look elsewhere. Not necessarily for an affair, but for validation .

Take the story of Ibu Sari, age 50. After her youngest went to university in Bandung, she looked across the breakfast table at her husband of 28 years and realized she was a stranger. "We talked about the kids. The kids were gone. There was nothing left."