Seven years after writing “Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me,” Angelou wrote and published the final autobiography in her series, solely devoted to her larger-than-life mother, Mom & Me & Mom. Angelou’s relationship with her mother Vivian Baxter started out rocky, to say the least. When Baxter got divorced from the children’s father, Angelou was three years old. She sent Angelou and her brother away to live with her mother-in-law, because neither parent could raise the children alone. In contrast to the poem when the speaker mentions, “For I had a life / Which was only you” (Lines 15-16), Angelou’s life as a young child was much different. As a result of her mother’s decision, Angelou was left with feelings of abandonment, poking out the eyes of the dolls that her mother sent her. In the poem, the speaker actually compares herself to “a broken doll” (Line 78). Baxter only asked for the return of her children ten years later when Angelou was a teenager. The repeated line from the poem “You left again, but again returned” (Lines 32-33) actually suggests a much longer time span in Angelou’s life. Toward this reconnection with her mother, Angelou demonstrated resistance. As a result, these lines in the poem seem to ring especially true: “I spoke sharply of you, often” (Line 65). As Angelou had her own son and grew up, her relationship with her mother changed, and Baxter responded to Angelou when she needed her, even flying to Europe once to be with her. In the poem, the speaker declares the contradictory nature of familial relationships: “Mother, I have learned enough now / To know I have learned nearly nothing” (Lines 71-72).