Susan Tom

Susan Tom, a Moral Saint

Susan Tom is a single mother of eleven whose full time job is staying at home and taking care of her children; she is also a moral saint. In her article “Moral Saints”, Susan Wolfe defines a moral saint as: “a person whose every action is as morally good as possible, a person, that is, as morally worthy as can be” (Wolfe, 419); she also states that moral saints are humorless, boring, dull, obsessive, and unattractive as role models. I believe that Susan Tom is a moral saint who does not lack humor, is not boring, dull, or obsessive, and is a great role model to parents and people in general.

Susan Tom is a sixty-three year old woman who has two biological children and nine adopted children. Her two biological children have grown up and moved out, but her nine adopted children all live with her and all have special needs. Susan Tom spends the majority of her day tending to the individual needs of her children, and spending very little time for herself. Susan Wolfe states: “A necessary condition of moral sainthood would be that one’s life be dominated by a commitment to improving the welfare of others or of society as a whole” (Wolfe, 420). Tom definitely fits that bill; she did not have to adopt so many children, and since they’re special needs children she spends even more time with them than she does on herself. She is usually cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, taking one of the children to the hospital, helping with homework, or bathing one of the children at any given point in the day.

While Susan Tom fits the description of a moral saint in the sense that she is committed to improving the welfare of her children, does she fit the description in the sense that she is humorless, boring, dull, or obsessive? In the documentary “My Flesh and Blood” there is a scene where Tom is pretending to cut the hair of her daughter Faith, but Faith has no hair because she is a burn patient. Faith gets a kick out of it and giggles and...