How is Howard 's mother captured as the typical Jewish mother stereotype ?
Although her interviews at Columbia University , with 128 European - born Jews , disclosed a wide variety of family structures and experiences , the publications resulting from this study and the many citations in the popular media resulted in the Jewish mother stereotype : a woman intensely loving but controlling to the point of smothering and attempting to engender enormous guilt in her children via the endless suffering she professes to have experienced on their behalf .