Instead of seeing her son as a glorious soldier, she still sees him as a boy. That is evident by her concerns. Rather than worry about him being shot, she worries that he doesn’t eat enough or that he should be on his guard against the women out there. The real problem out in the trenches is that there are too many pretty girls. What if her precious little boy Paul ends up dating a very bad girl? Now, to be fair to Mrs Bäumer, it's possible that she understands the true dangers her son's faces but is simply unable to talk about them. She tells Paul that she prays for him every day.
Paul's mother in the Essays
Author: Timmothy Bishop