I think it's open to multiple interpretations, which is the hallmark of a good story, right? I think it's why it won the Nebula for novella (or novelette?) the year it came out. It's really rich, even if it's also sort of bleak and, in your reading, a critique of introversion. Which to me seemed linked to introversion (personal self) as a response to extraversion (societal self) that has gone awry in the past. But the introversion does seem like it becomes a problem in terms of rebuilding a large-scale society after the apocalypse. On the other hand, is introversion a problem what humans living in large societal structures do is mainly consume life beyond the breaking point?

Yes, the mother was frustrating as well. The son, too, though he seemed to have the fairest outcome in terms of character evolution.