#moth

That’s what love is like: mother of the greatest bliss and stepmother of the most tragic misery. ↗

— Stefanos Livos

#happiness #love #misery #mother #sadness

Mothers give us life, love, and the heartfelt inclination to cry, 'I want my mommy,' no matter how old we get. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#mom #mommy #mother #mother-s-day #motherhood

Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger's touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body. But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child. That thing that says "I am," and forms the core of personality. In the second year, the bone hardens and the child stands upright, skull wide and solid, a helmet protecting the softness within. And "I am" grows, too. Looking at them, you can almost see it, sturdy as heartwood, glowing through the translucent flesh. The bones of the face emerge at six, and the soul within is fixed at seven. The process of encapsulation goes on, to reach its peak in the glossy shell of adolescence, when all softness then is hidden under the nacreous layers of the multiple new personalities that teenagers try on to guard themselves. In the next years, the hardening spreads from the center, as one finds and fixes the facets of the soul, until "I am" is set, delicate and detailed as an insect in amber.

— Diana Gabaldon

#children #motherhood #parenting #vulnerability #love

When I was in school, my mother stressed education. I am so glad she did. I graduated from Yale College and Yale University with my master's and I didn't do it by missing school. ↗

— Angela Bassett

#college #did #education #glad #graduated

Die Liebe einer Mutter zu ihren Kindern ist beherrschend, löwinnenhaft, selbstsüchtig und zugleich selbstlos […]. Die Liebe eines Vaters zu seinem Sohn oder seiner Tochter ist, wenn es sich überhaupt um Liebe handelt, ein weitherziges, großzügiges, schwermütiges und nachdenkliches Schenken ohne Hoffnung auf Erwiderung, ein Abschiedsgruß an einen geplagten Wanderer, den er gern beschützen möchte, ein richtig abgewogenes Urteil über Stärke und Schwäche, voll Mitleid für den Misserfolg und voll Stolz auf Erfolg. ↗

— Theodore Dreiser

#love

Single moms: You are a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a maid, a cook, a referee, a heroine, a provider, a defender, a protector, a true Superwoman. Wear your cape proudly. ↗

— Mandy Hale

#children #moms #mothers #mothers-love #parenting

The artist and the mother are vehicles, not originators. They don't create the new life, they only bear it. This is why birth is such a humbling experience. The new mom weeps in awe at the little miracle in her arms. She knows it came out of her but not from her, through her but not of her. ↗

— Steven Pressfield

#motherhood #writing #art

I'd really like to write a book about Timothy McVeigh, but it would only work if he cooperated. ↗

— Elizabeth Wurtzel

#book #i #like #only #really

You can't know how much a mother loves. ↗

— Jessica Fortunato

#loss #love #mom #mother #love

I wanted to become a kindergarten teacher like my mother. ↗

— Ziyi Zhang

#i #kindergarten #like #mother #teacher