#mother

Perhaps it takes courage to raise children.. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#parenting #courage

It isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for that long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security. ↗

— Anne Morrow Lindbergh

#faith #grieving #grieving-mother #sanity #security

Here was what I wanted to happen when I walked through the door after my first real date and my first ever kiss. I wanted my mom to say, “Dear God, Meg, you’re glowing. Sit and tell me about this boy. He let you borrow his jacket? That’s so adorable.” Instead, I came off the high of that day by writing a letter to my dead brother and doing yoga between my twin beds, trying to forget my absent mother. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#glass-girl #laura-anderson-kurk #love #meg-kavanagh #mother-daughter-relationship

Annie turned away, her eyes glittering. 'Here's what no one tells you,' she said. 'When you deliver a fetus, you get a death certificate, but not a birth certificate. And afterward, your milk comes in, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.' She looked up at me. 'You can't win. Either you have the baby and wear your pain on the outside, or you don't have the baby, and you keep that ache in you forever. I know I didn't do the wrong thing. But I don't feel like I did the right thing, either. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#motherhood #death

Mama said it's probably because of Suzanne, and that you are never the same after a child dies. That made me wonder what she was like before Clover died, because I don't think I really knew my own mother until I had children, and if she was different before, I don't remember. ↗

— Nancy E. Turner

#death #mother #motherhood #understanding #death

In much the same way, motherhood has become the essential female experience, valued above all others: giving life is where it's at. "Pro-maternity" propaganda has rarely been so extreme. They must be joking, the modern equivalent of the double constraint: "Have babies, it's wonderful, you'll feel more fulfilled and feminine than ever," but do it in a society in freefall in which waged work is a condition of social survival but guaranteed to no one, and especially not to women. Give birth in cities where accommodation is precarious, schools have surrendered the fight and children are subject to the most vicious mental assault through advertising, TV, internet, fizzy drink manufacturers and so on. Without children you will never be fulfilled as a woman, but bringing up kids in decent conditions is almost impossible. ↗

— Virginie Despentes

#consumerism #female-authors #feminism #motherhood #politics

She spoke throught her teeth. "Almost, dear. What were the real words you used? The bad words. It's okay to say them again, just this once." I shrugged, "fine. I said'. . . just 'cause Daddy wants you to suck on his ding-a-ling. ↗

— Michael Siemsen

#father-humphrey #group-talk #lol #morgan #morgan-mother

Trying to make someone love you is like trying to climb uphill during an avalanche. ↗

— Valerie J. Lewis Coleman

#stepfamily #stepmother #family

Oh here's a nice one, he brown recluse spider. This once resides in wooded areas. In other words, next to my head while I'm sleeping. ' In a small number of cases, a bite from a brown recluse can produce organ damage with occasional fatalities.' " "That's the worst-case scenario. how can it be? It's called a 'recluse'" "It's been my experience that all recluses have a mean streak. ↗

— Yvonne Prinz

#mothers-and-daughters #spiders #experience

You are everything you should be, and all that is enough. Be proud of who you are, and love who you will become.” – Lady Lalaigne to Nhakira, “Chosen ↗

— Jeanine Henning Nhakira

#determination #faith #fantasy #fiction #guidance