#motherhood

...there is still a kind of unique loneliness to child rearing for women. We so often do it in isolation. Add to the fact that in our competitive, perfectionist culture, in which the price woman are required to pay for freedom still seems to be martyrdom, almost everyone lies about motherhood. Part of that lying is loyalty - I can't let on that my kid is the only one on the playground who can't read or play the piano - and part of it is self-protection, since we've made hyper-motherhood a measure of female success. The preferred answer to the question "How are you?" is always "Fine," and the answer to the question "How are the kids?" is supposed to be "Great!" That's true even if the accurate answers would be "terrible" and "a mess." I think it produces its own kind of desperation, especially for women, who yearn to be emotionally open. ↗

— Anna Quindlen

#freedom

Are you scared of going in to see the raghnaid [the council]?” asked a gray female pup. “Are you cag mag [crazy]? If a bear was his Milk Giver, you think he’s scared of the raghnaid? ↗

— Kathryn Lasky

#funny #motherhood #wolves #funny

To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can imagine how this can exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#motherhood #womanhood #imagination

I sighed and deleted the message, imagining the dirty clothes multiplying like rabbits, because that’s what they do when I’m not around. ↗

— Alex Owens

#motherhood #sarcasm #imagination

She [my mother] was the force around which our world turned. My mother was propelled through the universe by the brute force of reason. She was the judge in all our arguments. One disapproving word from her was enough to send us off to hide in a corner, where we would cry and fantasize our own martyrdom. And yet. One kiss could restore us to princedom. Without her, our lives would dissolve into chaos. ↗

— Nicole Krauss

#love

There's no bitch on earth like a mother frightened for her kids. ↗

— Stephen King

#mothers #kids

The career of motherhood and homemaking is beyond value and needs no justification. Its importance is incalculable. ↗

— Katherine Short

#homemaking #motherhood #career

No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother. ↗

— Margaret Sanger

#motherhood #women #consciousness

Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. ↗

— Howard W. Hunter

#mankind

Why not wear a scar of Motherhood? Better than a tattoo or a mark of Honor. Let the world know what you've achieved. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#eugenie #motherhood