Mary Wiseman Quotes

I think there's a tremendous amount of guilt that goes on between mothers and daughters, no matter how good or bad their relationships are.

Not having a great relationship with my brother Aaron, or what people think that relationship should be, didn't define me.

Somewhere, sometime I'd stopped expecting my father to father.

I can see how the young girls really get hurt when their moms are critical, or vice versa when they're overly critical of their moms. It can be so painful.

The mother-daughter relationship is the most complex.

A lot of times, you try and please your biological family, and you can't please them.

I lived with my mother all my life until she died, and I don't really think I knew her, because I was always using her as my mother, if you know what I mean.

Everybody knows the mother-daughter relationship is one of the most complex there is.

Sometimes my mother had difficulty communicating with me about certain topics.

Do not try to live your children's lives out of your own frustrations.

I think a lot of writers, male and female, write as if their parents were killed in a car accident when they were 2, and they have no one to hold accountable. And unfortunately, I don't have that. I have parents who I care about what they think.

It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody.

Maybe we slip so easily into blaming our parents - you're perpetually a child and they're perpetually a parent and you long to balance the equation, but it can only be balanced posthumously.

Parents forgive their children least readily for the faults they themselves instilled in them.

One of the things I would have loved to have had was a family that worked better together, although I love my mother and father to bits.

I always felt like there wasn't a blueprint for father-daughter relationships - for them or for us. Because what are they supposed to do with us, treat us like boys, or small women, or what? Father-daughter relationships are so unique from family to family, and I'd love to watch it explored more onstage.

I just wish I could understand my father.

Me and my dad are friends. We're cool. I'll never be disappointed again, because I don't expect anything anymore from him. I just let him exist, and that's how we get along.

I love my mom. My mom loves me. We don't have an easy relationship. I don't think we ever will, but I'd rather have a complicated, misunderstood relationship than have no relationship at all.

My own parents were touchy-feely.

It's not like he called me up and asked me. They've never wanted to throw us into that world, and I think our decision probably shocked them. But I love my dad, and I think I'd regret it if I didn't do this.

My father never kissed me, hugged me or told me that he loved me. As my only living parent, he became the filter through which I saw myself, the possibilities for my life, the world and all men. He was a conflicted and dark filter.

I had older brothers and sisters who were high achievers, and I felt different, misunderstood by my family. That's not my family's fault; it was my perception.

Between children and parents, there is a difficulty of seeing each other simply as people.

My family has never been there for me. They expect things because we're blood.