Maternal Expectations Quotes

Motherhood, to be sure, receives a great deal of sentimental adulation, but only if it is committed in accordance with rules which have been prescribed by a predominantly masculine society. Per se it is accorded no respect whatever. When it results from a sexual relationship which has been duly sanctioned by organized society, it is holy, no matter how much it may transgress the rules of decency, health, or common sense. Otherwise it is a sin meriting social ostracism for the mother and obloquy for the child - an ostracism and obloquy, significantly enough, in which the father does not share.

Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother?

Some mothers need happy children; others need unhappy ones-otherwise they cannot prove their maternal virtues.

I had such a great mom and I know that I'd never be that mom. I wouldn't want to bring a child into this world unless I could be.

All mothers love their own children as best they can, according to their temperament and circumstances, and all mothers should have done better, in their children's eyes, when the going gets tough for the children.

All these people keep waxing sentimental about how fabulously well I am doing as a mother, how competent I am, but I feel inside like when you're first learning to put nail polish on your right hand with your left. You can do it, but it doesn't look all that great around the cuticles.

I think that women are afraid to say they don't want children because they're going to get shunned.

She'd assumed she'd be married and have kids by this age, that she would be grooming her own daughter for this, as her friends were doing. She wanted it so much she would dream about it sometimes, and then she would wake up with the skin at her wrists and neck red from the scratchy lace of the wedding gown she'd dreamed of wearing. But she'd never felt anything for the men she'd dated, nothing beyond her own desperation. And her desire to marry wasn't strong enough, would never be strong enough, to allow her to marry a man she didn't love.

It [childbearing] was never intended to be as time-consuming and self-conscious a process as it is. One of the deepest evils in our society is tyrannical nurturance.

No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.

The standard Bristol set at being a mother is high for a woman to have to step into. She, as a mom, is crushing it.

I had a mother I could only seem to please with verbal accomplishments of some sort or another. She read constantly, so I read constantly. If I used words that might have seemed surprising at a young age, she would recognize that and it would please her.

Even now, for women to be contemplating the act of ending their life is considered horrific because they are the giver of life. They're seen in a patriarchal society as the one who offers life and has to nurture a child and have a child within them. That's your only role.

Today, only a fool would offer herself as the singular role model for the Good Mother. Most of us know not to tempt the fates. Themoment I felt sure I had everything under control would invariably be the moment right before the principal called to report that one of my sons had just driven somebody's motorcycle through the high school gymnasium.

I don't feel I'm as good a mum as my mum was.

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. It kills girls inside when they think they're letting their mothers down.

French people don't breastfeed. And I did it. My mum freaked out. She didn't get it at all. French royalty thought it wasn't chic to breastfeed their kids, so they would send them to a wet nurse. It's looked down on.

My mother sent me to psychiatrists since the age of four because she didn't think little boys should be sad. When my brother was born, I stared out the window for days. Can you imagine that?

The average woman must inevitably view her actual husband with a certain disdain; he is anything but her ideal. In consequence, she cannot help feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the fact that he is their father.

Of all human struggles there is none so treacherous and remorseless as the struggle between the artist man and the mother woman.

Some women give birth and then two weeks later look amazing. I don't think I'm going to be one of those women, and I'm OK with that. I just want to be a good mom; I don't really care about having a hot bod.

Moms in fiction and memoir get a bad rap.

It's funny, there are so many women who are former executives and have taken all that stress and anxiety and transferred it onto their kids.

There's something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she's only measured water in it.

I'm pretty sure the feeling of inadequacy is universal for moms.