Maternal Fulfillment Quotes

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

Over and over again, stories in women's magazines insist that women can know fulfillment only at the moment of giving birth to a child. They deny the years when she can no longer look forward to giving birth, even if she repeats the act over and over again. In the feminine mystique, there is no other way for a woman to dream of creation or of the future. There is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children's mother, her husband's wife.

For a while, I was feeling so creative in motherhood that I had no longing to work. I felt that my children needed me, that I couldn't leave them for a second.

The idea that motherhood is inherently somehow a threat to creativity is just absurd.

I'm a better mother if I'm also doing my work. Some women find a lot more satisfaction from doing the hardest job, which is being a mom. But I like my day job, so I juggle a lot.

I think it's very empowering to be able to have a career and to be a mother. It gives you an amazing sense of self.

Women are the fulfilled sex. Through our children we are able to produce our own immortality, so we lack that divine restlessness which sends men charging off in pursuit of fortune or fame or an imagined Utopia. That is why we number so few geniuses among us. The wholesome oyster wears no pearl, the healthy whale no ambergris, and as long as we can keep on adding to the race, we harbor a sort of health within ourselves.

Getting pregnant and caring for a baby gave me a confidence I'd never had before. I really felt I'd done something well, and I can't say that about anything else in my life. I've never watched a movie I've appeared in and thought, wow, I was great. I always think, oh, I could have done this better.

Motherhood was my career. I'm totally satisfied with that.

I can’t wait to have more kids. I love being pregnant. I have such an incredible connection with myself and with my body that I’ve never had before.

It can't be bad having a mother who is fulfilled by her work.

I think a lot of mothers are doing as I am: starting up their own ventures as their children grow older, and having a kind of second blooming.

For a mother the project of raising a boy is the most fulfilling project she can hope for.

I feel more beautiful than I've ever felt because I've given birth. I have never felt so connected, never felt like I had such a purpose on this earth. The best thing about having a daughter is having a true legacy. The word love means something completely different now.

Having the option to be able to have a career and feel good about yourself as an individual and still be a great mother is definitely a possibility.

She feels so contented in giving birth to a child, in helping the child to grow; and that's why she does not need any other kind of creativity. Her creative urge is fulfilled. But man is in trouble: he cannot give birth to a child, he cannot have the child in his womb. He has to find a substitute, otherwise he will always feel inferior to the woman. And deep down he does feel that he is inferior. Because of that feeling of inferiority man tries to create paintings, statues, dramas, he writes poetry, novels, explores the whole scientific world of creativity.

People often think that people like me don't have ordinary lives. I have the greatest pleasure, and in fact, the greatest success in my career is having been a mother.

the modern woman asks herself: Is there something wrong with me if my children don't fill up my life?