#hood

So they all went home afterwards. My sisters and I sat on the veranda and cried until a storm drove us inside. We agreed to meet in the barn loft for crying once a week but after a while we forgot. Once we did but nobody could work up a cry and we started playing wolves and chickens and Little Mary had to be the chicken and Savannah shoved her out of the loft and broke her collarbone. The hearts of children are hard naturally because of their short memories. Everything they play with becomes true and unquestionable such as an acorn cap for a Holy Grail, such is the power of the untrained mind, and all our training of it is both of advantage and not. ↗

— Paulette Jiles

#youth #home

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

Have you noticed how children never bypass a puddle of water, but jump, splash, and slosh right through it?  That's because they know an important truth - Life was meant to be lived.  Puddles were meant to be experienced. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#children #experience #happiness #inspirational #learning

I quickly got used to being picked up by my mother, and taken to the air raid shelter near our home. Although frightening, this was a great adventure to me as a child, for in the shelter I played with the other children and we felt safe there as we were surrounded by grown-ups; although now the grown-ups were more worried than they had been in the past. There were greater feelings of anxiety and fear in the older people, which we children also felt, and it unsettled us all. ↗

— Alfred Nestor

#alfred-nestor #author-alfred-nestor #hitler #hitler-s-germany #nazi-party

Sometimes opposites attract, or so they say, but Paloma and Rocío were like arroz and mangú: they didn’t really mix well. ↗

— Raquel Cepeda

#family #family-drama #family-relationships #family-saga #hispanic

I'm beginning to perceive motherhood as a long, slow letting go, of which birth is just the first step. ↗

— Sandra Steingraber

#motherhood #parenting #faith

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

I spent my entire childhood living abroad because of my father's occupation, so we were on long-haul flights all the time. ↗

— Arabella Weir

#because #childhood #entire #father #flights

In the days of segregation, when blacks were limited to certain neighborhoods, you could look around the black community and identify who the leaders were. ↗

— Roger Wilkins

#black #black community #blacks #certain #community

and when all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful. ↗

— Ruskin Bond

#butterfly #childhood #human #human-nature #india