#motherhood

It's sad if people think that's (homemaking) a dull existance, [but] you can't just buy an apartment and furnish it and walk away. It's the flowers you choose, the music you play, the smile you have waiting. I want it to be gay and cheerful, a haven in this troubled world. I don't want my husband and children to come home and find a rattled woman. Our era is already rattled enough, isn't it? ↗

— Audrey Hepburn

#inspirational #motherhood #inspirational

Supermom wasn't a bad job description. The pay was lousy if you were talking about real money. But the payoff was priceless in so many other ways. ↗

— Roxanne Henke

#money

For that entire journey across the rough terrain of Afghanistan, I never stopped praying that everything of the world could be peaceful, that all lives might return to normal. I believe that wish is universal for every woman who is a mother. For all the horrible happenings that have occurred since I left Afghanistan, I can only think and feel with my mother's heart. For every child lost, a mother's heart harbors the deepest pain. None can see our sons grow to men. None can see our daughters become mothers. No longer can we see the smiles on their faces, or wipe away their tears. My mother's heart feels the pain of every loss, weeping not only for my children, but for the lost children of every mother. ↗

— Najwa bin Laden

#loss #motherhood #peace #terror #men

It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment. ↗

— Honore de Balzac

#act #every #fashion #her #joy

The way Hollywood portrays mothers - you're either all good and saint-like, or you're all bad. And I think the real honesty of motherhood is not given a voice in movies. I miss that as an audience member. ↗

— Ellen Barkin

#audience member #bad #either #given #good

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. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#parents-and-children #motherhood

Literature gives us a window into other people's experiences in other places, in other times, so I thought it would be really interesting to investigate how different people had written about motherhood, and childhood. ↗

— Natalie Merchant

#childhood #different #different people #experiences #gives

The most difficult part of being a mother was to observe the mistakes of one's children: the foolish loves, the desperate solitude and alienation, the lack of will, the gullibility, the joyous and naive leaps into the unknown, the ignorance, the panicky choices and the utter determination. ↗

— David Bergen

#age

When you create a soul, plant the seeds of love with your thoughts, words, and actions . The soul flourishes among the flow-ers of love. ↗

— Revathi Sankaran

#motherhood #pregnancy #prenatal #prenatal-education #education

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