#motherhood

The recent spate of magazines for "parents" (i.e., mothers) bombard the anxiety-induced mothers of America with reassurances that they can (after a $100,000 raise and a personality transplant) produce bright, motivated, focused, fun-loving, sensitive, cooperative, confident, contented kids just like the clean, obedient ones on the cover. ↗

— Susan Douglas

#parenting #love

A mother's love is instinctual, unconditional, and forever. ↗

— Revathi Sankaran

#motherhood #unconditional-love #love

What is more powerful than the love of a mother? What possesses more strength than her humbly whispered prayers? Perhaps only God's hand in answering those earnest pleadings on your behalf. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#love #mom #mother #mother-s-day #motherhood

I loved Duncan and I loved being his mother but I wasn't sure I was prepared to be only his mother. Before we were even married, when Russell and I had gotten our dog, Humbert, I had walked him early one morning, and as I stood on a line for coffee, someone had offered him a dog treat. "I always ask the mommy first," she said, looking at him expectantly. "Oh, I'm not his mother," I said, "I'm just his...friend," and she looked at me with complete contempt. "You're his mother," she had scolded, "Poor dog. ↗

— Jennifer Belle

#dog-walking #dogs #motherhood #parenthood #pet-owner

Our children want more than presents, that want our PRESENCE. ↗

— Heather Schuck

#motherhood #parental-love #parenting-children #parenting-tips #inspirational

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

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

In my previous life I was a civil attorney. At one point I truly believed that was what I wanted to be- but that was before I'd been handed a fistful of crushed violets from a toddler. Before I understood that the smile of a child is a tattoo: indelible art. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#art

The life of a mother is the life of a child: you are two blossoms on a single branch. ↗

— Karen Maezen Miller

#life #motherhood #parenting #life

If I – as a beneficiary of that exact formula – will concede that my own life was indeed enriched by that precise familial structure, will the social conservatives please (for once!) concede that this arrangement has always put a disproportionately cumbersome burden on women? Such a system demands that mothers become selfless to the point of near invisibility in order to construct these exemplary encironments for their families. And might those same social conservatives – instead of just praising mothers as “sacred” and “noble” – be willing to someday join a larger conversation about how we might work together as a society to construct a world where healthy children can be raised and healthy families can prosper without women have to scrape bare the walls of their own souls to do so? ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#sacrifice #family