“You were caught off guard. You never thought of Mom as separate from the kitchen. Mom was the kitchen and the kitchen was Mom. You never wondered, Did Mom like being in the kitchen?”
Source: Please Look After Mom
“Alice Miller writes that the child who suppresses his own feelings in order to accomodate a parent has been, in a sense, abandoned.
'Later, when these feelings of being deserted begin to emerge in the analysis of the adult, they are accompanied by such intensity of pain and despair that it is quite clear that these people could not have survived so much pain. That would only have been possible in an empathic, attentive environment, and this they lacked. [as quoted by Alice Miller]'
She also says that the mother who requires accommodation from her child is just trying to get what her own mother refused her.”
Source: Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama
“She gazed over at her mother and took a deep breath. Perhaps her mother had never shown Abby affection, not really, but she had given her a knack for solitude, with its terrible lurches outward, and its smooth glide back to peace. Abby would toast her for that. It was really the world that was one’s brutal mother, the one that nursed and neglected you, and your own mother was only your sibling in that world. Abby lifted her glass. “May the worst always be behind you. May the sun daily warm your arms.…” She looked down at her cocktail napkin for assistance, but there was only a cartoon of a big-chested colleen, two shamrocks over her breasts. Abby looked back up. God’s word is quick! “May your car always start—” But perhaps God might also begin with tall, slow words; the belly bloat of a fib; the distended tale. “And may you always have a clean shirt,” she continued, her voice growing gallant, public and loud, “and a holding roof, healthy children and good cabbages—and may you be with me in my heart, Mother, as you are now, in this place; always and forever—like a flaming light.”
Source: Birds of America: Stories
“There would be,
half a million things,
I could do,
yet I don’t know,
what would be so?
When I will see you,
for the first time,
calm, twined in your
daddy’s arm,
coming towards me,
I could do,
half a million things-
caress your skin,
fondle your chin,
stroke though your limbs,
smoothly touch your lips,
and make my silent wishes,
for your health and,
your intellect.
Half a million things,
I could do,
yet I don’t know,
what would be so?
When I will see you,
for the first time,
I could say,
half a million things-
call you my kid,
read a fine script,
whisper love in your ears,
sing a hymn.
Half a million things,
I could say,
yet I don’t know,
what would be so?
I fear though,
what if I am unable to,
do any of this,
and all I end up with,
is,
just a knot of tears,
loaded with,
some of the most pure prayers,
I have ever chaired.
Half a million things,
I could do and
I could say,
yet when it happens,
little will my practice play.
Half a million things,
and I wouldn't know,
how and where one begins.”
“It helps enormously to have had a loving mother. Mothers can give their daughters permission to love their fathers. Mothers can help their daughters feel good about becoming mothers. Mothers can help daughters learn the value of openness and female friendship, especially when times are bad,”
Source: Women and Their Fathers: The Sexual and Romantic Impact of the First Man in Your Life
“I'm honored by your concern. I would like
To gather all of the books that contain
The words "mother" and "grief," set them aflame,
And dance as they burn.”
Source: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
“Maybe the mother manages to be a mirror only part of the time. In such 'tantalizing' cases, some babies learn to withdraw their own needs when the mother's are evident.”
Source: Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama
“I guess I felt like I'd failed her [by throwing up]. She had so many demands on her...The one thing she needed from me was that I not need anything from her [Bechdel's mother].”
Source: Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama
“Mothers are not simply models of femininity to their daughters but also examples of how a woman reacts to a man. Daughters learn about fathers, and men, not only by being with Dad but also by observing their parent's marital relationship-- or its unraveling.
When mothers and fathers are supportive or each other, it makes each of their paternal jobs infinitely easier. And parents who cannot bear being in one another's presence reveal as much, if not more, to a child about romantic love as anything the mother or father might say.”
Source: Women and Their Fathers: The Sexual and Romantic Impact of the First Man in Your Life
“A girl's sense of her womanly self depends only in part on how closely she has followed her mother's example in attire and actions, or how much she loves or hates or respects her. It is from both parents that a girl gains her basic identity.”
Source: Women and Their Fathers: The Sexual and Romantic Impact of the First Man in Your Life