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Mother Quotes

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Mother Quotes

“Ah! how much a mother learns from her child! The constant protection of a helpless being forces us to so strict an alliance with virtue, that a woman never shows to full advantage except as a mother. Then alone can her character expand in the fulfillment of all life's duties and the enjoyment of all its pleasures.”

ChildrenCharacterShowsMotherForcePleasureVirtueDutyAdvantageConstantProtectionFulfillmentEnjoymentHelplessStrictAlliances
Book:Letters of Two Brides
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“The mother's first kiss teaches the child love; the first holy kiss of the woman he loves teaches man hope and faith in life; and love and faith create a desire for perfection and the power of reaching towards it step by step; create the future, in short, of which the living symbol is the child, link between us and the generations to come.”

MenFirstsChildrenMotherDesireStepsTeachGenerationsHolyKissingPerfectionAnd LoveSymbolsReachingLinksLife And LoveFirst KissHope And FaithChildren LoveFaith And Love
Book:The Duties of Man and Other Essays
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“But a mother is like a broomstick or like the sun in the heavens, it does not matter which as far as one's knowledge of her is concerned: the broomstick is there and the sun is there; and whether the child is beaten by it or warmed and enlightened by it, it accepts it as a fact in nature, and does not conceive it as having had youth, passions, and weaknesses, or as still growing, yearning, suffering, and learning.”

ChildrenDoeStillsMatterFactsMotherSufferingPassionHeavenAcceptingSunGrowingYouthWeaknessConcernedEnlightenedYearningBeatenBroomsticks
Book:George Bernard Shaw: The Collected Plays (Illustrated): 60 plays including Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion, Saint Joan, The Apple Cart, Cymbeline, Androcles And The Lion, The Man Of Destiny, The Inca Of Perusalem and Macbeth Skit
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“Our father presents an optional set of rhythms and responses for us to connect to. As a second home base, he makes it safer to roam. With him as an ally--a love--it is safer, too, to show that we're mad when we're mad at our mother. We can hate and not be abandoned, hate and still love.”

StillsShowsHomeMotherHateFatherMadResponseRhythmAlliesAbandonedOur FatherOptionalHome Base
Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex
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“Eventually we will learn that the loss of indivisible love is another of our necessary losses, that loving extends beyond the mother-child pair, that most of the love we receive in this world is love we will have to share--and that sharing begins at home, with our sibling rivals.”

WorldChildrenHomeMotherLossLove IsShareThis WorldPairsRivalsSiblingRivalryIndivisibleSibling RivalryMother Child
Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex
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“We have to divide mother love with our brothers and sisters. Our parents can help us cope with the loss of our dream of absolute love. But they cannot make us believe that we haven't lost it.”

BelieveHelpingDreamMotherLostParentLossHavensBrotherAbsolutesDividesBrothers And SistersOur DreamsSiblingRivalryMother LoveSibling RivalryAbsolute Love
Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex
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“I was a closet pacifier advocate. So were most of my friends. Unknown to our mothers, we owned thirty or forty of those little suckers that were placed strategically around the house so a cry could be silenced in less than thirty seconds. Even though bottles were boiled, rooms disinfected, and germs fought one on one, no one seemed to care where the pacifier had been.”

LittlesCareMotherHouseRoomsCryMy FriendsThirtyFortyBottlesSecondsClosetsSuckerGermsOne On OnePacifiers
Book:Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession
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“I have always felt that too much time was given before the birth, which is spent learning things like how to breathe in and out with your husband (I had my baby when they gave you a shot in the hip and you didn't wake up until the kid was ready to start school), and not enough time given to how to mother after the baby is born.”

EnoughKidsSchoolMotherGivenFeltBornToo MuchReadyBabyBirthHusbandShotsWake UpBreatheHipsEnough TimeMy BabyYour HusbandNot Enough Time
Book:The Erma Bombeck Collection: If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?, Motherhood, and The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank
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“I'm real ambivalent about [working mothers]. Those of use who have been in the women's movement for a long time know that we've talked a good game of "go out and fulfill your dreams" and "be everything you were meant to be." But by the same token, we want daughters-in-law who are going to stay home and raise our grandchildren.”

KnowsWantLongHas BeensRealUseHomeDreamLawMotherGamesMovementLong TimeDaughterRaisesYour DreamsMeant To BeGrandchildrenIn-lawsTokensWere Meant To BeAmbivalentDaughter In Law
Author:Erma Bombeck
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“The all American work ethic, destructive enough by itself, also packs a gender double standard that strip-mines the natural resources of both parents. It has taught us that as their earnings and success increase, men become "more manly," while women become "less feminine." This perverse cultural dynamic gives fathers an incentive to stay away from their families and kill themselves at work, while coercing mothers to limit their career commitment, which in turn limits their wages and shortchanges their families.”

MenGivingEnoughMotherTurnsFatherParentWomenNaturalCareersMinesTaughtLimitsStandardsEthicsCommitmentResourcesIncreaseGenderDestructiveFemininePacksEarningWagesWork EthicIncentivesNatural ResourcesManlyTaught UsDouble Standard
Author:Letty Cottin Pogrebin
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“Much is made of the accelerating brutality of young people's crimes, but rarely does our concern for dangerous children translateinto concern for children in danger. We fail to make the connection between the use of force on children themselves, and violent antisocial behavior, or the connection between watching father batter mother and the child deducing a link between violence and masculinity.”

PeopleChildrenDoeMadeUseYoungMotherFatherForceViolenceFailingDangerousCrimeDangerBehaviorConcernConnectionsViolentLinksMasculinityBrutalityAntisocialUse Of ForceAntisocial Behavior
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“The risk for a woman who considers her helpless children her "job" is that the children's growth toward self-sufficiency may be experienced as a refutation of the mother's indispensability, and she may unconsciously sabotage their growth as a result.”

MayChildrenSelfJobsMotherGrowthResultsRiskHelplessSabotageSelf SufficiencySufficiencyRefutation
Book:Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier
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“In the older times it was seldom said to little girls, as it always has been said to boys, that they ought to have some definite plan, while they were children, what to be and do when they were grown up. There was usually but one path open before them, to become good wives and housekeepers. And the ambition of most girls was to follow their mothers' footsteps in this direction; a natural and laudable ambition. But girls, as well as boys, must often have been conscious of their own peculiar capabilities,--must have desired to cultivate and make use of their individual powers.”

WellsChildrenLittlesHas BeensSaidUseMotherGirlIndividualNaturalBoysPathWifePlansOughtAmbitionConsciousPeculiarCapabilityDefiniteFootstepsGood WifeHousekeepersIndividual Power
Book:A New England girlhood
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“I believe the alphabet is no longer considered an essential piece of equipment for traveling through life. In my day it was the keystone to knowledge. You learned the alphabet as you learned to count to ten, as you learned "Now I lay me" and the Lord's Prayer and your father's and mother's name and address and telephone number, all in case you were lost.”

BelieveMotherFatherNamesLostI BelievePrayerNumbersLordKnowledgeCasesPiecesTenEssentialsLaysAddressesEquipmentTelephonesAlphabetKeystones
Book:One Writer's Beginnings
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“Unpleasant questions are being raised about Mother's Day. Is this day necessary? . . . Isn't it bad public policy? . . . No politician with half his senses, which a majority of politicians have, is likely to vote for its abolition, however. As a class, mothers are tender and loving, but as a voting bloc they would not hesitate for an instant to pull the seat out from under any Congressman who suggests that Mother is not entitled to a box of chocolates each year in the middle of May.”

YearsMayMotherHalfClassMiddlePolicyPoliticianVoteMajorityRaisedBoxesSensesInstantSeatsVotingChocolateThis DayEntitledMothers DayAbolitionCongressmanPublic PolicyBox Of Chocolates
Author:Russell Baker
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“Much of the ill-tempered railing against women that has characterized the popular writing of the last two years is a half-heartedattempt to find a way back to a more balanced relationship between our biological selves and the world we have built. So women are scolded both for being mothers and for not being mothers, for wanting to eat their cake and have it too, and for not wanting to eat their cake and have it too.”

WorldWayWritingYearsTwoSelfLastsMotherHalfBuiltIllTwo YearsSexismCakeBalancedBeing A MotherScoldedIll TemperedBalanced Relationship
Author:Margaret Mead
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“Having children can smooth the relationship, too. Mother and daughter are now equals. That is hard to imagine, even harder to accept, for among other things, it means realizing that your own mother felt this way, too--unsure of herself, weak in the knees, terrified about what in the world to do with you. It means accepting that she was tired, inept, sometimes stupid; that she, too, sat in the dark at 2:00 A.M. with a child shrieking across the hall and no clue to the child's trouble.”

WorldWayMeanChildrenSometimesHardMotherFeltRealizingDarkAcceptingImagineTroubleStupidDaughterWeakHarderTiredKneesSatHallsSmoothTerrifiedClueMother And DaughterHaving ChildrenUnsureWeak In The Knees
Book:Living Out Loud
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“Other people--grandparents, sisters and brothers, the mother's best friend, the next-door neighbor--get to be familiar to the baby. If the mother communicates her trust in these people, the baby will regard them as delicious novelties. Anybody the mother trusts whom the baby sees often enough partakes a bit of the presence of the mother.”

PeopleIfsEnoughMotherNextBitsDoorsBrotherBabyRegardCommunicateNeighborFamiliarGrandparentBrothers And SistersDeliciousNoveltyNext Door Neighbors
Book:Oneness and separateness: from infant to individual
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“Hopefulness is the heartbeat of the relationship between a parent and child. Each time a child overcomes the next challenge of hislife, his triumph encourages new growth in his parents. In this sense a child is parent to his mother and father.”

HeartChildrenMotherNextFatherParentGrowthChallengesOvercomingTriumphHeartbeatMother And FatherChildren And ParentsHopefulnessNew Growth
Book:Oneness and separateness: from infant to individual
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