Our Lamaze instructor . . . assured our class . . . that our cervix muscles would become "naturally numb" as they swelled and stre...tched, and deep breathing would turn the final explosions of pain into "manageable discomfort." This descriptions turned out to be as accurate as, say a steward advising passengers aboard the Titanic to prepare for a brisk but bracing swim.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mothers are likely to have more bad days on the job than most other professionals, considering the hours: round-the-clock, seven d...ays a week, fifty-two weeks a year. . . . You go to work when you're sick, maybe even clinically depressed, because motherhood is perhaps the only unpaid position where failure to show up can result in arrest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the range of things toddlers have to learn and endlessly review--why you can't put bottles with certain labels in your mouth, w...hy you have to sit on the potty, why you can't take whatever you want in the store, why you don't hit your friends--by the time we got to why you can't drop your peas, well, I was dropping a few myself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I became the Incredible Shrinking Mother the year they started junior high. If our relationship today depended on physical clout, ...I would have about the same influence with them that the republic of Liechtenstein has on world politics.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Today, only a fool would offer herself as the singular role model for the Good Mother. Most of us know not to tempt the fates. The... moment I felt sure I had everything under control would invariably be the moment right before the principal called to report that one of my sons had just driven somebody's motorcycle through the high school gymnasium.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Since civilizing children takes the better part of two decades--some twenty years of nonstop thinking, nurturing, teaching, coaxin...g, rewarding, forgiving, warning, punishing, sympathizing, apologizing, reminding, and repeating, not to mention deciding what to do when--I now understand that one wrong move is invariably followed by hundreds of opportunities to be wrong again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"Mother" is the first word that occurs to politicians and columnists and popes when they raise the question, "Why isn't life turni...ng out the way we want it?"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One year, I'd completely lost my bearings trying to follow potty training instruction from a psychiatric expert. I was stuck on st...ep on, which stated without an atom of irony: "Before you begin, remove all stubbornness from the child." . . . I knew it only could have been written by someone whose suit coat was still spotless at the end of the day, not someone who had any hands-on experience with an actual two-year-old.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It takes twenty or so years before a mother can know with any certainty how effective her theories have been--and even then there ...are surprises. The daily newspapers raise the most frightening questions of all for a mother of sons: Could my once sweet babes ever become violent men? Are my sons really who I think they are?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »