Motherhood Quotes - Page 9

Motherhood (and fatherhood) is one of the most important, while at the same time being one of the most long-time, unappreciated roles we may ever find ourselves in. Add to that, it seems at times to be taken as much for granted by our society at large, as by the developing young we pour our all into. Quality parenting is also wrought with joy and satisfaction at every turn, being one of the most rewarding, and fulfilling experiences we have the opportunity to know in this thing we call the human condition.

People who lost their mother should be careful about committing crime, because probably no one else is praying to save you.

Half the time your kids end up hating you for at least 5 of their teenage years[.] And don't ever expect anything so mundane as a thank you

I'm just saying, when a woman in a maiden, she's in the spotlight. Everybody cares what a pretty, young girl does and says. And she's got some pretty strict archetypes to adhere to: Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella or Britney Spears. Pick your poison. But when you become a young mother? People don't give a fuck what you're doing. Their eyes glaze over before they even finish asking you. Once a woman starts doing the most important work of her life, all of a sudden, nobody wants to know a thing about it.

When a mother gives birth, her body is not only able to provide nourishment to her baby, but is also designed to be its own personal medicine cabinet. Breast milk is the best and most natural food you can give a child, and applying it sparingly on a baby's head, eye or skin will eliminate cradle cap, acne, rashes, dryness, and even eye infections.

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.

Lollipops and raindropsSunflowers and sun-kissed daisiesRolling surf and raging seaSailing ships and submarinesOld Glory and “purple mountain’s majesty”Screaming guitar and lilting rhymeFlight of fancy and high-steppin’ dancesSet free my mind to wander…Imagine the ant’s marching journeys.Fly, in my mind’s eye, on butterfly wings.Roam the distant depths of space.Unfurl tall sails and cross the ocean.Pictures made just to enthrallCreating images from my truthPainting hopes and dreams on my canvasCapturing, through my lens, the ephemeralLet me ruminate ‘pon sensual darkness…Tremble o’er Hollywood’s fluttering Gothics…Ride the edge of my seat with the hero…Weep with the heroine’s desperation.Yet… more than all these things…Give me words spun out masterfully…Terms set out in meter and rhyme…Phrases bent to rattle the soul…Prose that always miraculously inspires me!The trill runs up my spine, as I recall…A touch… a caress…a whispered kiss…Ebony eyes embracing my soul…Two souls united in beat of hearts.A butterfly flutter in my wombMy lover’s wonder o’er my swellingThe testament of our love given lifeNewly laid in my lover’s armsLuminous, sweet ebony eyesJust so much like his father’sA gaze of wonder and contentmentFrom my babe at mother’s breastWords of the Divine set down for meFaith, Hope, Love, and CharityGrace, Mercy, and undeserved Salvation“My Shepherd will supply my need”These are the things that inspire me.

Franklin, I was absolutely terrified of having a child. Before I got pregnant, my visions of child rearing- reading stories about cabooses with smiley faces at bedtime, feeding glop into slack mouths- all seemed like pictures of someone else. I dreaded confrontation with what could prove a closed, stony nature, my own selfishness and lack of generosity, the thick tarry powers of my own resentment. However intrigued by a “turn of the page,” I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else’s story. And I believe that this terror is precisely what must have snagged me, the way a ledge will tempt one to jump off. The very surmountability of the task, its very unattractiveness , was in the end what attracted me to it. (32)

Motherhood is a predicament. How to live fully inside of it with any grace?

I often must sacrifice my own needs and desires for the purpose of giving my children what they need and modeling for them the depths of Christ's love."...make myself available in the routine tasks and myriad interruptions of daily life b/c I believe it is God's will for me to serve my family through them.

When I tried to meet some impossible standard for motherhood, tried to earn my way to a weird sort of Proverbs 31 Woman Club, I collapsed in exhaustion and simmering anger, sadness, and failure. This was not life in the Vine, this exhausting job description; this was not the Kingdom of God, let alone a redeemed woman living full. This was the shell of someone trying to measure up, trying to earn through her mothering what God had already freely given. This was someone feeling the weight of unmet expectations from the Church and her own self and the world all at once.

It was deflating to realize how much my own family's quality of life might improve if I replaced myself with a Fundamentalist stay-at-home daughter.

Listen kid, it’s just you and me now, so let’s help each other out. Always be honest with me, and show me how to be the mother and father I never had. I’ll make a mess of things sometimes, and I’m sorry in advance, but I’ll try. My word is bond.

I'm beginning to perceive motherhood as a long, slow letting go, of which birth is just the first step.

Bertha divined what an enormous wrong had been wrought against the world in that the longing for pleasure is placed in woman just as in man; and that with women that longing is a sin, demanding expiation, if the yearning for pleasure is not at the same time a yearning for motherhood.

Women are responsible for the people in the family having pants.

Daughter, daughter, shining brightPrecious jewel within mine sightOh, if I could soar with theeAs you seek your destiny.To see with you the caves and skiesVistas grand beneath your eyesTaking wing to horizons newLet us wonder who waits for you.A dragon bright?A dragon dark?Victor of duels with battle mark?A dragon strong?A dragon keen?Singer of honors and triumphs seen?Red, Gold, Bronze, and BlueTo your lord you shall be true,Copper, Silver, Black, and White,Who will win your mating flight?For in your hearts our future restsTo see our line with hatchlings blessedAnd for those who threaten clutch of flame,To feel the wrath of dragon-dame.

...if I were an angel of the Lord, I would mark the doors of each of my children's homes with an X, so that plague and misfortune would pass over them. Alas, I lack the qualifications. So when there was still world and time enough I fretted. I nagged. I corrected. I got everything wrong.

It had been six weeks since I brought my second child, my daughter, kicking and screaming into the world. Six weeks, that magic number men everywhere look forward to and women dread.

Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger's touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body.But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child. That thing that says "I am," and forms the core of personality.In the second year, the bone hardens and the child stands upright, skull wide and solid, a helmet protecting the softness within. And "I am" grows, too. Looking at them, you can almost see it, sturdy as heartwood, glowing through the translucent flesh.The bones of the face emerge at six, and the soul within is fixed at seven. The process of encapsulation goes on, to reach its peak in the glossy shell of adolescence, when all softness then is hidden under the nacreous layers of the multiple new personalities that teenagers try on to guard themselves.In the next years, the hardening spreads from the center, as one finds and fixes the facets of the soul, until "I am" is set, delicate and detailed as an insect in amber.

This human need for mysticism – surrender to an unknown truth, union – stands at the helm of all romantic feeling. It is, in essence, the same intimacy known in a mother’s arms; in those who are deprived of the experience, the need freezes and, distorted, it can rent a life. All addiction has as its foundation skewed yearning for the same transcendence. For me, the spell of the material was broken by my brother’s death; after his suicide, all I wanted was the renewal of my connection to the intangible.

Real women have children, wise women choose for themselves.

Though breastfeeding is supposed to the most natural thing ever, it seems like a rich-people sport for all the stuff we buy to help.

The day you call someone "Mother" is the day your pain is hers to bear, you burden hers to carry.

I think I would scream too if someone violently jammed a big ass breast in my mouth.

Long ago you were a dream in your mother's sleep, and then she awoke to give you birth.

I can speak of our baby like this to no one else. Who but his father would linger over the exact width of his gummy little smile or the blueness of his eyes, or the sweetness of his little lick of tawny hair on his forehead?

Around the house, my head deep in a pillowcase or the oven, my eyes focused on that supernatural neatness which the housewife sees somehow shadowing her familiar furniture, it was largely possible to disregard, or not-quite-hear, Sally, but in the car I was entirely what I believe is called a captive audience.

MOM - noun - One who sacrifices her body, sleep, social life, spending money, eating hot meals, peeing alone, patience, memory, energy and sanity for LOVE!

Here's what I hadn't realized: the mother you haven't seen for almost thirty-six years isn't your mother, she's a stranger. Sharing DNA doesn't make you fast friends. This wasn't a joyous reunion. It was just awkward.

You are lucky, Renisenb. You have found the happiness that is inside everybody's own heart. To most women, happiness means coming and going, busied over small affairs. It is care for one's children and laughter and conversation and quarrels with other women and alternate love and anger with a man. It is made up of small things strung together like beads on a string.

You’ve spent her whole life holding her. Whether cradled in your arms as a baby or wrapped in your embrace as a young woman, she’s been yours to have and to hold, Mother of the Bride—until now. Now the time has come to let her go, to let herbegin her own family and pledge her allegiance to another.

When I was a kid my mom would send me off to school each day with the words, ‘Remember: be happy! The most important thing today is that you are happy!

Mothering or nurturing is not just a calling for women who have biological or adopted children. Mothering is a calling for all women. Every Christian woman is called to the spiritual motherhood of making disciples of all nations.

...One of the reasons so many women say "I'm not a feminist but..." (and then put forward a feminist position), is that in addition to being stereotyped as man-hating Amazons, feminists have also been cast as antifamily and antimotherhood.

Mother is water.

It's amazing to be a woman because even without children of your own, you can still be an excellent mother.

Mother is the reflective principle, the balancing agent for the child. Like a guru, she allows the child to make mistakes and loves the child without condition. Like nature, she allows consequences to unfold and balance to be restored when it is lost.

Papi, I don't know what to do anymore." Lourdes begins to cry. "No matter what I do, Pilar hates me.""Pilar doesn't hate you, hija. She just hasn't learned to love you yet.

Mothers should negotiate between nations. Mothers of fighting countries would agree: Stop this killing now. Stop it now.

First rule of motherhood, dearie: men are screw-ups. Learn it now and you'll be a whole lot happier.

Are you scared of going in to see the raghnaid [the council]?” asked a gray female pup. “Are you cag mag [crazy]? If a bear was his Milk Giver, you think he’s scared of the raghnaid?

Being a mother gives you a singular sort of vision, a prism through which you can see your child with many different faces all at once. It is the reason you can watch him shatter a ceramic lamp, and still remember him as an angel.

I don't think I ever fully understood before now the old saying that goes: "A mother's heart loves her young one until he grows; her ill one until he heals; and her traveler until he returns."I have experienced all kinds of waiting; I've waited for my young to grow and the sick to heal, but I am still waiting on my little traveler and I do not know how long it will be until I see him again.

Breastfeeding is a beautiful thing, one of the most beautiful things that exist in nature. Think about how a woman can literally feed her baby with her body! In my eyes, this is a certain form of beauty, of divinity! To know that my body can not only form and bring another human being into the world, but that I can actually feed babies with my own milk from my own breasts— that puts me in a state of awe each time I think about it. It is an honour to be a woman.

I became a mother before becoming sick, but i never expected sickness to take away my independent mothering, so i plant trees to sooth my soul from the aching pains of losing the maternal ability to mother another child. My first born will be my only treasure, the one who knew who i was before the mess entered our lives and also the one who adapted with me to a reality we weren't certain of oh and lots of plants and plants and plants.

It's the curse of motherhood. You're required to love us even when we vex you.

A mother`s job is not complete till she has taught and imbibed God`s Words, and principles into her kids.

The Bolshevik leaders perched atop the Mausoleum were no easier to tell apart than chess pawns. But Florence too was certain that she could recognise the twinkling eyes of Joseph Stalin, which looked down at her each workday from the oil painting above Timofeyev’s desk

Young mothers are the most vicious tribe in the world if you don't fit in.

Intensive mothering is the ultimate female Olympics: We are all in powerful competition with each other, in constant danger of being trumped by the mom down the street, or in the magazine we're reading. The competition isn't just over who's a good mother--it's over who's the best. We compete with each other; we compete with ourselves. The best mothers always put their kids' needs before their own, period. The best mothers are the main caregivers. For the best mothers, their kids are the center of the universe. The best mothers always smile. They always understand. They are never tired. They never lose their temper. They never say, "Go to the neighbor's house and play while Mommy has a beer." Their love for their children is boundless, unflagging, flawless, total. Mothers today cannot just respond to their kids' needs, they must predict them--and with the telepathic accuracy of Houdini. They must memorize verbatim the books of all the child-care experts and know which approaches are developmentally appropriate at different ages. They are supposed to treat their two-year-olds with "respect." If mothers screw up and fail to do this on any given day, they should apologize to their kids, because any misstep leads to permanent psychological and/or physical damage. Anyone who questions whether this is the best and the necessary way to raise kids is an insensitive, ignorant brute. This is just common sense, right?

Grief is shameless; it refuses to be ignored. If you let it have its way, it becomes fatal. If you try to remove it piece by piece, it only multiplies like a tumor. And if you try to fight it, it becomes like quicksand; you try to claw your way back to the surface, and for a second you feel the fresh air against your face, thinking you've survived, only to be pulled fiercely back down again, swallowed whole, nothing left.

Healing, it turns out, is a journey. It doesn’t happen all at once.

Abort the thought, save the baby

Breasts are a scandal because they shatter the border between motherhood and sexuality.

MotherHushed and sacred silencefills the dawning skyI ponder in this momentof our journey which is nigh...

Oh mommy! You are my world, my love. I am your little boy, and I stole your heart.

Her eyes were open, taking in my tired face... Her face twitched into what looked like a squinty smile, and in her wordless expression I saw gratitude, and relief, and trust. I wanted, desperately, not to disappoint her.

That's the funny thing about children. When they were around, you wanted peace and quiet. A mere moment to yourself. You felt absolutely desperate to go more than three minutes without hearing the word Moooooooom echoing throughout the house. To go to the bathroom or - if luck was really on your side - to take an uninterrupted shower. Yet, when they were absent, no matter how infrequently that happened, it felt as though someone had amputated your limb and left a stinging open wound in its place. And you craved them like a cold beer on a blistering summer day.

I sighed and deleted the message, imagining the dirty clothes multiplying like rabbits, because that’s what they do when I’m not around.