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These Mother's Day quotes show mothers as being their own persons, wanting to live their own lives, and refusing to be put on a pedestal.
It’s Mother’s Day, and of course, it is time to reflect on the loveliness of motherhood – whether it is thanking our mothers, or our children for giving us the chance to grow as mothers. Yet, we don’t have words sometimes for how hard or crazy motherhood is; or how unprepared for it we are. So why not look at some Mother’s Day quotes?
That’s when these amazingly insightful writers come to your rescue. Cutting, humorous or poignant, these mother’s day quotes show you things as they really are, when it comes to motherhood – not all sweetness and light!
These Mother’s Day quotes tell you to stop putting mothers on a pedestal. Because motherhood is beautiful but it can also be about conflict, negotiation, acceptance and identity issues.
“When your mother asks, “Do you want a piece of advice?” it’s a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.” ― Erma Bombeck
“But kids don’t stay with you if you do it right. It’s the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won’t be needed in the long run.” ― Barbara Kingsolver, Pigs in Heaven
“Children are knives, my mother once said. They don’t mean to, but they cut. And yet we cling to them, don’t we, we clasp them until the blood flows.” ― Joanne Harris, The Girl with No Shadow
“God know that a mother need fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul.” ― Phyllis McGinley
“Sometimes being a good mother gets in the way of being a good person.” ― Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, A Woman of Independent Means
“Of course mothers and daughters with strong personalities might see the world from very different points of view.” ― Katherine Howe, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
“And really, how insulting is it that to suggest that the best thing women can do is raise other people to do incredible things? I’m betting some of those women would like to do great things of their own.” ― Jessica Valenti, Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness
“Never argue with a mother who’s scolding her child.” ― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
“The great motherhood friendships are the ones in which two women can admit [how difficult mothering is] quietly to each other, over cups of tea at a table sticky with spilled apple juice and littered with markers without tops.” ― Anna Quindlen
“A sick child is always the mother’s property; her own feelings generally make it so.” ― Jane Austen, Persuasion
“I’ve spent my whole life trying to get over having had Nikki for a mother, and I have to say that from day one after she died, I liked having a dead mother much more than having an impossible one.” ― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
“I wasn’t put on this earth to be housekeeper to my own child or to anyone else for that matter.” ― Lynn Freed
“Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we’ve ever met.” ― Marguerite Duras
“Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.” ― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary
“But mothers lie. It’s in the job description.” ― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines
“I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be.” ― Jodi Picoult, Keeping Faith
“Everyone is guilty at one time or another of throwing out questions that beg to be ignored, but mothers seem to have a market on the supply. “Do you want a spanking or do you want to go to bed?” “Don’t you want to save some of the pizza for your brother?” “Wasn’t there any change?” ― Erma Bombeck
“My mother’s menu consisted of two choices: Take it or leave it.” ― Buddy Hackett
“She was a monster, but she was my monster.” ― Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
“Thus far the mighty mystery of motherhood is this: How is it that doing it all feels like nothing is ever getting done.” ― Rebecca Woolf
“There’s no bitch on earth like a mother frightened for her kids.” ― Stephen King
“Maybe a mother wasn’t what she seemed to be on the surface.” ― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
“Mothers are all slightly insane.” ― J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
“Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit—Will Travel
“The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.” ― Dorothy Parker
“24/7. Once you sign on to be a mother, that’s the only shift they offer.” ― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
“No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” ― Margaret Sanger
“It’s come at last”, she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.” ― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
“… by and large, mothers and house wives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.” ― Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“Angry mothers raise daughters fierce enough to fight wolves.” ― Nghi Vo, The Empress of Salt and Fortune
“Taking care of myself doesn’t mean ‘me first.’ It means ‘me, too.” ― L.R. Knost
Are there any more such Mother’s Day quotes you can suggest? Do add a comment.
In her role as the Senior Editor & Community Manager at Women's Web, Sandhya Renukamba is fortunate to associate every day with a whole lot of smart and fabulous writers and readers. A doctor read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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