Mary Blakely Quotes

Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary bypass.

Since civilizing children takes the better part of two decades--some twenty years of nonstop thinking, nurturing, teaching, coaxing, 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.

One year, I'd completely lost my bearings trying to follow potty training instruction from a psychiatric expert. I was stuck on step 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.

By now, legions of tireless essayists and op-ed columnists have dressed feminists down for making such a fuss about entering the professions and earning equal pay that everyone's attention has been distracted from the important contributions of mothers working at home. This judgment presumes, of course, that prior to the resurgence of feminism in the '70s, housewives and mothers enjoyed wide recognition and honor. This was not exactly the case.

The job description of mother is clearly in need of revision. As it stands, the shifts are 24 hours, for a period of approximately 1,825 consecutive days. The benefits are sorely in need of amendment: no vacations, no sick leave, no lunch hours, no breaks. Moreover, it is the only unpaid position I know of that can result in arrest if you fail to show up for work.

A mother is neither cocky, nor proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child had just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium.

When trouble comes no mother should have to plead guilty alone. The pediatricians, psychologists, therapists, goat herders, fathers, and peer groups should all be called to the bench as well. . . .

Raising boys has made me a more generous woman than I really am. Undoubtedly, there are other routes to learning the wishes and dreams of the presumably opposite sex, but I know of none more direct, or more highly motivating, than being the mother of sons.

Women aren't trying to do too much. Women have too much to do.

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. Themoment 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.

Certainly, words can be as abusive as any blow. . . . When a three-year-old yells, "You're so stupid! What a dummy!" it doesn't carry the same weight as when a mother yells those words to a child. . . . Even if you don't physically abuse young children, you can still drive them nuts with your words.

Families don't always realize that mother is exhausted, because mother is always exhausted. Exhausted is what looks normal.

The absolute dependence of a newborn infant inspired many things in me, but it did not activate any magical knowledge about what to do for the next twenty years.

Mother is the first word that occurs to politicians and columnists and popes when they raise the question, 'Why isn't life turning out the way we want it?

A mother can legitimately be said to 'have a baby' - but in a civilization such as ours, she can never claim to own a teenager.

The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seemsas absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.

Spooky things happen in houses densely occupied by adolescent boys. When I checked out a four-inch dent in the living room ceilingone afternoon, even the kid still holding the baseball bat looked genuinely baffled about how he possibly could have done it.

With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet.

In the range of things toddlers have to learn and endlessly review--why you can't put bottles with certain labels in your mouth, why 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.

One life stamps and influences another, which in turn stamps and influences another, on and on, until the soul of human experience breathes on in generations we'll never meet.

It takes twenty or so years before a mother can know with any certainty how effective her theories have been--and even then thereare 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?

How can one explain all the time and thought that goes into raising a child, all the opportunities for mistakes, all the chances to recover and try again? How does one break the news that nothing permanent can be formed in an instant--children are not weaned, potty trained, taught manners, introduced to civilization in one or two tries--as everyone imagined.

Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary by pass. After such a monumental assault on the heart, it takes years to amend all the habits and attitudes that led up to it.

If a woman is to know herself, then periods of solitude should be courted, planned, and embraced.

However global I strove to become in my thinking over the past twenty years, my sons kept me rooted to an utterly pedestrian view,intimately involved with the most inspiring and fractious passages in human development. However unconsciously by now, motherhood informs every thought I have, influencing everything I do. More than any other part of my life, being a mother taught me what it means to be human.