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Children Quotes by Ayelet Waldman

38 Children quotes by Ayelet Waldman

All Children quotes Ayelet Waldman’s page

A mother remembers each spanking like a tattoo on her child's palm, showing how discipline can leave lasting marks. Waldman warns that pouring all emotional energy into children may strain the partnership that created the family. She also describes the daily grind that leaves parents exhausted by bedtime.

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I love my husband more than I love my children,

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In a perfect world, probably we'd never yell, we'd just be firm and dispassionate. But of course, everyone yells at their children.

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Personally, I think four is the perfect number of children for our particular family. Four is enough to create the frenzied cacophony…

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It's incredibly important to me that my children don't put anything in their bodies that they haven't tested first - that's how…

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If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good…

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Is Valentine's Day a day to make cupcakes with your children? No, Valentine's is supposed to be a day about romantic love.

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I have made so many mistakes as a mother. But the one thing that I know I do is I make sure…

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One of the darkest, deepest shames so many of us mothers feel nowadays is our fear that we are Bad Mothers, that…

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There is an inverse correlation between the cleanliness of a bathroom and my 3-year-old daughter's need to move her bowels.

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When the babies were very young, I found it difficult to write. I told myself each time that it would be different,…

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I think it's worth trying to be a mother who delights in who her children are, in their knock-knock jokes and earnest…

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The thing is, my fantasies about being a parent always involved fighting for my unpopular child, doing for her what my own…

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A good mother remembers to serve fruit at breakfast, is always cheerful and never yells, manages not to project her own neuroses…

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My own husband was divorced when we met, but without kids. I don't know what I would have done if he'd had…

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I did not want to raise a genetically compromised child. I did not want my children to have to contend with the…

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It's hard to separate your remembered childhood and its emotional legacy from the childhoods that are being lived out in your house,…

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Look, if you ask a child, 'Would you rather have a fulfilled mother or a stay-at-home Sylvia Plath,' they'll pick Sylvia Plath…

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If you focus all of your emotional passion on your children and you neglect the relationship that brought that family into existence...…

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Roaring like a tiger turns some children into pianists who debut at Carnegie Hall but only crushes others. Coddling gives some the…

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By the time the children go to bed, I am as drained as any mother who has spent her day working, car…

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So many women today have become so focused on their children, they've developed these romantic entanglements with their children's lives, and the…

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When I was 15, what I wanted in a boyfriend was just that confidence and swagger. I wanted someone who knew what…

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The capacity for extravagant emotion that my husband finds so attractive in me can be exhausting, especially to a child. My moods…

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Because of my bipolar disorder, I tend to these mixed states, which are depressed but loud and agitated. So I can be…

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I tend to approach giving interviews with the same sense of circumspection and restraint as I approach my writing. That is to…

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During the periods in my marriage when I chose to stay home with my kids rather than work as an attorney, it…

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I certainly don't think it's inevitable that we don't love children who don't carry our own DNA. If that were true we…

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There are times as a parent when you realize that your job is not to be the parent you always imagined you'd…

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I tell myself that after four children my belly is already so stretched and flabby that I have to do origami to…

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I believe that mothers should tell the truth, even - no, especially - when the truth is difficult. It's always easier, and…

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Perhaps my children will one day pledge their loyalty to the Republican Party. Or perhaps they'll dismiss my liberalism as mild pap,…

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When my first daughter was born, my husband held her in his hands and said, 'My God, she's so beautiful.' I unwrapped…

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I think I wish I had never spanked my children, but I have. And they remember every instance like they tattooed it…

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I had a second trimester abortion. I was pregnant with a much-wanted child who was diagnosed with a genetic abnormality. I made…

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Yes, I have four children. Four children with whom I spend a good part of every day: bathing them, combing their hair,…

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By presenting a faithful and honest record of my experience as a mother, I hope to show both my readers and my…

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Another parent's different approach raises the possibility that you've made a mistake with your child. We simply can't tolerate that because we…

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I hate homework. I hate it more now than I did when I was the one lugging textbooks and binders back and…

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More by Ayelet Waldman

What I do with my kids is - and I think they probably do ignore us - is No Alcohol. If they're drunk they…

You know, I feel like my job is to write a book. Then filmmakers come and they make a movie. And they're two really…

I went from resenting my mother-in-law to accepting her, finally to appreciating her. What appeared to be her diffidence when I was first married,…

Courage is impulsive; it is narcissism tempered with nihilism.

Most writers spend their lives standing a little apart from the crowd, watching and listening and hoping to catch that tiny hint of despair,…

The thing about youthful offenders is that no one seems to care about them. Most people don't like adolescents - even the good ones…

I was born in Israel, to Canadian parents. My father immigrated in 1948, part of a wave of young men and women who came…

Lots of medications work for a month, or a year, and then stop working.

If you focus all of your emotional passion on your children and you neglect the relationship that brought that family into existence... eventually, things…

I think I wish I had never spanked my children, but I have. And they remember every instance like they tattooed it on their…

With prodigious bravery and eviscerating humor, Roxane Gay takes on culture and politics in Bad Feminist-and gets it right, time and time again. We…

Because of my bipolar disorder, I tend to these mixed states, which are depressed but loud and agitated. So I can be terribly irritable.…

It's hard to separate your remembered childhood and its emotional legacy from the childhoods that are being lived out in your house, by your…

“Even if I’m setting myself up for failure, I think it’s worth trying to be a mother who delights in who her children are,…

I hate homework. I hate it more now than I did when I was the one lugging textbooks and binders back and forth from…