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." .… — Mary Blakely Copy Share Image
However diligent she may be, however dedicated, no mother can escape the larger influences of culture, biology,fate . . . until we can actually… — Mary Blakely Copy Share Image
In motherhood, where seemingly opposite realities can be simultaneously true, the role of nurturer invariably conflicts with the role of socializer. When trouble came… — Mary Blakely Copy Share Image
Mothers are likely to have more bad days on the job than most other professionals, considering the hours: round-the-clock, seven days a week, fifty-two… — Mary Blakely Copy Share Image
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… — Mary Blakely Copy Share
Families don't always realize that mother is exhausted, because mother is always exhausted. Exhausted is what looks normal. — Mary Blakely Copy Share Image
If my sons are to become the kind of men our daughters would be pleased to live among, attention to domestic details is critical.The… — Mary Blakely Copy Share Image
After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I'd read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers--especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a… — Mary Blakely Copy Share
A "snapshot" feature in USA Today listed the five greatest concerns parents and teachers had about children in the '50s: talking out of turn, chewing gum in class, doing homework, stepping out of line, cleaning their rooms. Then it listed the five top concerns of parents today: drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, suicide and homicide, gang violence, anorexia and bulimia. We… — Mary Blakely Copy Share
Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the "wrong crowd" read like tornado alerts in parent manuals. . . . It is a relative term that means different things in different places. In Fort Wayne, for example, the wrong crowd meant hanging out with liberal Democrats. In Connecticut, it meant… — Mary Blakely Copy Share
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… — Mary Blakely Copy Share
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… — Mary Blakely Copy Share Image
