W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Children are what the mothers are.

That was a judicious mother who said, "I obey my children for the first year of their lives, but ever after I expect them to obey me.

I was the oldest of five children, each about a year apart, and my mother, bless her heart, had her hands full.

Every woman goes through a lot of agony before she decides in favour of her own happiness or that of her children.

A capable mother keeps her young people employed and thus out of mischief. She demands from them co-operative helpfulness. She maintains Shelter. She distributes praise and blame. She keeps order. She does not pretend to practice "democracy", the children do not elect their teachers nor determine the methods of family government. Any mother who knows her business is in her home an absolute domestic dictator. It is she who decides what the children shall eat and wear, when they shall get up or go to bed, and go to school, and come home, &c. Her reign extends however, only over the young and her sole object is to fit them to take proper care of themselves later and to make their own way in life

Bringing up children always has a bigger role for the mother.

The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.

As motherhood as a "private enterprise" declines and more mothers rely on the work of lower-paid specialists, the value accorded the work of mothering (not the value of children) has declined for women, making it all the harder for men to take it up.

If they would all sleep all the time she wouldn't mind being their mother.

Alone of human beings the good and wise mother stands on a plane of equal honor with the bravest soldier; for she has gladly gone down to the brink of the chasm of darkness to bring back the children in whose hands rests the future of the years.

Mothers aren't allowed to have favorite children!

I'm a mother of three children, and we do make mistakes.

And in the same way, FDR's not much of a father. Although the children in all their memoirs really talk about what a fun-loving guy Dad was, and how brooding and unhappy Mom was. The children sort of blame it all on the mother. Well, this is kind of standard and typical, and aggrieved Eleanor Roosevelt that she was not a happier mother. She wanted to be a happier mother. And I must say, she was a happier grandmother.

In erotic love, two people who were separate become one. In motherly love, two people who were one become separate. The mother must not only tolerate, she must wish and support the child's separation.

Beyond a certain point, that was all a mother could do for her children - Hang around long enough to drive them crazy.

I think because I was a mother, it helped me feel comfortable that really my primary goal there was to save my kids.

I would have been a terrible mother because I'm basically a very selfish human being. Not that that has stopped most people going off and having children.

To be a good father and mother requires that the parents defer many of their own needs and desires in favor of the needs of their children. As a consequence of this sacrifice, conscientious parents develop a nobility of character.

We must feel toward our people as a father toward his children; yea, the most tender love of a mother must not surpass ours. We must even travail in birth, till Christ be formed in them. They should see that we care for no outward thing, neither liberty, nor honor, nor life, in comparison to their salvation... When the people see that you truly love them, they will hear anything from you...Oh therefore, see that you feel a tender love for your people in your hearts, and let them perceive it in your speech and conduct. Let them see that you spend and are spent for their sakes.

A mother has, perhaps, the hardest earthly lot; and yet no mother worthy of the name ever gave herself thoroughly for her child who did not feel that, after all, she reaped what she had sown.

You have nothing in this world more precious than your children. When you grow old, when your hair turns white and your body grows weary, when you are prone to sit in a rocker and meditate on the things of your life, nothing will be so important as the question of how your children have turned out... Do not trade your birthright as a mother for some bauble of passing value... The baby you hold in your arms will grow as quickly as the sunrise and the sunset of the rushing days.

I am definitely a person who supports mothers. I believe in having children. Maternity leave and all that stuff is super important to me. In terms of one-on-one with employees, being a mom helps me ground my roots to humanity. When someone is going through a personal issue, I can keep it on a human level.

The future destiny of a child is always the work of the mother

The mother is the first teacher of the child. The message she gives that child, that child gives to the world.

The reason child care is such a loaded issue is that when we talk about it, we are always tacitly talking about motherhood. And when we're talking about motherhood we're always tacitly assuming that child care must be a very dim second to full-time mother care.