Phyllis McGinley Quotes

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

Like most women, I always dreamed of becoming a mother.

Having a child as a single mother was a crucible - maybe this is true for all parents. I got rid of so much stuff that didn't really matter in the scheme of things-like throwing stuff out of an airplane that kept me flying too low. What was left was essential, i.e. not a lot of extraneous stuff that had kept me busy and people-pleasing. I just didn't have the luxury of wasting my life force on so much stupidity and distraction. That made me strong.

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

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.

Before I had children I always wondered whether their births would be, for me, like the ultimate in gym class failures. And I discovered instead... that I'd finally found my sport.

Being a mother is probably the hardest job in the world. I feel like, in a lot of ways, children come into the world to teach us.

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.

many tender, delicate mothers, seem to think that to make their children eat, is all that is requisite to make them great.

I was suppose to write a book about being a mom, to organize my thoughts into chapters and figure out a structure to hang them on, to make a lasting point, but somehow I decided to go ahead and become a mother instead.

A dutiful mother is someone who follows every step her child makes...And a good mother is someone whose child wants to follow her.

Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job." Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.

I just think some women aren't made to be mothers. And some women aren't made to be daughters.

Being a good mother, it seemed to me, meant you ran the risk of losing your child.

Children are what the mothers are.

I have found being a mother has made me emotionally raw in many situations. You heart is beating outside your body when you have a baby.

I definitely don't want to have kids ... I don't think I'd be a great mother. I'm a great aunt or friend of a mother ... I don't want to spend that kind of time. I don't want to have a kid and have it raised by a nanny. I don't have time to raise a child.

Every act of motherhood contains a dual intent, as the mother holds the child close and prepares it to move way from her, as she supports the child and stands it firmly on its own feet, and as she guards it against danger and sends it out across the yard, down by the stream, and across the traffic-crowded highway. Unless a mother can do both - gather her child close and turn her child out toward the world - she will fail in her purpose.

Maybe a mother wasn't what she seemed to be on the surface.

I have two kids, and when my oldest was first born, it was the most vulnerable feeling in the world. I remember taking him to his first doctor's appointment, and on the sheet, it said "mother," and I put my mom's name. I was like, "Oh, right, I ... I'm the mother!" You just feel so vulnerable.

Anyone who has brought up children knows that consistency has absolutely nothing to do with discipline.

In a famous Middletown study of Muncie, Indiana, in 1924, mothers were asked to rank the qualities they most desire in their children. At the top of the list were conformity and strict obedience. More than fifty years later, when the Middletown survey was replicated, mothers placed autonomy and independence first. The healthiest parenting probably promotes a balance of these qualities in children.

Maybe I had three children in the first place so I wouldn't ever have to play board games. In my religion, martyrs die.

A baby's a full time job for three adults. Nobody tells you that when you're pregnant, or you'd probably jump off a bridge. Nobody tells you how all-consuming it is to be a mother-how reading goes out the window and thinking too.