Jessica Valenti Quotes

I remember, when I was a teenager, people telling me, 'You know, when you are a mother, you will never feel lonely. You will feel so much love, and you will be fulfilled by this love.' Then I became a mother. And I learnt that is absolutely wrong: you can feel very lonely with your children, even if you love them.

And that was the greatest heartbreak of all- no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint. As it turns out, kids are more like us than we think: damaged, through and through.

Do not try to live your children's lives out of your own frustrations.

Motherhood is so sentimentalised and romanticised in our culture. It's practically against the law to say there are moments in the day when you hate your children. Everyone actually has those moments.

Dickens had more energy than anyone in the world, and he expected his sons to be like him, and they couldn't be.

My father was this famous heart surgeon, a wonderful man... but there was something about me that drove him crazy.

Parents - especially step-parents - are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fulfill the promise of their early years.

From their teenage years on, children are considerably more capable of causing parents unhappiness than bringing them happiness. That is one reason parents who rely on their children for happiness make both their children and themselves miserable.

When a parent shows up with an attitude of entitlement, understand that under it is a boatload of anxiety.

It sounds ideal, a sort of beach childhood. But it wasn't really. I didn't use the beach very much at all.

You expect certain things. You build up in your mind how it's supposed to go down. When you get a record deal, you think you're supposed to get X, Y, and Z. It doesn't happen like that. You're like 'Oh, this isn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be.'

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 every time. But I think it's really important that children don't feel their parents' emotional lives depend on their success.

People idealize or reminisce about their 20s, but nobody tells you beforehand that it's hard and unglamorous and often very unpleasant.

When I found out about being cast in 'Spider-Man,' it was like this bubble developed around me. I was floating in it for a while. And then, suddenly, it evaporated, and I was like, 'Well, I'm just an actor. I don't get to actually be Spider-Man.'

I think, for me, with regard to my parents, my biggest fear was not that they would reject me but that I would disappoint them. That by coming out, I would simultaneously dash my own dreams and their dreams for me, and I was afraid of letting them down.

I think probably everyone can relate to wanting to believe that your parents are one thing, and having to come to the realization that they might not be.

Once you are a parent, everything takes a back seat. It ceases to be a role. It is a reality. Once I had Ranveer, I realised that I was cracking under the pressure and that I cannot be a superwoman. I had to open myself to learning.

My father was in the coal and heating business, and he wanted me to take over his business, and I resented every moment of it. So I would never force my kids to do what I do.

Sometimes when you think something is shiny and gold, it tends to be rusted and bronze, but that's just the way it is, man.

No matter how many Christmas presents you give your child, there's always that terrible moment when he's opened the very last one. That's when he expects you to say, 'Oh yes, I almost forgot,' and take him out and show him the pony.

But don't think that it's a system or a culture or a state or a person that does the letting down. It's our expectations that let us down. It begins in the warmth of the womb and the discovery that it's cold outside. But it's not the cold's fault that it's cold.

It seems to me that the most fundamental mistake most parents make with children is to expect them to be grateful. Children are never grateful. ... The 'sacrifices' you made were not for them, they were for you.

When I played baseball I got death threats all the time--from my mother.

You always think that a bolt of lightning is going to strike and your parents will magically change into the people you wish they were, or back into the people they used to be.

You see how it is godlike to love the being of someone. Your existence is a delight to us. I hope you never have to long for a child as I did, but oh, what a splendid thing it has been that you came finally, and what a blessing to enjoy you now for almost seven years.