Not Being A Good Mother Quotes & Sayings

I've been trying to keep the private life private. Not being savvy or trained on how to do good interviews like a politician, I thought it was wiser to follow my mother's advice: If you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all. — Wesley Snipes

A mother who is obsessing about being thin and dieting and exercising is not going to be a very good mother. — Jane Fonda

One thing about my mother is that she has her taste: She knows what she likes and what looks good. It's not studied. There is no insecurity in what she is going to wear, and I think that translates into effortlessness. Her career has been a steady rise, and it hasn't been about the fashion of the moment. It's been because she has kept to her style. She didn't go grunge when it was grunge, or 70's when it was 70's. It's about being secure with what you like and not worrying about what's in fashion that particular day. That's what I admire about her. — Carolina Herrera

Many people are concerned with children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is the greatest destroyer of peace today- abortion which brings people to such blindness. — Mother Teresa

Julia never asked herself why bad things happen to good people, for she already knew the answer: bad things happen t everyone. Not that this was an excuse or a justification for wronging another human being. Still, all humans had this shared experience- that of suffering. No human being left this world without shedding a tear,of feeling pain,or wading into the sea of sorrow. Why should her life be any different? Why should she expect special, favoured treatment? Even Mother Teresa suffered, and she was a saint. — Sylvain Reynard

The principals are quite simple. We can love people who treat us well. We cannot love people who treat us badly because, treating someone badly is not a virtue and we can only love virtue. I don't think that's controversial. I mean, there is no marriage therapist that I can imagine in the world who would say to a woman being beaten, humiliated, verbally abused, or completely ignored by her husband, "You just need to love him more. You need to work at making him happier." That would be sadistic in the extreme to say to someone.
So, in the same way I say, if anyone, I don't care if they are your priest, god, father, mother, or your Siamese twin cousin coming out of your elbow or ass. I don't care. If someone is treating you badly, that is not good for you. The solution is not you being so great that you both become better. That's not a realistic solution. — Stefan Molyneux

The attempt to be an ideal parent, that is, to behave correctly toward the child, to raise her correctly, not to give to little ortoo much, is in essence an attempt to be the ideal child
well behaved and dutiful
of one's own parents. But as a result of these efforts the needs of the child go unnoticed. I cannot listen to my child with empathy if I am inwardly preoccupied with being a good mother; I cannot be open to what she is telling me. — Alice Miller

When a mother extends outstretched arms to a son who has failed in sports, or school, or socially, or been deemed not smart enough, 'manly enough,' or just plain not good enough, he begins to understand what love is all about. The moment a mother extends her grace, he begins to understand that goodness in being a man isn't all about his performance. It isn't about his successes or his failures. It is about being able to accept love from another and then return that love."1 — Vicki Courtney

Once upon a time, if you wanted to talk about the notion of child abandonment, of a mother not being a good mother, that's built into the mother who sends the babes into the woods, and they use the bits of bread or stones to come home again. — Isobelle Carmody

Happiness, she would explain, was when a person felt good, light, creative, content, loving and loved, and free. An unhappy person felt as if there were barriers crushing her desires and the talents she had inside. A happy woman was one who could exercise all kinds of rights, from the right to move to the right to create, compete, and challenge, and at the same time could be loved for doing so. Part of happiness was to be loved by a man who enjoyed your strength and was proud of your talents. Happiness was also about the right to privacy, the right to retreat from the company of others and plunge into contemplative solitude. Or sit by yourself doing nothing for a whole day, and not give excuses or feel guilty about it either. Happiness was to be with loved ones, and yet still feel that you existed as a separate being, that ou were not just there to make them happy. Happiness was when there was a balance between what you gave and what you took. — Fatema Mernissi

Reading is a sage way to bump up against life. Reading may be an escape, but it is not an escape from my own life and problems. It is an escape from the narrow boundaries of being only me. Reading in some wonderful ways helps me find out who I am. When she was a young girl Patricia MacLachlan's mother encouraged her to "read a book and find out who you are." And it is true that in some ways reading defines me as it refines me. Reading enlarges my vision of the world; it helps me understand someone who is different from me. It makes me bigger on the inside. We tend to see the world from our own perspective; it is good to see it from the eyes of others. Good literature helps me understand who I am in relation to what others experience. Far from being an escape from reality, good literature is a window into reality. I read to feel life. — Gladys M. Hunt

Actually, abortion is part of being a mother and of caring for children, because part of caring for children is knowing when it's not a good idea to bring them into the world. — Katha Pollitt

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, in their knock-knock jokes and earnest questions. A mother who spends less time obseessing about what will happen, or what has happened, and more time reveling in what is. A mother who doesn't fret over failings and slights, who realizes her worries and anxieties are just thoughts, the continuous chattering and judgement of a too busy mind. A mother who doesn't worry so much about being bad or good but just recognizes that she's both, and neither. A mother who does her best, and for whom that is good enough, even if, in the end, her best turns out to be, simply, not bad. — Ayelet Waldman

It's been forty years of terrible waste,' she said, 'a whole country of wasted lives. It's a country of big children, people being naughty behind the teacher's back, people tattling on each other, people getting their dumb certificates for being good little socialists. People submitting to the system because they're German and because it's a system. The whole thing was stupid and a lie. But they're not arrogant, not know-it-alls. They give what they have and they take me the way I am.'

The closer she came to dying, the more sure of herself she became. She'd concluded that the meaning of a life was in the form of it. There was no answering the question of why she'd been born, she could only take what she'd been given and try to make it end well. She intended to die in her mother's bedroom, in the company of her brother and her only offspring, without the indignity of a colostomy bag. — Jonathan Franzen

The group was not afraid of being radical either; they could see the good Roosevelt was doing, despite what Mother and Dad said; they were not taken in by party labels and thought the Democrats should be given a chance to show what they had up their sleeve. — Mary McCarthy

Had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard - and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings - and he was not in the least addicted — Jane Austen

By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.
After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am. — James Agee

Parenting can be established as a time-share job, but mothers are less good "switching off" their parent identity and turning to something else. Many women envy the father's ability to set clear boundaries between home and work, between being an on-duty and an off-duty parent ... Women work very hard to maintain a closeness to their child. Father's value intimacy with a child, but often do not know how to work to maintain it. — Terri E Apter

I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called - nay we call ourselves and write our name - Crusoe; and so my companions always called me. — Daniel Defoe

My mother started out by being a very good girl. She did everything that was expected of her, and it cost her dearly. Late in her life, she was furious that she had not followed her own heart; she thought that it had ruined her life, and I think she was right. — Ruth Reichl

What is a sigh? That would be another good subject for a field study. Is it just a long, deep, audible exhalation of breath? Rose's sigh was intense but not subdued. It was frustrated but not yet sad. A sigh resets the respiratory system so it was possible that my mother had been holding her breath, which suggests she was more nervous than she appeared to be. A sigh is an emotional response to being set a difficult task. — Deborah Levy

I think my mother taught me what not to do. She put us first, always, sometimes to the detriment of herself. She encouraged me not to do that. She'd say being a good mother isn't all about sacrificing; it's really investing and putting yourself higher on your priority list. — Michelle Obama

Being a good mother does not call for the same qualities as being a good housewife; a dedication to keeping children clean and tidy may override an interest in their separate development as individuals. — Ann Oakley

Christian wives tend to leave the 'fat books' and theology to their husbands. While this may look 'submissive' to some, it is actually disobedience. It is not enough that we know Proverbs 31, Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 3, and 1 Corinthians 1 and 14. We have to know more than how to be a good wife. After all, our calling is to be good Christians; and if we are good Christians, we will be good wives and mothers. We mustn't be afraid to deal with topics other than those which directly deal with being a wife and mother. — Nancy Wilson

For me, just being how old I am, I know I don't want to be a single mom. I really would rather make it a two-person job. But I've also come to terms with not being a mother at all. I'm actually really good with either direction that my life can take as being a valid experience. — Lisa Edelstein

being a good mother does not mean being perfect every single moment. we screw up. we get mad, we drink too much, eat too much, yell too much. a good mother learns from her mistakes and does what she can to not let them happen over and over. — Amy Hatvany

I am not allowed to be afraid. My mother made me like that. As a child, if I was afraid of the dark, she would lock me in the closet. Things like this. And she would talk about the time she spent in the concentration camp, but not about being afraid, only about the good side of it. — Diane Von Furstenberg

I'm not ... it's just that I don't know anything about owning a -
I stop and give myself a swift mental kick in the ass. So what if I don't know anything about owning a business? I can learn.
I don't know anything about being a mother either, but I've started to believe that someday, I could be a good one. I'd certainly give it everything I have. — Nina Lane

I do mean this - I had the good fortune of being around a number of Alzheimer's patients in the last three years of my mother's life. She was in a care facility that was devoted to just people with memory-loss issues. I found those people engaging and generous in ways that I had not imagined. — James Rebhorn

Our children, Edward, Agnes, and little Mary, promise well; their education, for the time being, is chiefly committed to me; and they shall want no good thing that a mother's care can give.
Our modest income is amply sufficient for our requirements; and by practising the economy we learnt in harder times, and never attempting to imitate our richer neighbours, we manage not only to enjoy comfort and contentment ourselves, but to have every year something to lay by for our children, and something to give to those who need it.
And now I think I have said sufficient. — Anne Bronte

Happy we were then, for we had a good house, and good food, and good work. There was nothing to do outside at night, except chapel, or choir, or penny-readings, sometimes. But even so, we always found plenty to do until bedtime, for if we were not studying or reading, then we were making something out back, or over the mountain singing somewhere. I can remember no time when there was not plenty to be done.
I wonder what has happened in fifty years to change it all ... But when people stop being friends with their mother and fathers, and itching to be out of the house, and going mad for other things to do, I cannot think. It is like an asthma, that comes on a man quickly. He has no notion how he had it, but there it is, and nothing can cure it. — Richard Llewellyn

Read good writing, and don't live in the present. Live in the deep past, with the language of the Koran or the Mabinogion or Mother Goose or Dickens or Dickinson or Baldwin or whatever speaks to you deeply. Literature is not high school and it's not actually necessary to know what everyone around you is wearing, in terms of style, and being influenced by people who are being published in this very moment is going to make you look just like them, which is probably not a good long-term goal for being yourself or making a meaningful contribution. At any point in history there is a great tide of writers of similar tone, they wash in, they wash out, the strange starfish stay behind, and the conches. — Rebecca Solnit

Raeanne
Mirror, Mirror

When I look into a
mirror,
it is her face I see.
Her right is my left, double
moles, dimple and all.
My right is her left,
unblemished.

We are exact
opposites,
Kaeleigh and me.
Mirror image identical
twins. One egg, one sperm
one zygote, divided,
sharing one complete
set of genetic markers.

On the outside we are

the same. But not
inside. I think
she is the egg, so
much like our mother
it makes me want to scream.
Cold.
Controlled.

That makes me the sperm
I guess. I take completely
after our father.
All Daddy, that's me.
Codependent.
Cowardly.

Good, bad. Left, right.
Kaeleigh and Raeanne.
One egg, one sperm.
One being, split in two.

And how many
souls? — Ellen Hopkins

It is not a good feeling being right about something you have suspected when you finally gain undeniable confirmation that it's true. It is not the satisfying sensation of everything slipping into place for which you have yearned. It's more like, 'Oh, right.' The man who has been staying over your whole life long is your mother's lover. The reason Lucy seems off sometimes is that she's still drinking. You have always known this. The only thing that's mysterious is how you managed to think it mysterious. — Ariel Levy

I pursued education not instead of being a good mother, but because being a good mother required that I build a better life for my family. — Wendy Davis

Their mother died early, and not in a good way. Not that anyone dies in a good way, Tin footnotes to himself, but there are degrees. Being hit by a truck after closing time while jaywalking blinded with mournful tears was not a good way. Though it was quick. — Margaret Atwood

I have a word to say to my sisters. When I reflect upon the duties and responsibilities devolving upon our mothers and sisters, and the influence they wield, I look upon them as the mainspring and soul of our being here. It is true that man is first. Father Adam was placed here as king of the earth, to bring it into subjection. But when Mother Eve came she had a splendid influence over him. A great many have thought it was not very good; I think it was excellent (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 199).). — Brigham Young

If basketball was going to enable Bradley to make friends, to prove that a banker's son is as good as the next fellow, to prove that he could do without being the greatest-end-ever at Missouri, to prove that he was not chicken, and to live up to his mother's championship standards, and if he was going to have some moments left over to savor his delight in the game, he obviously needed considerable practice, so he borrowed keys to the gym and set a schedule for himself that he adhereded to for four full years - in the school year, three and a half hours every day after school, nine to five on Saturday, one-thirty to five on Sunday, and, in the summer, about three hours a day. — John McPhee

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you for rejecting me by never being there, fuck you for making me feel like shit about myself, fuck you for bleeding the fucking love and life out of me, fuck my father for fucking up my life for good and fuck my mother for not leaving him, but most of all, fuck you God for making me love a person who does not exist.
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU. — Sarah Kane

The man felt that she had not been a very good mother and was not a good person. At one point, Nisargadatta advised him to love his mother. The man replied, "She wouldn't let me." Nisargadatta responded, "She couldn't stop you." No external condition can prevent love; no one and no thing can stop it. The awakening of love is not bound up in things being a certain way. Metta, like the true nature of the mind, is not dependent; it is not conditioned. — Sharon Salzberg

Many parents lack a biblical view of discipline. They tend to think of discipline as revenge - getting even with the children for what they did. Hebrews 12 makes it clear that discipline is not punitive, but corrective. Hebrews 12 calls discipline a word of encouragement that addresses sons. It says discipline is a sign of God's identification with us as our Father. God disciplines us for our good that we might share in his holiness. It says that while discipline is not pleasant, but painful, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace. Rather than being something to balance love, it is the deepest expression of love. — Tedd Tripp

Charles Wallace looked troubled. I don't think it's that. It's being able to understand a sort of language, like sometimes if I concentrate very hard I can understand the wind talking with the trees. You tell me, you see, sort of inad - inadvertently. That's a good word, isn't it? I got Mother to look it up in the dictionary for me this morning. I really must learn to read, except I'm afraid it will make it awfully hard for me in school next year if I already know things. I think it will be better if people go on thinking I'm not very bright. They won't hate me quite so much. — Madeleine L'Engle

But maybe my expression isn't as bad as I think it is. Maybe Galen's just really good at reading me. Or maybe he's just being overly mushy himself. He is a tad protective, after all. I glance at Toraf, who's sitting on the other full-size bed next to Rayna. And Toraf is already looking at me. When our eyes meet, he shakes his head ever so slightly. As if to say, "Don't do it." As if to say, "You really don't want to do it." As if to say, "I know you really want to do it, but I'm asking you not to. As a friend."
I huff, then adjust myself in Galen's death grip. It's not fair that Galen and Toraf silently ask me to accept this. That my mother is putty in Grom's proficient hands. That her temperature barely raised a degree around my dad, yet Grom, within an hour of reunion, has her titanium exterior dissolving like Alka-Seltzer in hot water. I can't accept it. Won't. Will. Not. — Anna Banks

My mother taught me to focus on being myself and not to worry what other people think about you. I know that as long as I'm a good person I'll stay on the right path. From my dad I learned that when someone tells you "No" it's only the beginning of a conversation. They both have always let me know that I can do anything I want to do as long as I don't give up. They are the most important role models in my life because they are exactly who I want to be when I grow up. They are supportive and understanding and I try every day to remember what they've taught me. — Lauren Conrad

She did not want to be Bilong's mother, or her grandmother. She had done with these roles, with being a good child, a good wife, a good mother. She had put seventy-odd years into it; she had worked hard at it; now she wanted to be that Ofelia who painted and carved and sang in an old cracked voice with strange creatures and their stranger music. The — Elizabeth Moon

Your mother hollers that you're going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don't stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don't thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not
you vault down down the stairs and make a run for the corner.
Only if it's the last time you'll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you'd stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.
But the bus was barreling down our street so I ran. — Emmy Laybourne

TV was entertainment of the last resort. There was nothing on during the day in the summer other than game shows and soap operas. Besides, a TV-watching child was considered available for chores: take out the trash, clean your room, pick up that mess, fold those towels, mow the lawn ... the list was endless. We all became adept at chore-avoidance. Staying out of sight was a reliable strategy. Drawing or painting was another: to my mother, making art trumped making beds. A third choir-avoidance technique was to read. A kid with his or her nose in a book is a kid who is not fighting, yelling, throwing, breaking things, bleeding, whining, or otherwise creating a Mom-size headache. Reading a book was almost like being invisible - a good thing for all concerned. — Pete Hautman

I would not be a good mother. I mean, I love being an aunt to my niece and nephew. And I used to want to, like, adopt 10 kids - because I had friends who were adopted, and I thought that was the coolest thing, to be chosen. But again, my job is too selfish. — Kelly Clarkson