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Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood QUOTES

Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood QUOTES

1 " I thought of how many women told me dispiritedly about how their husbands waited for them to ask—or to make a list—and how demoralizing that was for them. I could not help thinking that there was some element of passive aggression in this recurrent theme of nice men, good, playful dads, full of initiative and motivation at work, who “waited to be asked” to do the more tedious baby-related work at home, until the asking was finally scaled back or stopped. "

― Naomi Wolf , Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood

2 " It is not biology alone but heroism too that drives women to find the will and grit and creativity to put one’s own impulses aside to serve the needs of a tiny creature around the clock—especially in an environment in which that heroic choice is only casually acknowledged, much less honored, cherished, or assisted. I believe the myth about the ease and naturalness of mothering—the ideal of the effortlessly ever-giving mother—is propped up, polished, and promoted as a way to keep women from thinking clearly and negotiating forcefully about what they need from their partners and from society at large in order to mother well, without having to sacrifice themselves in the process. "

― Naomi Wolf , Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood

3 " Babies, I speculated in that peculiar mystical state, are sort of leaky little understudies for God. With each baby the human species gets the chance to break out of the self into the service of something so ‘other’ that the reasons for conditional love can give way to faith in unconditional love… with babies, we get the chance to take one manageable baby step on the long hard path of the saints. "

― Naomi Wolf , Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood