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My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.

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I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," she whispers. Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who lov...more

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We pretend that we know our children, because it's easier than admitting the truth--from the minute that cord is cut, they are strangers. It's far eas...more

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It was so damn hard to find love in this world, to locate someone who could make you feel that there was a reason you'd been put on this earth. A chil...more

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[I] don't think I was trying to kill myself. I just wanted to hurt, and understand exactly whay I was hurting. This made sense: you cut, you felt pain...more

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I wondered how long it took for a baby to become yours, for familiarity to set in. Maybe as long as it took a new car to lose that scent, or a brand-n...more

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Was it the act of giving birth that made you a mother? Did you lose that label when you relinquished your child? If people were measured by their deed...more

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It's the child who's supposed to cry, and the mom who makes it all better, not the other way around, which is why mothers will move heaven and earth t...more

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I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be.

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Children are supposed to go to school, play on swing sets, skin their knees.

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Logically, I understand that it wasn't Edward's fault my family fell apart after he left. But when you're eleven years old, you don't give a flip abou...more

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Taking a deep breath, I shake my head and find Judge staring at me. "Reason number 106 why dogs are smarter than humans," I say. "Once you leave the l...more

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I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I am not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyw...more

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It was easier for girls. They could say This hurts, or I don’t like how this feels, and have the complaint be socially acceptable. Boys, though, didn’...more

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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...more