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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 thought of all the magazine article I'd read on mothers who worked and constantly felt guilty about leaving their children with someone else. I had ...more

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I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names.

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The best parenting advice I ever got was from a labor nurse who told me the following:1. After your baby gets here, the dog will just be a dog.2. The ...more

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Everyone thinks you make mistakes when you're young. But I don't think we make any fewer when we're grown up

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but it seems to me that growing up means you stop hoping for the best, and start expecting the worst. So how do you tell an adult that maybe everythin...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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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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Parents aren't the people you come from. They're the people you want to be, when you grow up.

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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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We're [parents]) always bluffing, pretending we know best, when most of the time we're just praying we won't screw up too badly.

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Do you have kids?" Anna asks.I laugh. "What do you think?""It's probably a good thing," she admits. "No offense, but you don't exactly look like a par...more

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Parenting is really just a matter of tracking, of hoping your kids do not get so far ahead you can no longer see their next moves.

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I wonder if all mothers feel like this the moment they realize their daughters are growing up- as if it is impossible to believe that the laundry I on...more

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Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut.