Quotes by Mary Blakely

Mary Blakely

A “snapshot” feature in USA Today listed the five greatest concerns parents and teachers had about children in the ’50s: talking out of turn, chewing gum in class, doing homework, stepping out of line, cleaning their rooms. Then it listed the five top concerns of parents today: drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, suicide and homicide, gang violence, anorexia and bulimia. We can also add AIDS, poverty, and homelessness. . . . Between my own childhood and the advent of my motherhood–one short generation–the culture had gone completely mad.

Children

Suicide

Teacher

A mother can legitimately be said to ‘have a baby’ – but in a civilization such as ours, she can never claim to own a teenager.

Baby

Mother

Teenager

A mother is neither cocky, nor proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child had just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium.

Children

Cocky

Mother

After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers–especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.

Book

Mother

Real

Although a firm swat could bring a recalcitrant child swiftly into line, the changes were usually external, lasting only as long as the swatter remained in view….Permanent transformation had to be internal….The habits of self discipline, as laborious and frustrating as they were to achieve, offered the only real possibility of keeping children safe from their own excesses as well as the omnipresent dangers of society.

Children

Real

Self

By now, legions of tireless essayists and op-ed columnists have dressed feminists down for making such a fuss about entering the professions and earning equal pay that everyone’s attention has been distracted from the important contributions of mothers working at home. This judgment presumes, of course, that prior to the resurgence of feminism in the ’70s, housewives and mothers enjoyed wide recognition and honor. This was not exactly the case.

Equal Pay

Home

Mother

Certainly, words can be as abusive as any blow. . . . When a three-year-old yells, “You’re so stupid! What a dummy!” it doesn’t carry the same weight as when a mother yells those words to a child. . . . Even if you don’t physically abuse young children, you can still drive them nuts with your words.

Children

Mother

Stupid

Families don’t always realize that mother is exhausted, because mother is always exhausted. Exhausted is what looks normal.

Looks

Mother

Normal

How can one explain all the time and thought that goes into raising a child, all the opportunities for mistakes, all the chances to recover and try again? How does one break the news that nothing permanent can be formed in an instant–children are not weaned, potty trained, taught manners, introduced to civilization in one or two tries–as everyone imagined.

Children

Mistake

Opportunity

However diligent she may be, however dedicated, no mother can escape the larger influences of culture, biology, fate . . . until we can actually live in a society where mothers and children genuinely matter, ours is an essentially powerless responsibility. Mothers carry out most of the work orders, but most of the rules governing our lives are shaped by outside influences.

Children

Mother

Responsibility

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Baby

Baseball

Book

Bottles

Boys

Busy

Children

Civilization

Cocky

Compelling Reason

Crush

Daughter

Dream

Equal Pay

Expectations

Fate

Father

Goal

Hands

Home

Hurt

Kids

Labels

Looks

Mean

Men

Mistake

Mother

Mouths

Moving

Needs

Night

Normal

Opportunity

Periods

Real

Responsibility

School

Self

Sex

Should

Should Have

Solitude

Son

Stupid

Suicide

Teacher

Teaching

Teenager

Too Late

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Quotes by Mary Blakely

Mary Blakely

A mother can legitimately be said to ‘have a baby’ – but in a civilization such as ours, she can never claim to own a teenager.

A mother is neither cocky, nor proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child had just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium.

Families don’t always realize that mother is exhausted, because mother is always exhausted. Exhausted is what looks normal.

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Topics by Mary Blakely

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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