3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman So many women today have become so focused on their children, they’ve developed these romantic entanglements with their children’s lives, and the husbands are secondary. They’re left out. And the romantic focus is on the children.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman By presenting a faithful and honest record of my experience as a mother, I hope to show both my readers and my children how truth can redeem even what you fear might be the gravest of sins.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman I always tell my kids that as soon as you have a secret, something about you that you are ashamed to have others find out, you have given other people the power to hurt you by exposing you.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman I was a lesbian for a semester at Wesleyan – it was a graduation requirement.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman I’m sure there are people who survive tragedy without humor, but I’ve never met any of them. Nor would I be particularly interested in writing about them if I did meet them.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman Well, you know, I was raised by a 1970s feminist. My mom had a consciousness-raising group. I used to sit at the top of the stairs and listen to them.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman I have two daughters and I have done everything in my power to prevent them from assimilating, even being aware of, my idiocy about my weight.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman Is Valentine’s Day a day to make cupcakes with your children? No, Valentine’s is supposed to be a day about romantic love.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman By the time the children go to bed, I am as drained as any mother who has spent her day working, car pooling, building Lego castles and shopping for the precisely correct soccer cleat.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman One of the darkest, deepest shames so many of us mothers feel nowadays is our fear that we are Bad Mothers, that we are failing our children and falling far short of our own ideals.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman Personally, I think four is the perfect number of children for our particular family. Four is enough to create the frenzied cacophony that my husband and I find so joyful.
3 December 2020 Ayelet Waldman I feed my kids organic food and milk, but I’ve also been known to buy the odd Lunchable. My kids are not allowed to watch TV during the week, but on weekends even the 2-year-old veges out to ‘The Simpsons.’
