Mary Blakely Quotes - Page 2

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• We are expected, somehow, not to offend anyone on our way to liberation. There's an absurd expectation that the women's movement must be the first revolution in history to accomplish its goals without hurting anyone's feelings.

  Mary Blakely

  Hurt, Goal, Expectations

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Mary Blakely

  Mother, Children, Responsibility

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Mary Blakely

  Children, Real, Self

  6 Copy quote

• If a woman is to know herself, then periods of solitude should be courted, planned, and embraced.

  Mary Blakely

  Solitude, Should, Periods

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• Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary by pass. After such a monumental assault on the heart, it takes years to amend all the habits and attitudes that led up to it.

  Mary Blakely

  Attitude, Heart, Divorce

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Mary Blakely

  Children, Mistake, Opportunity

  4 Copy quote

• In an ideal society, mothers and fathers would produce potty- trained, civilized, responsible new citizens while government and corporate leaders would provide a safe, healthy, economically just community.

  Mary Blakely

  Mother, Father, Government

  Mary Kay Blakely (1995). “American Mom: Motherhood, Politics, and Humble Pie”, p.15, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Our humor turns our anger into a fine art.

  Mary Blakely

  Art, Anger, Fine

  7 Copy quote

• What stunned me was the regular assertion that feminists were "anti-family." . . . It was motherhood that got me into the movementin the first place. I became an activist after recognizing how excruciatingly personal the political was to me and my sons. It was the women's movement that put self-esteem back into "just a housewife," rescuing our intelligence from the junk pile of "instinct" and making it human, deliberate, powerful.

  Mary Blakely

  Powerful, Self Esteem, Son

  4 Copy quote

• It's an old trick now, God knows, but it works every time. At the very moment women start to expand their place in the world, scientific studies deliver compelling reasons for them to stay home.

  Mary Blakely

  Home, Compelling Reason, World

  Mary Kay Blakely (1995). “American Mom: Motherhood, Politics, and Humble Pie”, p.30, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the "wrong crowd" read like tornado alerts in parent manuals. . . . It is a relative term that means different things in different places. In Fort Wayne, for example, the wrong crowd meant hanging out with liberal Democrats. In Connecticut, it meant kids who weren't planning to get a Ph. D. from Yale.

  Mary Blakely

  Mean, Kids, Yale

  Mary Kay Blakely (1995). “American Mom Motherhood Politics and Humble Pie”, Pocket

  53 Copy quote

• 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.

  Mary Blakely

  Mother, Real, Book

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Mary Blakely

  Suicide, Teacher, Children

  8 Copy quote

• Divorce exposes absolutely ever buried assumption about marriage ... how a husband's sense of entitlement and a wife's sense of duty turned the principle of 'our money, our kids' into the reality of 'his money, her kids.

  Mary Blakely

  Husband, Divorce, Kids

  Mary Kay Blakely (1995). “American Mom: Motherhood, Politics, and Humble Pie”, p.127, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Never accept an expert's opinion if it violates your own because the experts can change their minds.

  Mary Blakely

  Mind, Experts, Opinion

  Mary Kay Blakely (1995). “American Mom: Motherhood, Politics, and Humble Pie”, p.34, Simon and Schuster

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• However global I strove to become in my thinking over the past twenty years, my sons kept me rooted to an utterly pedestrian view,intimately involved with the most inspiring and fractious passages in human development. However unconsciously by now, motherhood informs every thought I have, influencing everything I do. More than any other part of my life, being a mother taught me what it means to be human.

  Mary Blakely

  Mother, Mean, Son

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• It takes twenty or so years before a mother can know with any certainty how effective her theories have been--and even then thereare surprises. The daily newspapers raise the most frightening questions of all for a mother of sons: Could my once sweet babes ever become violent men? Are my sons really who I think they are?

  Mary Blakely

  Mother, Sweet, Son

  Mary Kay Blakely (1995). “American Mom: Motherhood, Politics, and Humble Pie”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

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