It's so awful, attacking your child. It's the worse thing I know, to shout loudly at this 50 lb. being with his huge trusting brown eyes. It's like bitch-slapping E.T.

It is a violation of trust to use your kids as caulking for the cracks in you.

I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child.

One thing I know for sure about raising children is that every single day a kid needs discipline.... But also every single day a kid needs a break.

One reason we have children I think is to learn that parts of ourselves we had given up for dead are merely dormant and that the old joys can re emerge fresh and new and in a completely different form.

Most of me was glad when my mother died. She was a handful, but not in a cute, festive way. More in a life-threatening way, that had caused me a long time ago to give up all hope of ever feeling good about having had her as a mother.