Bad Mother Quotes

• Most children would rather preserve the fantasy of a loving connection with their fathers and mothers, at all costs, even if it costs them their self-esteem. When you're three or seven years old, it's less frightening to think of yourself as an unlovable, disappointing screwup than to recognize the fact that you're living with a monster.

  Keith Ablow

  Mother, Children, Father

  Keith Ablow (2015). “Compulsion”, p.299, Pan Macmillan

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• In reality the world is as full of bad mothers as it is of bad fathers, and it is not the motherless children who become delinquent but the fatherless ones.

  Louis de Bernieres

  Mother, Children, Father

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• 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.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Inspiring, Mothers Day, Children

  Ayelet Waldman (2009). “Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace”, p.3, Anchor

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• Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.

  Sheryl Sandberg

  Daughter, Mother, Roots

  Sheryl Sandberg (2014). “Lean In for Graduates”, p.33, Knopf

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• If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Mother, Children, Husband

  “The centre of my universe” by Ayelet Waldman, www.theguardian.com. November 26, 2005.

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• Good mothers make all kinds of choices. Making a decision that might sound selfish does not make a woman a bad mother.

  Jada Pinkett Smith

  Mother, Selfish, Choices

  "What Jada Pinkett Smith Gave Up for Her Family". Interview with Lori Berger, www.redbookmag.com. July 11, 2011.

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• The 'good' mother, with her fixed smile, her rigidity, her goody-goody outlook, her obsession with unnecessary hygiene, is in fact a fool. It is the 'bad' mother, unafraid of a joke and a glass of wine, richly self-expressive, scornful of suburban values, who is, in reality, good.

  Rachel Cusk

  Mother, Wine, Reality

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• 

  If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?

  Milton Berle

  Funny, Mothers Day, Hilarious

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• I think that, when you play a mother, whether you play a bad mother or a not so great mother or an amazing mother, being a mother is already so complicated. It's already three-dimensional, automatically, no matter what the role is, because you're playing a mother.

  Eva Mendes

  Mother, Thinking, Play

  Source: collider.com

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• There appears to be a disturbing trend in this nation to try to force single moms to choose between their children and their careers. If they take their careers seriously, they are labeled as bad mothers. If they spend time with their children, they are labeled as people who can't be serious about careers outside the home. This is a sexist double standard. No such guilt trip is imposed on men, who are generally not forced to choose between their children and their jobs.

  Gloria Allred

  Mom, Mother, Jobs

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• It used to be the one or the other, right? You were the 'bad girl' or the 'good girl' or the 'bad mother' or the 'good mother,' 'the horrible businesswoman who eschewed her children' or 'the earth mother who was happy to be at home baking pies,' all of that stuff that we sort of knew was a lie.

  Annette Bening

  Girl, Mother, Children

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• A bride who is bullied by her mother-in-law will herself become a bad mother-in-law.

  Sin-Itiro Tomonaga

  Mother, Law, Bullied

  "The Story of Spin" by Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, translated by Takeshi Oka, University of Chicago Press, (p. 217), 1997.

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• And that's the insult of it, how always it comes back to a woman being a "good" mother in the world's eyes or a "bad" mother, how everything in a woman's life is funneled through her body between her legs.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Mother, Eye, World

  Joyce Carol Oates (1990). “I Lock My Door Upon Myself”, New York : Ecco Press

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• A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.

  Peter De Vries

  Funny, Mothers Day, Mom

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• My interests still are my interests. That doesn't make me a bad mother. I think that makes me a really good mother, because when I go and creatively satisfy myself and those interests, I come home satisfied.

  Charlize Theron

  Mother, Home, Thinking

  Source: wwd.com

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• I love my husband more than I love my children.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Children, Husband, I Love My Husband

  "The centre of my universe" by Ayelet Waldman, www.theguardian.com.

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• Aborting my baby is the most serious of the many maternal crimes I tally in my head when I am at my lowest, when the Bad Mother label seems to fit best. Rocketship was my baby. And I killed him.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Mother, Baby, Labels

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