Famous quotes containing the word mothers:
“Parenting can be established as a time-share job, but mothers are less good “switching off” their parent identity and turning to something else. Many women envy the father’s ability to set clear boundaries between home and work, between being an on-duty and an off-duty parent.... Women work very hard to maintain a closeness to their child. Father’s value intimacy with a child, but often do not know how to work to maintain it.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“Both at-home and working mothers can overmeet their mothering responsibilities. In order to justify their jobs, working mothers can overnurture, overconnect with, and overschedule their children into activities and classes. Similarly, some at-home mothers,... can make at- home mothering into a bigger deal than it is, over stimulating, overeducating, and overwhelming their children with purposeful attention.”
—Jean Marzollo (20th century)
“Mothers seem to be in subtle competition with teachers. There is always an underlying fear that teachers will do a better job than they have done with their child.... But mostly mothers feel that their areas of competence are very much similar to those of the teacher. In fact they feel they know their child better than anyone else and that the teacher doesn’t possess any special field of authority or expertise.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)