Mother Shock Quotes

“But I know my real fear about your growing older is not only about the millions of things that could happen. It is about how afraid I am of what I imagine as the inevitable separation that will come between us. I don’t know why I am so convinced it will happen, but I am afraid that it will, and I am already mourning the loss of these days when you had no choice but to love me.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“Consider one study that estimates a mom simultaneously and often single-handedly performs as many as seventeen occupations in the course of raising a child, from child-rearing, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, and financial planning to resolving family emotional problems (not to mention often doing part-time paid work in addition to it all). That particular study estimated a mother’s worth at $508,700 a year, according to Ann Crittenden’s The Price of Motherhood.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“I will feel the pang of separation when she is two, when she is twelve, when she is twenty. My daughter will tackle other more important milestones, other more difficult accomplishments that she must achieve on her own. And I, who once shared a blood supply with her, who once had her all to myself, must wait and watch and smile, and continue this exploration of motherhood, this bittersweet experience of maternal love, this continual process of bravely saying goodbye.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“for the most part, my peers, like me, have embarked on the eternal compromise that is dealing with a toddler. We are no longer inexperienced, we are no longer naively confident that our superb parenting skills will produce the perfectly well-behaved mini-adult, we are willing to admit that for the most part we simply want to get through the day. We have been broken in. So we pick our battles.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“Our staunch ideals of how we will raise our children get significantly reshaped by those very kids once they’re here in the world running us ragged, wearing down our defenses, leaving us no choice but to embark on that slippery slope and say, “Just this once!” to stop the whining.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“I swear over everything from being woken up in the middle of the night to realizing I’ve left the wet clothes in the washer for three days. At this point, “fuck” isn’t even a swear word anymore; sentences just don’t sound right unless it’s interspersed somewhere.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“If there is anything that makes me not want to have another baby, it is this essential conflict, this hatred of being trapped in laundry, bottles, schedules, tiny runny noses. But none of this is about you: I don’t wish you were never born, I don’t resent you, I don’t want to give you away. I just wish I could have a break longer than the hour or so that is your nap. I wish I could have my time back, my body back. I wish there was a better division of labor than Daddy when he has time and Mommy all day, all night.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“So let’s imagine for now that our love for our children and our thankfulness for their existence is a given. Let’s imagine that no one can possibly doubt the depths of our feelings for our sons and daughters. Let’s imagine that everyone in the world knows exactly how much we love all the many things there are to love about our children and the relationships we have with them. Let’s imagine that we are all most definitely Good Moms, and, with all that on our side, admit for a moment what we don’t love. I’ll give you my list, you add your own. I don’t love every minute of going to the playground. I don’t love every minute of going to the museums. I don’t love every minute of watching Elmo. I don’t love every minute of having to wake up early in the morning. I don’t love every minute of having interrupted sleep at night. I don’t love every minute of having to be the one to make the rules and the one who must enforce them. I don’t love every minute of laundry. I don’t love every minute of changing diapers. I don’t love every minute of having to endure the stares of people when my child freaks out in public. I don’t love every minute of making food that my kid ends up throwing on the floor. I don’t love every minute that I have the Barney song stuck in my head. I don’t love every minute of having to reason with a tantrum-throwing toddler. I don’t love every minute of being peed on, pooped on, and thrown-up on. I don’t love every minute of weaning. I don’t love every minute of sidewalk chalk. I don’t love every minute of having to pick up the blocks fifteen times a day. I don’t love every minute of putting my life on hold. I don’t love every minute of tantrums. I don’t love every minute of going to story time at the library. I HATE the Teletubbies. I don’t love every minute of being chained to someone else’s routine. I don’t love every minute of not being able to go to the bathroom without company. I don’t love every minute of being a mother.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“Pre-baby I used to fantasize about winning the lottery, or becoming deliriously famous and rich. Now I fantasize about sleep. I fantasize about slumber the way guys fantasize about sex. Hours of it, days of it. Sleeping on the couch, on the bed, on the floor, wherever I can find a comfortable spot. It is almost illicit, so decadent and unimaginable, it now seems to sleep when I want, where I want, and for as long as I want.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“motherhood is not a job at all. It is a full-time, all-consuming, life-subsuming career with no pay, no stock options, no social security, and lots of lip service with little actual respect (just watch the difference in people’s reactions to you when you tell them you are a project manager instead of a mother).”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“It’s harder than you think to admit your even occasional dissatisfaction as a mother without feeling instant guilt, an immediate sensation of shame for even suggesting you might not be happy when you’ve got a wonderful healthy child in this world who depends on you and loves you no matter what. It’s almost impossible to separate your “bad” feelings about the normal frustrations of post-baby life from your “good” feelings about the very baby who instigated the transformation. But it’s not realistic or healthy to deny the fact that a mother is a complicated person—or to deny that a mother is a person at all.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“In some ways love is easier as my daughter gets older. For one thing I have more feedback, more proof that my love is reciprocated, in her spontaneous declarations of “Mommy, I love you so much!” or “Mommy, I love your green eyes.” Of course, in some ways, in retrospect, it was easier to love when she was tiny, speechless, and helpless, unable to stubbornly refuse to go to bed on time or throw a public tantrum when denied something she wants. But I am learning as I find my way through the extremes of selflessness and fear that mothering and loving is complex at every stage, a tangled clutch of intense emotion utterly different from any adult love I have experienced.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It

“we all just figure this out as we go along. There’s no textbook, there’s no rules, there’s no right way to love her. You just feel what you feel, you just love her the only way you know how.”
― Andrea J. Buchanan, Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond -- Loving Every (Other) Minute of It