Mom / Mother / Mother-to-Be Quotes

These come from a Page-a-Day calendar. Enjoy!

1. Anyone who thinks the art of conversation is dead ought to tell a child to go to bed. - humorist Robert Gallagher
2. Motherhood: All love begins and ends there. - poet Robert Browning
3. I must take issue with the term ‘a mere child,’ for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.
- writer Fran Lebowitz
4. Men are what their mothers made them. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain. - comedian Martin Mull
6. Misery is when you make your bed and then your mother tells you it's the day she's changing the sheets. - writer Suzanne Heller
7. You know you're a mom when...
You cry at all first for the firstborn: the first day of kindergarten, the first school bus, the first sleepover - in other words, every small step that takes your baby away.
8. Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries. - Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage
9. The surest way to get your teenage son to be quiet? When he gets home, ask him where he's been. - Anonymous
10. Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. - George Burns
11. Raising kids is a mother of a job... Clearly it does take a village. And a lot of coffee. - Amy Rosenthal
12. My mother never told me 'how' to live, she just lived, and I watched and learned how to live myself. - Anonymous
13. My mother was the making of me. - Thomas Edison
14. One of the sad realities of being a parent is that the same stuff you know is exciting, educational, and enriching in your child's life is often messy, smelly, and exhausting to deal with. - Joyce Maynard
15. The best moments for imparting wisdom aren't ones that are planned, they're the ones that happen spontaneously. - Anonymous
16. I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that remanded the best that I could bring to it. - Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
17. Home is where teenagers go to refuel. - Anonymous
18. It is amazing how quickly the kids learn to drive a car, yet are unable to understand the lawn mower, snow blower, or vacuum cleaner. - magician/performer Ben Bergor
19. I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. - Abraham Lincoln
20. Love the whole world as a mother loves her only child. - unknown
21. Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. It never questions age, height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience. - humorist Erma Bombeck
22. My mother's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it. - comedian Buddy Hackett
23. There are only two things a child will share willingly - communicable diseases and his mother's age. - pediatrician/writer Benjamin Spock
24. There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, emply someone, or forbid your children to do it. - writer/editor Monta Crane
25. No matter how old you are, you still want your mom to be proud of you. - book quote
26. Death, taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them - wirtier Margaret Mitchell.
27. The best compliment to a child or a friend is the feeling you give him that he has been set free to make his own inquiries, to come to conclusioins that are right for him, whether or not they coincide with your own. - Alistar Cooke
28. I believe tht if I keep a stack of parenting books on my nightstand and another two shelves' worth crammed into my booksace, then my children, simply by occupying the same airspace as such wisdom, will become angelic and obedient. - writer Michele Sbrana
29. Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult. - Charlotte Whitton, former mayor of Ottawa
30. Boys: of all wild beasts, the most difficult to manage. - Plato
31. If it's not one thing, it's your mother. - bumper sticker.
32. Each of my kids was so different that none prepared me for the next. Not only that, but I messed up in completely different ways with each of them. - Anonymous
33. Children have never been very good at listening to adults, but they never failed to imitate them. - writer James Baldwin
34. A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.
35. You know you're a mom when...you're no longer surprised to find yourself talking to strangers about poop, breast pumps, stretch marks, and your most secret worries.
36. There are times when parenthood seems nothing but feeding the mouth that bites you. - Writer Peter DrVries
37. Another good thing about being poor is that when you are seventy your children will not have declared you legally insane in order to gain control of your estate. - Woody Allen
38. Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home. - Bill Cosby
39. I love all my children, but some of them I don't like. - Lillian Carter, mother of President Jimmy Carter
40. Snow an adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough. - Columnist Earl Wilson
41. Sometimes people ask me: 'Dave, what is the essence of parenthood?' I always answer: 'Lowering your standards.' - Humorist Dave Barry
42. Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven. - Orator/Clergyman Henry Ward Beecher
43. Sometimes the laughter in mothering is the recognition of the ironies and absurdities. Sometimes, though, it's just pure, unthinking delight. - writer Barbara Schpiro
44. A woman came to ask the doctor if a woman should have children after thirty-five. He said, 'Thirty-five children is enough for any woman.' - comedian Gracie Allen
45. The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. - philosopher/psychologist William James
46. Art is the child of Nature; yes, her darling child, in whom we trace the features of the mother's face, her asoect, and her attitude. - poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
47. One of the greatest unexpected pleasures of breastfeeding is how it slows down time. The zen of motherhood: Eight to ten times a day, you get to kick back and let down. - writer Kate T. Morgan
48. I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on. - comedian Roseanne Barr
49. Many children, many cares; no children, no felicity. - Chinese proverb
50. All parents believe their children can do the impossible. They thought it the minute we were born, and no matter how hard we've tried to prove them wrong they all think it about us now. And the really annoying thing is they're probably right. - cartoonist Cathy Guisewite
51. My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. - humorist Erma Bombeck
52. It's inevitable that you will let your children down. No one brings up children without doing grievous things... But children are resilient - you don't lose your child through one mistake. - child psychiatrist Robert Shaw
53. As far as I can tell, there are no logical reasons to have children... They're worse than men. They like you for a while otherwist known as the "Happy Meal Years,' when they can be bough for $1.99. They love you then they leave you. And most often you're broke as hell by the time they go. - Felicia Blasi in Ophelia's Mom, by Nina Shandler
54. I cook everything my mother's way. She cooks her mother's way. And we both learned from our mothers-in-law. Our recipes and they carry history with them. - chef Annie DeRoberts
55. My other has always been unhappy with what I do. She would rather I do something nicer, like be a bricklayer. - Mick Jagger

Things ALL mothers say...

• You can't start the day on an empty stomach.
• Who do you think you are?
• Two wrongs do not make a right.
• You've got some explaining to do.
• You're not going anywhere until you clean up this mess.
• I can't hear myself think!

Overheard Mom:

• There should be a special club for those of us who've read "Goodnight Moon" twice each night for over a year.
• Lamaze classes to ease the agonizing pain of deliver? What a joke. I'll tell you what Lamaze is good for: When you're stuck on a grocery line with a screaming toddler and absolutely all you can do is take deep breaths.
• My kids didn't grow gradually; they took great, unexpected leaps forward (and sometimes backward) that always caught me by surprise.
• My kid invented the 'mother tax.' I have to pay him a quarter every time I eat something off of his plate without asking him first.
• Like hell it gets easier! The kids just get bigger, moodier, dirtier, louder - and then, suddenly, like after a tornado, they're gone and it's way too quiet.
• It happens like clockwork: I haul in five bags of groceries, put everything away, and as if on cue, my two boys stomp in open the fridge, and say, 'There's never anything to eat!'
• Have you ever once read about nursing in a public toliet, changing a diaper on the sidewalk, or what it's like to ride public transit with vomit all over your blouse? None of the baby magazines and child care books give a clue how totally chaotic and insane new motherhood is. But what can, except going through it yourself?

From the Mom dictionary:

• Jackpot: When the kids sleep over at Grandma's for the night.
• Junk: Anything that belongs to Dad.
• Magic: A child's kiss.
• Ask your father: No
• It all depends: Ask
• Maybe: No
• Later: Never
• Afterbirth: When the hard part begins.
• Baby: Dad, when he gets a cold; Mom's youngest child, even when he's (she's) 50.
• Energy: The awesome vitality all children possess in abundance until asked to wash the dishes, pick up their clothes, or go out to get a carton of milk.

Moms Anonymous

• Sometimes I make up a reason to go to the store right after dinner so that my husband has to handle the kids' bath an bed time. I drive veeeeery slowly and when I get there, I wander down every aisle and then pick the longest check-out line. - Becky, mother of 4
• You'd think my three-year-old would be the one to lose it at the doctor's, but I had a complete mother meltdown. Between the wait, the screaming babies, the coughing toddlers - I just lost it. I half expected the nurse to give me a time-out.
• I'm always one of the last moms in the carpool line.

A screaming baby is a blessing...

• When the friendly life-insurance salesman rings the doorbell.
• When your mother-in-law calls for an extended catch-up.
• When your husband wants to describe every shot of his 36-hole day.

Good News: Every time you hand the baby to someone else, he starts to scream. Bad News: He likes you best!

Overheard Grandmother: Don't stress the small stuff... 'cause, looking back, believe me - 99% of it is small stuff!

High crimes against teenage boys:

• Noticing any change in his appearance or grooming habits.
• Implying in any way that he has a crush on someone.
• Using the word "awesome" in front of his friends.

How to get your child's attention:

• Pick up the phone.
• Sit down at the computer.
• Start to make dinner.
• Ask for some private time.

The parent/teacher conference:

• What the teacher says: Ashley is quite the chatterbox! I've moved her desk next to mine to that the other students can concentrate. She's much more interested in what everyone else is doing than in her own work. We're trying to address that. What the mom hears: She'll be the next Oprah!

Motherhood: A job description!

• Must possess the physical stamina to keep pace with a toddler on a tricycle, a preadolescent on a soccer team, a teenager on God-knows-what, while producing three square , balanced , tasty, and nutritious meals every day for a minimum of 18 years.
• Must possess basic working knowledge of first aid, product safety, playground physics, childproof, tamper-proof, and adult-proof packaging, and fervently believe in the magical healing power of ice packs.
• Must be able to endure being despised, ignored, irrelevant - at least until someone really needs a ride, at which point you'll instantly become "the greatest."