Motherhood cannot finally be delegated. Breast-feeding may succumb to the bottle; cuddling, fondling, and paediatric visits may also be done by fathers...but when a child needs a mother to talk to, nobody else but a mother will do.
Erica JongLoving someone is a loss of freedom - but one doesn't think of it as loss because one gains so much else.
Erica JongThere is simply no dignified way for a woman to live alone. Oh, she can get along financially perhaps (though not nearly as well as a man), but emotionally she is never left in peace. Her friends, her family, her fellow workers never let her forget that her husbandlessness, her childlessness - her selfishness, in short - is a reproach to the American way of life.
Erica Jong