When the president of the United States flicks the switch to light up the Christmas tree on the White House lawn, that house ceases to be an American symbol; it becomes a Christian symbol.

As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son's future are counting on me.

Although Freud said happiness is composed of love and work, reality often forces us to choose love or work.

Work-family conflicts - the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child - would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.

If the Richter scale could measure human calamities, the loss of a child would register a ten.

I want to visit Memory Lane, I don't want to live there.

I feel about mothers the way I feel about dimples: because I do not have one myself, I notice everyone who does.