We mothers are learning to mark our mothering success by our daughters' lengthening flight.

America is a nation fundamentally ambivalent about its children, often afraid of its children, and frequently punitive toward its children.

Boys don't make passes at female smart asses.

Friendships aren't perfect and yet they are very precious. For me, not expecting perfection all in one place was a great release.

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

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.

Mothers remember a child's first words, and quote them in tones usually reserved for Byron.