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.

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

Why hope to live a long life if we're only going to fill it with self-absorption, body maintenance and image repair? When we die, do we want people to exclaim 'She looked ten years younger,' or do we want them to say 'She lived a great life'?

Control is a big issue when you're sick. It's the first thing you lose - other losses come later.

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

A family stitched together with love seldom unravels.

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