If knowledge is power, clandestine knowledge is power squared; it can be withheld, exchanged, and leveraged.

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

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

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.

The risk for a woman who considers her helpless children her "job" is that the children's growth toward self-sufficiency may be experienced as a refutation of the mother's indispensability, and she may unconsciously sabotage their growth as a result.

I used to anticipate my childhood birthday parties as if each were an annual coronation. Like most kids, I loved sitting at the head of the table with a crown on my head.

If the family were a boat, it would be a canoe that makes no progress unless everyone paddles.