Birth Mom Quotes

The greatest thing a father can do for his children is to respect the woman that gave birth to his children. It is because of her that you have the greatest treasures in your life. You may have moved on, but your children have not. If you can’t be her soulmate, then at least be thoughtful. Whom your children love should always be someone that you acknowledge with kindness. Your children notice everything and will follow your example.

Look, I didnt want to be a half-blood. If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom and dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful nasty ways. If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe none of this ever happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside- stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before THEY sense it too, and they'll come for you. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I took the life of the woman I was supposed to call mother in the process of being born... in order to become the world's strongest shinobi... an incarnation of sand was implanted inside of me...

Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.

The artist and the mother are vehicles, not originators. They don't create the new life, they only bear it. This is why birth is such a humbling experience. The new mom weeps in awe at the little miracle in her arms. She knows it came out of her but not from her, through her but not of her.

You were formed inside a borrowed womb—a nourishing safe haven for months—then delivered through painful effort and sacrifice by a woman willing to give you the precious gift of life. That truth alone deserves your gratitude and respect.

My real mom died when I was born—hemorrhaged to death while giving birth to me, which has never been one of my favorite memories—and Dad married Denise before I’d turned a year. Without even asking my opinion on the matter. Denise and I never really clicked.

To you, Mom was always Mom. It never occurred to you that she had once taken her first step, or had once been three or twelve or twenty years old. Mom was Mom. She was born as Mom. Until you saw her running to your uncle like that, it hadn’t dawned on you that she was a human being who harbored the exact same feeling you had for your own brothers, and this realization led to the awareness that she, too, had had a childhood. From then on, you sometimes thought of Mom as a child, as a girl, as a young woman, as a newlywed, as a mother who had just given birth to you.

Are you sure you weren't adopted?" "Mom would like to think so, but it was a natural birth, so her memory's real clear.

That's the way it is with firstborns. Mom and Dad may think they're in charge, but the firstborn knows better, and so does the youngest sibling.

From her thighs, she gives you life And how you treat she who gives you life Shows how much you value the life given to you by the Creator. And from seed to dust There is ONE soul above all others -- That you must always show patience, respect, and trust And this woman is your mother. And when your soul departs your body And your deeds are weighed against the feather There is only one soul who can save yours And this woman is your mother. And when the heart of the universe Asks her hair and mind, Whether you were gentle and kind to her Her heart will be forced to remain silent And her hair will speak freely as a separate entity, Very much like the seaweed in the sea -- It will reveal all that it has heard and seen. This woman whose heart has seen yours, First before anybody else in the world, And whose womb had opened the door For your eyes to experience light and more -- Is your very own MOTHER. So, no matter whether your mother has been cruel, Manipulative, abusive, mentally sick, or simply childish How you treat her is the ultimate test. If she misguides you, forgive her and show her the right way With simple wisdom, gentleness, and kindness. And always remember, That the queen in the Creator's kingdom, Who sits on the throne of all existence, Is exactly the same as in yours. And her name is, THE DIVINE MOTHER.

Mom says death is as natural as birth, and it's all part of the life cycle. She says we don't really understand it, but there are many things we don't understand, and we just have to do the best we can with the knowledge we have. I guess that makes sense.

Gwen was kind of amazed. A mother with several degrees and a prestigious position at an Ivy League college did not ensure that she’d be any less embarrassing to her child than a mother who became a nurse through night school. Gwen knew this when Alla launched into her “unfortunate changes in my vagina after the birth of Lachlan” discussion. “No. It was his shoulders. He’s always had very large shoulders. I mean look at him. Even as a baby they were freakishly long.” “Freakishly?” Lock snapped. “They stretched me right out.” “Mom!” Brody shrugged and reached for more moo goo gai pork. “I didn’t mind.” “Dad!” “Well, darling, you were always quite large, so it made things a little easier for both of us when it came to sex.” “Mom!” Alla shook her head. “I don’t know what happened to you, Lachlan MacRyrie.” She turned to Gwen. “I’ve always insisted on being quite open about human bodies when talking to my children. There’s no shame in a woman’s body. And like everything else in the world, it ages. So while you still have the exquisite body you’ve been blessed with, Gwen dear, and that prebirth vagina— enjoy it.” “Is there any way to get you to stop?” Lock begged.

The only dream I ever had was the dream of New York itself, and for me, from the minute I touched down in this city, that was enough. It became the best teacher I ever had. If your mother is anything like mine, after all, there are a lot of important things she probably didn't teach you: how to use a vibrator; how to go to a loan shark and pull a loan at 17 percent that's due in thirty days; how to hire your first divorce attorney; what to look for in a doula (a birth coach) should you find yourself alone and pregnant. My mother never taught me how to date three people at the same time or how to interview a nanny or what to wear in an ashram in India or how to meditate. She also failed to mention crotchless underwear, how to make my first down payment on an apartment, the benefits of renting verses owning, and the difference between a slant-6 engine and a V-8 (in case I wanted to get a muscle car), not to mention how to employ a team of people to help me with my life, from trainers to hair colorists to nutritionists to shrinks. (Luckily, New York became one of many other moms I am to have in my lifetime.) So many mothers say they want their daughters to be independent, but what they really hope is that they'll find a well-compensated banker or lawyer and settle down between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-eight in Greenwich, Darien, or That Town, USA, to raise babies, do the grocery shopping, and work out in relative comfort for the rest of their lives. I know this because I employ their daughters. They raise us to think they want us to have careers, and they send us to college, but even they don't really believe women can be autonomous and take care of themselves.

As indicated by the increase in maternal mortality in 2010, right now it's more dangerous to give birth in California than in Kuwait or Bosnia. Amnesty International reports that women in [the United States] have a higher risk of dying due to pregnancy complications than women in forty-nine other countries (black women are almost four times as likely to die as white women). The United States spends more than any other country on maternal health care, yet our risk of dying or coming close to death during pregnancy or in childbirth remains unreasonably high.

The seeds of life inside my womb were present at my birth; a gift from mother's mother, on back to Mother Earth.

Congratulations to your mom and dad for birth of a sweet child! Sorry that I couldn't wish them when you were born.

Tristan’s Mom: What are these? Tristan: Your granddaughters. Tristan’s Dad: Don’t worry honey, you don’t look old enough to be a mother let alone a grandmother. Tristan’s Mom: Again with the flattery, thank you dear. Where did they come from? Tristan: Camie gave birth last night. Jeff: I didn’t know she was pregnant. Tristan: She wasn’t. It was a miracle. Tristan’s Mom: Do they have names? Tristan: Phineas and Ferb. Jeff: From the cartoon? Tristan’s Dad: That figures, he named the dog Scooby. Tristan’s Mom: They sound like boy names. Tristan: Mom! Shhh, you’ll give them a complex. Jeff: If that Ferb one climbs my legs again I’m drop kicking it. Tristan: That’s child abuse and I’ll press charges. Besides, they just miss their mom. Jeff: I’m calling CPS (cat protective services)… Tristan: What for? Jeff: Because you’re making your kids live in a broken home unnecessarily. Tristan: I’m not talking to you anymore. Jeff: Fine, as long as you to talk to her. Tristan: Back off. Jeff: Nope, not gonna do it. Tristan: I’m warning you man. Jeff: You miss her too. Tristan: Yeah, so? Jeff: So do something about it. Tristan: Happy? Last night was miserable and I think it’s too late. Jeff: You still have a 12 year old ace in the hole. Tristan: Saving it as a last resort. Tristan’s Dad: Honey, do you have a clue as to what they’re talking about? Tristan’s Mom: No and I don’t want one. Jeff: I’m just helping my nieces get their parents back together. Dude, it’s time. Make the call. Tristan: Alright, I did it. But I get the feeling I’m about to do business with the mob. I hope I don’t wake up with the head of my horse in bed with me tonight. Jeff: Well, a good father will do anything he can to protect his family, even if that means he runs the risk of sleeping with the fishes. Tristan: Okay girls, your aunt helped Daddy come up with a plan and if it works you should get to see Mommy today. Cross your paws, or claws, or whatever…just cross something for luck.

So let’s start by just framing this not as “What kind of mom will you be?” but “What is the optimal configuration of adult work hours for your household?” Less catchy, yes, but also perhaps more helpful for decision-making.

[Lennie meets Joe - he works out that she was named after John Lennon] I nod. "Mom was a hippie." This is northern Northern California after all - the final frontier of freakerdom. Just in the eleventh grade we have a girl named Electricity, a guy named Magic Bus, and countless flowers: Tulip, Begonia, and Poppy - all parent-given-on-the-birth-certificate names. Tulip is a two-ton bruiser of a guy who would be the star of out football team if we were the kind of school that has optional morning meditation in the gym

Still the most magical day of my life was the day I became a mom.

Mom, mom, mom, mom! A yowl rose from my gut, my bowels, my womb, raw as a birth cry but with no hope in it, a maddening howl, a roar, the water a wailing wall shattering around me. Unsyllabled, thoughtless, the cry rose from the oldest cells in my body. I hadn't known grief could be so primal, so crude. The violence shook me. When it stopped, I fell to my knees in the shower, and the water called to the water in me; I wanted to melt, to run down the drain and under the city to the creek and then to the river thirty miles away. Mom, mom, mom, mom!

I walk into my bedroom after my morning shower to hear my phone ringing. And since everyone my age texts instead of calls, I know exactly who it is without having to check the screen. “Hey, Mom,” I greet her, gripping the edge of my towel as I head for the dresser. “Mom? Holy shish kebob. So it’s true? I mean, I thought I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy twenty-one years ago, but that seems like a distant memory. Because if I did have a son, he’d probably call me more than once a month, right

What bullshit nonsense, this whole blaming everything on moms. Is it any wonder that women are increasingly deciding not to have children, why the birth rate is declining drastically in both the US and Korea?

Her next words took me by surprise. I lay as still as I could, barely breathing, afraid that if I moved she would stop speaking her heart. “My mom wanted six children. She only got me, and that sucks for her because I was a total weirdo.” “You were not,” I said. She twisted her head up to look at me. “I used to line my lips in black eyeliner and sit cross-legged on the kitchen table … meditating.” “Not that bad,” I said. “Crying out for attention.” “Okay, when I was twelve I started writing letters to my birth mother because I wanted to be adopted.” I shook my head. “Your childhood sucked, you wanted a new reality.” She snorted air through her nose. “I thought a mermaid lived in my shower drain, and I used to call her Sarah and talk to her.” “Active imagination,” I countered. She was becoming more insistent, her little body wriggling in my grip. “I used to make paper out of dryer lint.” “Nerdy.” “I wanted to be one with nature, so I started boiling grass and drinking it with a little bit of dirt for sugar.” I paused. “Okay, that’s weird.” “Thank you!” she said. Then, she got serious again. “My mom just loved me through all of it.

When ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) claims that home birth and midwives are unsafe, they imply that the women who choose it and the midwives that provide it are acting irresponsibly and selfishly. They stigmatize normal birth just as the political right has stigmatized abortion. And they stigmatize women. "Our country has created a mythology of women who are irresponsible and don't care," says Paltrow. "We talk about welfare queens, crack moms, and murderous women who have abortions." A culture that allows such language to permeate our national subconscious inevitably dehumanizes all women, including mothers. Lyon argues that this thinking perpetuates a phrase often invoked in exam rooms and delivery rooms: The goal is to have a healthy baby. "This phrase is used over and over and over to shut down women's requests," she says. "The context needs to be that the goal is a healthy mom. Because mothers never make decisions without thinking about that healthy baby. And to suggest otherwise is insulting and degrading and disrespectful." What's best for women is best for babies. ... The goal is to have a healthy family.

I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT KING TRITON. Specifically, King, why are you elderly but with the body of a teenage Beastmaster? How do you maintain those monster pecs? Do they have endocrinologists under the sea? Because I am scheduling you some bloodwork... ...Question: How come, when they turn back into humans at the end of Beauty and the Beast, Chip is a four-year-old boy, but his mother, Mrs. Potts, is like 107? Perhaps you're thinking, "Lindy, you are remembering it wrong. That kindly, white-haired, snowman-shaped Mrs. Doubtfire situation must be Chip's grandmother." Not so, champ! She's his mom. Look it up. She gave birth to him four years ago... As soon as you become a mother, apparently, you are instantly interchangeable with the oldest woman in the world, and / or sixteen ounces of boiling brown water with a hat on it. Take a sec and contrast Mrs. Pott's literally spherical body with the cut-diamond abs of King Triton, father of seven.

...I found myself surrounded by people--starting with my mom, grandparents, uncles, and aunts, and leading to a string of wonderful role models and mentors--who kept pushing me to see more than what was directly in front of me, to see the boundless possibilities of the wider world and the unexplored possibilities within myself. People who taught me that no accident of birth--not being black or relatively poor, being from Baltimore or the Bronx or fatherless--would ever define or limit me.

The context needs to be that the goal is a healthy mom. Because mothers never make decisions without thinking about that healthy baby. And to suggest otherwise is insulting and degrading and disrespectful.

But the world is oddly lacking in discussions of what happens, physically, to Mom after the baby arrives. Before the baby, you’re a vessel to be cherished and protected. After the baby, you’re a lactation-oriented baby accessory.

If time has taught me anything, it’s that our differences are what make this life unique. None of us are exactly like the other, and that is a good thing because there’s no right way to be. The room mom, the working mother, the woman without children, the retired grandma, the mom who co-sleeps, the mama who bottle-fed her baby, the strict mom, the hipster mom, the one who lets her kid go shoeless, or the one who enrolls her baby in music enrichment classes at birth—whoever, whatever you are, you’re adding spice and texture and nuance into this big beautiful soup of modern-day parenting. I can look at other mamas and learn from them. I can also leave the things that don’t strike me as authentic or practical for our family. You can do the same for your own. That is the beauty of growing and learning and figuring out exactly who you are.

More profoundly, Nihilist "simplification" may be seen in the universal prestige today accorded the lowest order of knowledge, the scientific, as well as the simplistic ideas of men like Marx, Freud, and Darwin, which underlie virtually the whole of contemporary thought and life. We say "life," for it is important to see that the Nihilist history of our century has not been something imposed from without or above, or at least has not been predominantly this; it has rather presupposed, and drawn its nourishment from, a Nihilist soil that has long been preparing in the hearts of the people. It is precisely from the Nihilism of the commonplace, from the everyday Nihilism revealed in the life and thought and aspiration of the people, that all the terrible events of our century have sprung. The world-view of Hitler is very instructive in this regard, for in him the most extreme and monstrous Nihilism rested upon the foundation of a quite unexceptional and even typical Realism. He shared the common faith in "science," "progress," and "enlightenment" (though not, of course, in "democracy"), together with a practical materialism that scorned all theology, metaphysics, and any thought or action concerned with any other world than the "here and now," priding himself on the fact that he had "the gift of reducing all problems to their simplest foundations." He had a crude worship of efficiency and utility that freely tolerated "birth control", laughed at the institution of marriage as a mere legalization of a sexual impulse that should be "free", welcomed sterilization of the unfit, despised "unproductive elements" such as monks, saw nothing in the cremation of the dead but a "practical" question and did not even hesitate to put the ashes, or the skin and fat, of the dead to "productive use." He possessed the quasi-anarchist distrust of sacred and venerable institutions, in particular the Church with its "superstitions" and all its "outmoded" laws and ceremonies. He had a naive trust in the "natural mom, the "healthy animal" who scorns the Christian virtues--virginity in particular--that impede the "natural functioning" of the body. He took a simple-minded delight in modern conveniences and machines, and especially in the automobile and the sense of speed and "freedom" it affords. There is very little of this crude Weltanschauung that is not shared, to some degree, by the multitudes today, especially among the young, who feel themselves "enlightened" and "liberated," very little that is not typically "modern.

It is not that you give birth to a child that matters most. Rather, it is what you birth into them.

Dude, fix your hair and try applying a little makeup tonight. You are a girl, right?" I swear to goodness, Mom gave birth to Crystal and not me. "You two suck at being my best friends.

Cruel mothers are still mothers. They make us wars. they make us revolution. They teach us the truth. early. Mothers are humans who sometimes give birth to their pain. Instead of children

Darla shook her head, a small smirk on her lips. “You’re such a mom,” she told Katherine. Katherine stared at her, puzzled. “You’re a mom, too,” she said softly. “No, I gave birth. That doesn’t make me a mom. Not like you.” A look passed between the two women like none they had ever shared before. For a split second, Katherine felt a slight connection. “Well, you rest. I’ll check on you later.” She turned and left the room, a funny, unexplainable feeling inside her.

Want to guess what comes up when I Google “Woman discovers”? It’s not “new galaxy.” It’s “a body in her trunk” or "the unthinkable in her attic.” According to my computer search, other big discoveries by women include “her co-worker is her birth mom,” “a Renaissance painting in her kitchen,” and “her new home was once a meth lab.” Hey, at least that one contains the word “lab.

No, madam,' I said to the woman in my ESL English. "That's my mom. I came out her asshole and I love her very much. I am seven. Next year I will be eight. I'm doing fine."... You believed, like many Vietnamese mothers, that to speak of female genitalia, especially between mothers adn sons, is considered taboo- so when talking about birth, you always mentioned that I had come out of your anus. You would playfully slap my head and say,'This huge noggin nearly tore up my asshole!

Why was there no fucking TrueDaddy? The answer was clear. Because men wouldn't fall for it. Not that they were smarter- Amara firmly believed she could trounce the average man in a battle of wits- but because they weren't primed from birth like women were, told that they could be anything they wanted to be while handicapped at every turn by invisible forces, told that they were more than just their looks while also culturally programmed to believe that their value was tied to their desirability. Men aged into silver foxes while women aged into obsolescence. And when you added in children, oh, that was when everything really went to shit. Because even though father stamped their children with their last names, the world didn't ask as much of them. No one really expected fathers to consider giving up their careers to put their children first, to stop managing a company and start managing a household. Women had to grapple with a choice that men never did while remaining uncomplaining and generous so that they didn't nag their husbands straight into the arms of uncomplicated lovers.

Don’t you pricks judge me,” Kane snapped and pointed his index finger at them. “You try having sex with your girl when she is close to birthing a child. I’m fucking terrified I’ll bump his head or something... he is so low. He has a secure hold of her pussy now. It’s literally off limits. I just... I can’t touch her like that. That’s my kid’s mom!

KINGDOM OF THE WOMB From her thighs, she gives you life And how you treat she who gives you life Shows how much you value the life given to you by the Creator. And from seed to dust There is ONE soul above all others -- That you must always show patience, respect, and trust And this woman is your mother. And when your soul departs your body And your deeds are weighed against the feather There is only one soul who can save yours And this woman is your mother. And when the heart of the universe Asks her hair and mind, Whether you were gentle and kind to her Her heart will be forced to remain silent And her hair will speak freely as a separate entity, Very much like the seaweed in the sea -- It will reveal all that it has heard and seen. This woman whose heart has seen yours, First before anybody else in the world, And whose womb had opened the door For your eyes to experience light and more -- Is your very own MOTHER. So, no matter whether your mother has been cruel, Manipulative, abusive, mentally sick, or simply childish How you treat her is the ultimate test. If she misguides you, forgive her and show her the right way With simple wisdom, gentleness, and kindness. And always remember, That the queen in the Creator's kingdom, Who sits on the throne of all existence, Is exactly the same as in yours. And her name is, THE DIVINE MOTHER.

These fans were excited to see your mother perform, but more than that it was as if she was taking her audience to church like a fiery, foul-mouthed preacher who offered up profane salvation. There was the new mom who was enjoying her first night out after giving birth a month prior. There are fans who dress up like your mother, imitating the outfits she wore when you were both in her belly There are mothers who bring their daughters. There are those who travel from across the country, and sometimes across the world. They talk about your mother being their spirit animal. Their eyes are lit up, their faces relaxed and smiling, their postures open and welcoming. Watching this magical effect on her fans keeps me manning the merch table to this day.

Maternal stress during pregnancy has effects on the emotional and stress hormone reactions, particularly in female offspring. These effects were measured in goat kids. The stressed female kids ended up startling more easily and being less calm and more anxious than the male kids after birth. Furthermore, female kids who were stressed in utero showed a great deal more emotional distress than female kids who weren’t. So if you’re a girl about to enter the womb, plan to be born to an unstressed mom who has a calm, loving partner and family to support her. And if you are a mom-to-be carrying a female fetus, take it easy so that your daughter will be able to relax.

Don't fight with Your mother 'Cause Your mother fight for You until Your birth

Just like my mom, Grandma had died the day she gave birth. It was like a curse in our family. “Because

Listening to Eddy describe his relationship with our mom seemed to indicate that what I feared would be my reality. He never talked poorly about our mother, but he was as honest and sincere as he could be. In a way, he was almost defensive of her to us – trying to help us understand what life had been like for her, so that we could comprehend the choices that she had made.

The wrinkled pages of the Bible crackled as Mom leafed back to the beginning of Matthew. I had always felt I was conceived from the powers of the universe. Maybe I was chosen to fulfill a divine mission.

In preparation for motherhood, I read books, I watched people around me, and I learned what to do but also what not to do. I quickly realized that my schooling and tertiary education did little to prepare me for being a parent. I even attended antenatal classes to prepare for the birth, but that is where it ended. When my baby was handed to me after delivery, I never received a manual. Oh, how I wished they came with one!

Being a mother is not about ‘birthing a child into the world.’ Rather, it is about repeatedly ‘birthing into the child’ a steady sense of their inestimable worth, a prized understanding of their authentic self, a conviction that the impossible is largely the stuff of myth, and an utterly unwavering belief that cold actions of men never represent the warm heart of God. It is the relentless act of birthing these things into the innermost soul of a thirsty child that makes a woman a mother.

After his initial homecoming week, after he'd been taken to a bunch of sights by his cousins, after he'd gotten somewhat used to the scorching weather and the surprise of waking up to the roosters and being called Huascar by everybody (that was his Dominican name, something else he'd forgotten), after he refused to succumb to that whisper that all long-term immigrants carry inside themselves, the whisper that says You do not belong, after he'd gone to about fifty clubs and because he couldn't dance salsa, merengue, or bachata had sat and drunk Presidentes while Lola and his cousins burned holes in the floor, after he'd explained to people a hundred times that he'd been separated from his sister at birth, after he spent a couple of quiet mornings on his own, writing, after he'd given out all his taxi money to beggars and had to call his cousin Pedro Pablo to pick him up, after he'd watched shirtless shoeless seven-year-olds fighting each other for the scraps he'd left on his plate at an outdoor cafe, after his mother took them all to dinner in the Zona Colonial and the waiters kept looking at their party askance (Watch out, Mom, Lola said, they probably think you're Haitian - La unica haitiana aqui eres tu, mi amor, she retorted), after a skeletal vieja grabbed both his hands and begged him for a penny, after his sister had said, You think that's bad, you should see the bateys, after he'd spent a day in Bani (the camp where La Inca had been raised) and he'd taken a dump in a latrine and wiped his ass with a corn cob - now that's entertainment, he wrote in his journal - after he'd gotten somewhat used to the surreal whirligig that was life in La Capital - the guaguas, the cops, the mind-boggling poverty, the Dunkin' Donuts, the beggars, the Haitians selling roasted peanuts at the intersections, the mind-boggling poverty, the asshole tourists hogging up all the beaches, the Xica de Silva novelas where homegirl got naked every five seconds that Lola and his female cousins were cracked on, the afternoon walks on the Conde, the mind-boggling poverty, the snarl of streets and rusting zinc shacks that were the barrios populares, the masses of niggers he waded through every day who ran him over if he stood still, the skinny watchmen standing in front of stores with their brokedown shotguns, the music, the raunchy jokes heard on the streets, the mind-boggling poverty, being piledrived into the corner of a concho by the combined weight of four other customers, the music, the new tunnels driving down into the bauxite earth [...]

Life is sometimes amazingly fragile, but some lives are frighteningly strong. My elder daughter says that when you mow down weeds with a tractor, the weeds cling to the wheels of the tractor and spread seeds, to breed even at the moment they’re being cut. Your baby latched on ferociously. He suckled so hard that I felt I would be sucked in, so I slapped the baby’s bottom, which still had traces of redness from his birth. When that didn’t work, I had to force him off. A baby who’s lost its mother as soon as it’s born intuitively doesn’t want to let go when it’s near a nipple.

If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe what-ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. Being a half-blood is dangerous. It’s scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

About a month before I gave birth, Colin moved to LA full-time. Once Rudy arrived, Colin settled happily into his new role, returning to architecture when an interesting project cropped up. Pretty amazing, right? Unless you reverse the gender, and then it's what women who have the choice to stay home do 95 percent of the time.

Dear Maddie, Fun fact: The dandelion flower opens up in the morning to greet the sun and closes in the evening to go to bed. It is the only flower to “grow old.” When you were younger, I took you to the park every day. Do you remember, Maddie? We used to look at dandelions and try to determine which ones would turn white and frail first. When they finally did, we’d pick them and blow them. They’d dance in the wind like snowflakes, and you’d chase them and laugh. I told you it was okay to pick up dandelions and blow on them, because we spread their seeds. Each dandelion that died was responsible for the birth of a dozen like it! There is a twisted, jagged beauty to the ending of life. It is a bittersweet reminder that it happened. Seize the moment. Every moment. Until we meet again. Love, Mom. x

If Mom is convinced that ballet lessons are a must, she should take them. Although it may look odd to see a thirty-year old woman hang- ing onto a bar and flinging a slightly plump leg in the air, the sight is not as pathetic as seeing her seven-year old daughter grimly going through such motions just to please her mother, when she would prefer to be at home designing new doll clothes. Although some parents are never quite ready to accept this fact, the child is not one of our possessions. We don’t own him; we never will. We gave birth to his body; he may share some of our physical characteristics; but he does not inherit our desires. He’s a different person, a separate entity, with his own likes and dislikes. It’s a grave mistake to try to override a child’s power of choice in what he wants to be and do. Some parents do this in an attempt to live their lives through the child.

Somehow, a pervasive idea has spread in modern times that the mom who is out and about soonest with her baby is somehow the strongest, like an episode of Survivor. For some type-A parents, it's almost a badge of honor to say you made it to yoga after two weeks, snuck off to the office for a meeting, or flew with your infant across time zones. But that's all upside down—in a healthy postpartum period, it's she who stays still that wins the prize.

I saw a striking example of this among the baboons that I study in Kenya, when both a high-ranking and a low-ranking female gave birth to daughters the same week. The former’s kid hit every developmental landmark earlier than the other, the playing field already unlevel. When the infants were a few weeks old, they nearly had their first interaction. Daughter of subordinate mom spotted daughter of dominant one, toddled over to say hello. And as she got near, her low-ranking mother grabbed her by the tail and pulled her back. This was her first lesson about her place in that world. “You see her? She’s much higher ranking than you, so you don’t just go and hang with her. If she’s around, you sit still and avoid eye contact and hope she doesn’t take whatever you’re eating.” Amazingly, in twenty years those two infants would be old ladies, sitting in the savanna, still displaying the rank asymmetries they learned that morning.

For every extra year a young person was exposed to TV in his first 15 years, we see a 4 percent increase in the number of property-crime arrests later in life and a 2 percent increase in violent-crime arrests. According to our analysis, the total impact of TV on crime in the 1960s was an increase of 50 percent in property crimes and 25 percent in violent crimes. Why did TV have this dramatic effect? Our data offer no firm answers. The effect is largest for children who had extra TV exposure from birth to age four. Since most four-year-olds weren’t watching violent shows, it’s hard to argue that content was the problem. It may be that kids who watched a lot of TV never got properly socialized, or never learned to entertain themselves. Perhaps TV made the have-nots want the things the haves had, even if it meant stealing them. Or maybe it had nothing to do with the kids at all; maybe Mom and Dad became derelict when they discovered that watching TV was a lot more entertaining than taking care of the kids.

Everyone matters, Elena.” “But don’t some people matter more than others?” I asked. “I mean, if we’re talking about saving humanity, doesn’t it make sense to save the best and brightest of us?” Freddie’s laughter had faded. “So you’re saying it’s better to save a world-famous physicist than say, a modest merchant who was a partner in a bed feathers company.” “That’s a really odd comparison, but yeah.” “Except no,” Freddie said. “That merchant and his wife would go on to birth and raise Albert Einstein.” She paused dramatically. “Hermann and Pauline Einstein might not have seemed like anyone special at the time, but their son changed how we look at the universe.” “That’s one example.” “Here’s another. Who should you save? A genius mathematician admitted to Harvard at sixteen or a single mom living on welfare?” “This is a trick question.” “Are you allergic to answering questions, or what?” “The mathematician,” I said. “Ted Kaczynski. Otherwise known as the Unabomber. And that single mom would go on to write Harry Potter.

The same rain the ghost is dancing in falls on me as I watch her carefree movements. I lift my own face toward the sky, and the cool rain mingles with the tears I am powerless to hold back. I close my eyes and let the rain wash the tears from my face as I breathe deeply, the scent of the summer rain like aromatherapy for my bruised and broken heart. I should call the ghost back, I think. I should get going; Aunt Edie is expecting me. But I don't move; I stand still, let the raindrops mingle with my tears, and allow myself to let go, to weep deeply, to feel the anguish I've held in so tightly for too long, the grief to which I've been afraid to surrender. I grieve for the deaths of Mom and Dad, for the pain of not having them in my life, the worry I feel at having had them so briefly. I grieve for the death of my dreams, the breakdown of my marriage, the emptiness I feel inside, the mantle of responsibility to heavy on my shoulders. I grieve for my children, the mistakes I've made, and the mistakes I see them making. I grieve for the loss of my birth mother. And I grieve for myself.

Pressing a palm against the new mother’s tummy, Eena closed her eyes and let the dragon’s soul kindle. Her mind sensed the fetus, picturing a disproportionately large head and little appendages still developing. She identified a rapid heartbeat pumping vital blood and nutrients throughout the body. She felt breathing-like movements and uncontrolled twitches that the mother could not yet perceive. She was aware of the massive reproduction of cells taking place, forming intricate, detailed anatomy. Here was a life-form. A young boy. He was healthy. So was his mom. It was remarkable.

Look, I didn’t want to be a half- blood. If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. Being a half- blood is dangerous. It’s scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. If you’re a normal kid, reading this because you think it’s fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it’s only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they’ll come for you.

Dear Sawyer and Quin, If you ever read this and I'm gone I want you to know something that has been weighing on me. I watch you two play and it can be so sad sometimes. You two have been best friends since Sawyer's birth. Always inseparable. It's been adorable , but comes with its challenges. I'm worried when I watch you boys. Quinton, you are always driven by your ego. You're strong and talented, but much too determined to beat down everyone in your efforts to be the best. You push yourself to win a competition, then shove it in someone's face. I’ve rarely seen you compliment others, but you always give yourself a pat on the back. You don't play anything for the love of it, you play to win and normally do. I've seen you tear down your brother so many times just to feel good about yourself. You don't have to do that, dear. You don't have to spend your life trying to prove that you're amazing. One day you'll fail and be alone because you've climbed to the top of a pyramid with only enough room for yourself. Don't let it get to that point and if you do, learn humility from your brother. He could do without so much of it. Sawyer, just because you're most often the underdog and the peaceful introspective kid, don't think I'm letting you off the hook. Your humility has become your worst enemy. It's so intense that I wonder if it will be your vice one day, instead of your greatest virtue. It's one thing to believe you are below all men, even when you're not, but it's another thing to be crippled by fear and to no longer try. Sometimes , dear, I think you fear being good at something because you've tasted the bitterness of being the one who comes in last and you don't want to make others feel that way. That's sweet of you and I smile inside when I see you pretending to lose when you race your younger cousins , but if you always let people beat you they may never learn to work hard for something they want. It's okay to win, just win for the right reasons and always encourage those who lose. Oh, and Sawyer, I hope one day you read this. One day when it matters. If so, remember that the bottom of a mountain can be just as lonely as the top. I hope the two of you can learn to climb together one day. As I'm writing this you are trying to climb the big pine tree out back. Quin is at the top, rejoicing in his victory and taunting Sawyer. And Sawyer is at the bottom, afraid to get hurt and afraid to be sad about it. I'm going to go talk to you two separately now. I hope my words mean something. Love you boys, Mom

After his initial homecoming week, after he'd been taken to a bunch of sights by his cousins, after he'd gotten somewhat used to the scorching weather and the surprise of waking up to the roosters and being called Huascar by everybody (that was his Dominican name, something else he'd forgotten), after he refused to succumb to that whisper that all long-term immigrants carry inside themselves, the whisper that says You do not belong, after he'd gone to about fifty clubs and because he couldn't dance salsa, merengue, or bachata had sat and drunk Presidentes while Lola and his cousins burned holes in the floor, after he'd explained to people a hundred times that he'd been separated from his sister at birth, after he spent a couple of quiet mornings on his own, writing, after he'd given out all his taxi money to beggars and had to call his cousin Pedro Pablo to pick him up, after he'd watched shirtless shoeless seven-year-olds fighting each other for the scraps he'd left on his plate at an outdoor cafe, after his mother took them all to dinner in the Zona Colonial and the waiters kept looking at their party askance (Watch out, Mom, Lola said, they probably think you're Haitian - La unica haitiana aqui eres tu, mi amor, she retorted), after a skeletal vieja grabbed both his hands and begged him for a penny, after his sister had said, You think that's bad, you should see the bateys, after he'd spent a day in Bani (the camp where La Inca had been raised) and he'd taken a dump in a latrine and wiped his ass with a corn cob - now that's entertainment, he wrote in his journal - after he'd gotten somewhat used to the surreal whirligig that was life in La Capital - the guaguas, the cops, the mind-boggling poverty, the Dunkin' Donuts, the beggars, the Haitians selling roasted peanuts at the intersections, the mind-boggling poverty, the asshole tourists hogging up all the beaches, the Xica de Silva novelas where homegirl got naked every five seconds that Lola and his female cousins were cracked on, the afternoon walks on the Conde, the mind-boggling poverty, the snarl of streets and rusting zinc shacks that were the barrios populares, the masses of niggers he waded through every day who ran him over if he stood still, the skinny watchmen standing in front of stores with their brokedown shotguns, the music, the raunchy jokes heard on the streets, the mind-boggling poverty, being piledrived into the corner of a concho by the combined weight of four other customers, the music, the new tunnels driving down into the bauxite earth,

I know women are the only ones who can give birth, but once the baby’s born, why the hell should our roles be so different? Breastfeeding, I get, but what about everything else? Don’t tell me you need more time to figure out how to be a dad. Like, what have you been doing for the last nine months? Don’t just sit there and watch. This isn’t a field trip! You say you’ve got work, but what about me? I’ve got work, too! Well, I did. I know it paid nothing compared to what you make …. Anyway, isn’t that what paternity leave is for? I’m not saying take it right now, but did it occur to you that maybe I could work and you could stay at home? Did it even occur to you? Why should I act so grateful just because you changed your daughter’s diaper one time? Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe I’m worn out? Maybe it has, but, what, you think that’s just part of being a mom? Do you think he knows how it feels, Sheeba? Do you think he gets it? Even though he’s maybe eight inches away, blissfully asleep, he’s more of a stranger than some random politician I’ve never met or some stray dog somewhere in Brazil. I feel more alone with him than I do when I’m on my own.

I worry about you too,” I said softly as I caressed her head resting against my chest. “You look tired.” Lark didn’t speak for a minute. When she finally looked at me, I saw a lot of different emotions swirling in those bright green eyes. “I feel like shit. I’m tired and dizzy. I can’t eat ninety percent of the food I used to eat. I feel awful, but I’m afraid to complain.” “Why?” “Maddy just had her baby and she was so tough about the whole thing. I’m surprised she didn’t give birth in the middle of the grocery store then go back to picking up things for dinner. Next to her, I’m a weakling. Also, Farah is going to be all brave and awesome too. I don’t want to be the whiner.” “First of all, Maddy’s got that natural breeder look about her. Some chicks are like that and you can’t let the exception be your rule. Besides, you’re having twins. You have more baby cooking to do than she did, so screw comparisons.” “I just don’t want people to think less of me.” “By people, do you mean Aaron?” “We barely met and got married and now I’m getting fat and I’m tired all the time. I don’t want him to lose interest.” “Oh, Lark, you’re so fucking stupid sometimes.” “Yeah, I know,” she said, grinning. “We have that in common.” “So true.” “Mom said that I’m like her and she had a guy like Aaron and she suffocated him and he ditched her. I know Mom sucks, but what if she’s right and I wear down Aaron and he stops loving me?” “Any man who would want Mom must be shit. Aaron isn’t shit.” “I know, but I get scared of messing up everything I have.” Kissing her forehead, I stood up and walked to the bedroom door. “Hey, Mister Clean, get over here.” Laughing, Lark followed me into the hallway where Aaron appeared, clearly loving his new nickname. “Listen up, Yul Brynner,” I said, sending Lark into giggles. “My sister is cooking up two kids that you stuck inside her. She needs more damn love than you’re giving. If you don’t do a better job of babying her, I’m going to have to replace you. Hmm, I just saw this guy Jake that I knew from high school. He’s ripped and works at the gym. The gym, Aaron.” My brother-in-law stared unaffected until I finished then he gazed down at his wife. Lark must have known what was coming because she started giggling. “My sweet muse,” he murmured and she laughed harder, “do you need more love than I’m giving?” Aaron swept Lark into his arms and cradled her like a kid. “Poor thing. I’ll just need to pay more attention.” As he kissed all over her, Lark stopped giggling and began moaning affirmations. “Good thing you obeyed because I think Jake might be gay.” After giving me a wink, Aaron gestured for me to go away. I was the one to obey this time. Leaving them to cuddle and more in the bedroom, I watched television and finished the popcorn. Professor joined me, but Pollack was wary. I think it was because I was always barking at her. In my defense, she started it.

A BLESSING FROM MY SIXTEEN YEARS’ SON I have this son who assembled inside me during Hurricane Gloria. In a flash, he appeared, in a tiny blaze. Outside, pines toppled. Phone lines snapped and hissed like cobras. Inside, he was a raw pearl: microscopic, luminous. Look at the muscled obelisk of him now pawing through the icebox for more grapes. Sixteen years and not a bone broken, not a single stitch. By his age, I was marked more ways, and small. He’s a slouching six foot two, with implausible blue eyes, which settle on the pages of Emerson’s “Self Reliance” with profound belligerence. A girl with a navel ring could make his cell phone buzz, or an Afro’d boy leaning on a mop at Taco Bell— creatures strange as dragons or eels. Balanced on a kitchen stool, each gives counsel arcane as any oracle’s. Dante claims school is harshing my mellow. Rodney longs to date a tattooed girl, because he wants a woman willing to do stuff she’ll regret. They’ve come to lead my son into his broadening spiral. Someday soon, the tether will snap. I birthed my own mom into oblivion. The night my son smashed the car fender, then rode home in the rain-streaked cop cruiser, he asked, Did you and Dad screw up so much? He’d let me tuck him in, my grandmother’s wedding quilt from 1912 drawn to his goateed chin. Don’t blame us, I said. You’re your own idiot now. At which he grinned. The cop said the girl in the crimped Chevy took it hard. He’d found my son awkwardly holding her in the canted headlights, where he’d draped his own coat over her shaking shoulders. My fault, he’d confessed right off. Nice kid, said the cop.

Didn’t you ever notice that whatever you wanted or whatever you set out to do, Cora wanted to do it too?” Noah asked. “She wasn’t like that.” “She was, Mer. And it’s okay to admit it. One of the hardest things about Cora dying is that everyone wants to erase her—the real Cora. They talk about her as though she were perfect. She wasn’t. ‘Don’t talk ill of the dead,’ people say. But if we aren’t truthful about who our loved ones were, then we aren’t really remembering them. We’re creating someone who didn’t exist. Cora loved you. She loved me. But what she did was not okay. And I’m pissed off about it.” Mercedes reeled back, stunned. “Geez, Noah. Tell me how you really feel. She still deserves our compassion,” she rebuked. He nodded. “Everyone deserves compassion. And I know suicide isn’t always a conscious act. Most of the time it’s sheer desperation. It’s a moment of weakness that we can’t come back from. But regardless of illness or weakness, if we don’t own our actions and don’t demand that others own theirs, then what’s the point? We might as well give up now. We have to expect better of ourselves. We have to. I expect more of my patients, and when I expect more—lovingly, patiently—they tend to rise to that expectation. Maybe not all the way up, but they rise. They improve because I believe they can, and I believe they must. My mom was sick. But she didn’t try hard enough to get better. She found a way to cope—and that’s important—but she never varied from it. Life has to be more than coping. It has to be.” Mercedes nodded slowly, her eyes clinging to his impassioned face. She’d struck a nerve, and he wasn’t finished. “I know it’s not something we’re supposed to say. We’re supposed to be all-loving and all-compassionate all the time. But sometimes the things we aren’t supposed to say are the truths that keep us sane, that tether us to reality, that help us move the hell on! I know some of my colleagues would be shocked to hear it. But pressure—whether it’s the pressure of society, or the pressure of responsibility, or the pressure that comes with being loved and being needed—isn’t always a bad thing. You’ve heard the cliché about pressure and diamonds. It’s a cliché because it’s true. Pressure sometimes begets beautiful things.” Mercedes was silent, studying his handsome face, his tight shoulders, and his clenched fists. He was weary, that much was obvious, but he wasn’t wrong. “Begets?” she asked, a twinkle in her eye. He rolled his eyes. “You know damn well what beget means.” “In the Bible, beget means to give birth to. I wouldn’t mind giving birth to a diamond,” she mused. “You ruin all my best lectures.” There was silence from the kitchen. Silence was not good. “Gia?” Noah called. “What, Daddy?” she answered sweetly. “Are you pooping in your new princess panties?” “No. Poopin’ in box.” “What box?” His voice rose in horror. “Kitty box.” Noah was on his feet, racing toward the kitchen. Mercedes followed. Gia was naked—her Cinderella panties abandoned in the middle of the floor—and perched above the new litter box. “No!” Noah roared in horror, scooping her up and marching to the toilet. “Maybe it won’t be a turd, Noah. Maybe Gia will beget a diamond,” Mercedes chirped, trying not to laugh. “I blame you, Mer!” he called from the bathroom. “She was almost potty-trained, and now she wants to be a cat!

Should I be scared?” “I think you should get ready for quite an inquiry, but they’re necessary questions that must be answered if I want to ask you out on a second date.” “What if I don’t want to go on a second date?” “Hmm.” He taps his chin with his fork, ready to dig in the minute the plate arrives at our table. “That’s a good point. All right. If the question arose, would you go on a second date with me?” “Well, now I feel pressured to say yes just so I can hear the inquiry.” “You’re going to have to deal with the pressure, sweet cheeks.” “Fine. Hypothetically, if you were to ask me out on a second date, I would hypothetically, possibly say yes.” “Great.” He bops his own nose with his fork and then sets it down on the table. “Here goes.” He looks serious; both his hands rest palm down on the table and his shoulders stiffen. Looking me dead in the eyes, he asks, “Bobbies and Rebels are in the World Series, what shirt do you wear?” “Bobbies obviously.” He blinks. Sits back. “What?” “Bobbies for life.” “But I’m on the Rebels.” “Yes, but are we dating, are we married? Are we just fooling around? There’s going to have to be a huge commitment on my part in order to put a Rebels shirt on. Sorry.” “We’re dating.” “Eh.” I wave my hand. “Fine. We’re living together.” “Hmm, I don’t know.” I twist a strand of hair in my finger. “Christ, we’re married.” “Ugh.” I wince. “I’m sorry, I just don’t think it will ever happen.” “Not even if we’re married, for fuck’s sake?” he asks, dumbfounded. It’s endearing, especially since he’s pushing his hand through his hair in distress, tousling it. “Do we have kids?” I ask. “Six.” “Six?” Now it’s time for my eyes to pop out of their sockets. “Do you really think I want to birth six children?” “Hell, no.” He shakes his head. “We adopted six kids from all around the world. We’re going to have the most diverse and loving family you’ll ever see.” Adopting six kids, now that’s incredibly sweet. Or mad? No, it’s sweet. In fact, it’s extremely rare to meet a man who not only knows he wants to adopt kids, but is willing to look outside of the US, knowing how much he could offer that child. Good God, this man is a unicorn. “We have the means for it, after all,” he says, continuing. “You’re taking over the city of Chicago, and I’ll be raining home runs on every opposing team. We would be the power couple, the new king and queen of the city. Excuse me, Oprah and Steadman, a new, hip couple is in town. People would wear our faces on their shirts like the royals in England. We’re the next Kate and William, the next Meghan and Harry. People will scream our name and then faint, only for us to give them mouth-to-mouth because even though we’re super famous, we are also humanitarians.” “Wow.” I sit back in my chair. “That’s quite the picture you paint.” I know what my mom will say about him already. Don’t lose him, Dorothy. He’s gold. Gorgeous and selfless. “So . . . with all that said, our six children at your side, would you wear a Rebels shirt?” I take some time to think about it, mulling over the idea of switching to black and red as my team colors. Could I do it? With the way Jason is smiling at me, hope in his eyes, how could I ever deny him that joy—and I say that as if we’ve been married for ten years. “I would wear halfsies. Half Bobbies, half Rebels, and that’s the best I can do.” He lifts his finger to the sky. “I’ll take it.

Maybe tangled will be a spectacular rump. maybe i will adore it: it could happen. But one thing is for sure: tangled will not be rapunzel. And thats too bad , because rapunzel is an specially layered and relevant fairytale, less about the love between a man and a woman than the misguided attempts of a mother trying to protect her daughter from (what she perceives ) as the worlds evils. The tale, you may recall, begins with a mother-to-bes yearning for the taste of rapunzel, a salad green she spies growing in the garden of the sorceress who happens to live next door. The womans craving becomes so intense , she tells her husband that if he doesn't fetch her some, she and their unborn baby will die. So he steals into the baby's yard, wraps his hands around a plant, and, just as he pulls... she appears in a fury. The two eventually strike a bargain: the mans wife can have as much of the plant as she wants- if she turns over her baby to the witch upon its birth. `i will take care for it like a mother,` the sorceress croons (as if that makes it all right). Then again , who would you rather have as a mom: the woman who would do anything for you or the one who would swap you in a New York minute for a bowl of lettuce? Rapunzel grows up, her hair grows down, and when she is twelve-note that age-Old Mother Gothel , as she calls the witch. leads her into the woods, locking her in a high tower which offers no escape and no entry except by scaling the girls flowing tresses. One day, a prince passes by and , on overhearing Rapunzel singing, falls immediately in love (that makes Rapunzel the inverse of Ariel- she is loved sight unseen because of her voice) . He shinnies up her hair to say hello and , depending on the version you read, they have a chaste little chat or get busy conceiving twins. Either way, when their tryst is discovered, Old Mother Gothel cries, `you wicked child! i thought i had separated you from the world, and yet you deceived me!` There you have it : the Grimm`s warning to parents , centuries before psychologists would come along with their studies and measurements, against undue restriction . Interestingly the prince cant save Rapuzel from her foster mothers wrath. When he sees the witch at the top of the now-severed braids, he jumps back in surprise and is blinded by the bramble that breaks his fall. He wanders the countryside for an unspecified time, living on roots and berries, until he accidentally stumbles upon his love. She weeps into his sightless eyes, restoring his vision , and - voila!- they rescue each other . `Rapunzel` then, wins the prize for the most egalitarian romance, but that its not its only distinction: it is the only well-known tale in which the villain is neither maimed nor killed. No red-hot shoes are welded to the witch`s feet . Her eyes are not pecked out. Her limbs are not lashed to four horses who speed off in different directions. She is not burned at the stake. Why such leniency? perhaps because she is not, in the end, really evil- she simply loves too much. What mother has not, from time to time, felt the urge to protect her daughter by locking her in a tower? Who among us doesn't have a tiny bit of trouble letting our children go? if the hazel branch is the mother i aspire to be, then Old Mother Gothel is my cautionary tale: she reminds us that our role is not to keep the world at bay but to prepare our daughters so they can thrive within it. That involves staying close but not crowding them, standing firm in one`s values while remaining flexible. The path to womanhood is strewn with enchantment , but it also rifle with thickets and thorns and a big bad culture that threatens to consume them even as they consume it. The good news is the choices we make for our toodles can influence how they navigate it as teens. I`m not saying that we can, or will, do everything `right,` only that there is power-magic-in awareness.

French moms often ask me where I plan to deliver, but never how. They don’t seem to care. In France, the way you give birth doesn’t situate you within a value system or define the sort of parent you’ll be. It is, for the most part, a way of getting your baby safely from your uterus into your arms.

Since “The Twitler Years”, hate, fear, and loathing had been in the air they all breathed. It coursed through their blood and came between friends. The very first emotion they learned to read and respond to at birth was the dread in their mom’s eyes for what she’d brought them into. - From “The Soul Hides in Shadows” by Edward Fahey

on birth control, it’s perfectly normal to react this way. I feel better already and text my mom to tell her I’m sorry for snapping at her and

This ability of Life 2.0 to design its software enables it to be much smarter than Life 1.0. High intelligence requires both lots of hardware (made of atoms) and lots of software (made of bits). The fact that most of our human hardware is added after birth (through growth) is useful, since our ultimate size isn’t limited by the width of our mom’s birth canal. In the same way, the fact that most of our human software is added after birth (through learning) is useful, since our ultimate intelligence isn’t limited by how much information can be transmitted to us at conception via our DNA, 1.0-style. I weigh about twenty-five times more than when I was born, and the synaptic connections that link the neurons in my brain can store about a hundred thousand times more information than the DNA that I was born with. Your synapses store all your knowledge and skills as roughly 100 terabytes’ worth of information, while your DNA stores merely about a gigabyte, barely enough to store a single movie download. So it’s physically impossible for an infant to be born speaking perfect English and ready to ace her college entrance exams: there’s no way the information could have been preloaded into her brain, since the main information module she got from her parents (her DNA) lacks sufficient information-storage capacity.

Her face distressed, Astrid handed him off to Zarek. "Menoeceus wants his father." Zarek glared at her. "Bob is crying because he wants his mother to stop calling him that crap-ass name." Zarek cuddled the small boy to him as he rocked him gently against his shoulder while he continued to wail. Loudly. "It's all right, Bob. Daddy's got you now. I'm saving you from Mommy's bad naming taste. I'd be crying, too, if my mom named me after an idiot." "Menoeceus is a great name," Astrid said defensively. Zarek snorted. "For an old man or a feminine hygiene product. Not for my son. And next time I get to name the kid and it won't be something that sounds like meningitis." Astrid stood with her hands on her hips, toe to toe with her husband. "You keep that up and next time you'll be the one birthing it, and don't mess with me, bucko, I have connections in that department. A pregnant man is not an impossibility in my neighborhood." She started away from him. "Yeah, well, I'll be glad to birth it if it means I can name him something normal," Zarek called after her.

Damaging feelings don’t just show up out of nowhere. They’re birthed from experiences, from moments that wield the power to shape us. Sometimes we can’t even recognize the magnitude of those pivotal events until years later.

guiding users through a process quickly and easily is good for business, because the fewer people who get frustrated or confused, the more sales or sign-ups are completed. The problem, though, is that making interactions feel smooth and simple sounds nice, but it starts to fail as soon as you’re asking users for messy, complicated information. And as you’ll see in this chapter, all kinds of everyday questions can be messy and complicated—often in ways designers haven’t predicted. NAMING THE PROBLEM Sara Ann Marie Wachter-Boettcher. That’s how my birth certificate reads: five names, one hyphen, and a whole lot of consonant clusters (thanks, Mom and Dad!). I was used to it being misspelled. I was used to it being pronounced all sorts of ways. I was even used to everyone who looks at my driver’s license commenting that it takes up two whole lines. But I didn’t expect my name to cause me so many problems online. As it turns out, tons of services haven’t thought much about the wide range of names out there. So, on Twitter I forgo spaces to fit my professional name in: SaraWachterBoettcher. On online bill pay, they’ve truncated it for me: Sara Wachter-Boettch. In my airline’s online check-in system, hyphens straight up don’t exist. The list goes on. It’s irritating. It takes some extra time (do I enter a space between my last names, or just squish them together?). I see more error messages than I’d like. But it’s still a minor inconvenience, compared to what other people experience.

I asked him about what it was like growing up as a Korean American in northern New Jersey in the 1970s and 1980s. “It was embarrassing,” he said, shielding his face with his hands. He recalls that a large part of the shame came from the food. “One time when I was in third grade, my mom packed jja jang myun”—noodles with black bean sauce—“and kkakdugi”—pickled radish—“and put it in a thermos. My teacher made me dump it because the kids were all like, “‘Who farted?’” So I had to tie it up in a plastic bag and take it outside. I was the only Asian American in my school at the time.” I

La Estrella, the daughter of La Mama and El Papa who birthed all the stars in all the galaxies. For a little while, after my dad’s disappearance, my mom erected an altar for her. She bought a statue of a woman with skin like the night sky, eyes silver like stars, and a blue dress draped around her body. She bought fruits and candles and a starling bird in a cage.

The birth of baby Zach marked my mom’s tenth child and my father’s nineteenth.

It was the law of the matryoshka—the Russian nesting doll—out of each, a girl is born; the girl grows up and produces a girl who one day becomes a mother by giving birth to yet another girl who eventually bears one, too. The infinite thread of life renewing the kinfolk. I wondered if the moms came here to save one of us or to find salvation for themselves.

I've never been there for you and your mother. I wish I had been. You both deserved better." Natalie hesitated. Now? she thought. You want to unburden yourself now? Oh, dude... "Mom did," Natalie agreed. "I'll always regret that I never found a way to have you in my life," he said. "Yeah, kind of hard when you have a wife and three kids at home." He winced. "I was so fucking stupid. I have so many damn regrets." He paused, then asked, "Did she... did Blythe ever speak of me?" "Let's not do this," Natalie said. "Let's not make this all about you. You could have asked Mom anytime in the past three decades. What do you suppose she would have said---that you're the guy who banged her and gaslighted her about wanting to spend the rest of your life with her?

as the US ranks at the bottom of all industrialized nations when it comes to parental leave, guaranteeing only twelve weeks off after the birth of a child.

Parenting The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children by Dr. Shefali Tsabary Mothering From Your Center: Tapping Your Body’s Natural Energy for Pregnancy, Birth, and Parenting by Tami Lynn Kent

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard “You’re a mom; why are you dressing like that?” What, now that I’ve given birth it’s illegal for me to wear a minidress? I have to shrivel up and move to sweatsuit town? (Though, for the record, I can rock the shit out of a sweatsuit—and you can, too, if that’s your speed.) The point is, I refuse to change my style just because I’m a mother now, and I double refuse to allow people to shame me for the way I dress.

Mary found favor with God; therefore, she was chosen to be Jesus' mom. But because God favored Mary, she was also chosen to suffer. Not just at the crucifixion, but her whole life. She was chosen to carry a baby in her womb, be persecuted, and give birth in a dirty stable.

This much I’ll give the man: he didn’t lecture me about not living up to my potential. He’d got hold of my DSS records going back to the hospital interviews of Mom’s OD, or before. I’d had one foot in the custody-removal shitpile since birth. I told Mr. Armstrong if he’d read all that, he knew more about me than I did. He said no, he didn’t, that nobody ought to pretend to know how I felt. “Here’s what I do know,” he said. “You are resilient.” I’d heard quite a few fifty-dollar words for the problem of Demon. I asked Mr. Armstrong if he was wanting to put me on meds for that. “It’s not something to fix,” he said. “It means strong. Outside of all expectation.

When Ming was still in diapers, I had been giving Mom my salary. I had paid for her apartment. I was more than happy to care for her in old age; in fact, I had budgeted for it. It pained me that despite my love and support for her, in her mind it was still her son who made the difference between her servitude and her freedom. Taiwan itself had evolved around her, but she continued to see our world as it had been before World War II— as a world in which men operated, and women were significantly only insofar as they could perpetuate this way of life through the birth of heirs.

What I realized eventually is that the fantasy that fueled my twenties? I’d needed that. We all do. I needed to feel like the invincible heroine in a silk headscarf fighting off evil questions about why I hadn’t found a man. As the years stacked up, I had dreamt up another fantasy to pull me through the next decade. This one filled with babies and momming so hard. And now that picture needed some serious retouching, somehow reconciling it with the old ones. To really confront who I was as a mother, a Black mother, I’d have to give birth yet again. The emotional labor pains were the worst but my authentic self was in there somewhere.

He felt bad that he’d never given her the opportunity to get to know herself better. At twenty-nine, she’d become so staunchly, irrevocably Mom to three girls that there was no room for anyone else, and even if there had been room, there wasn’t anyone else, because she hadn’t had the chance to discover any of her other selves prior to the births of their children. She’d given up so much and so little when she agreed to marry him, but he had been so fixated on having her that he had rarely stopped to consider what it would mean for her to allow herself to be had. This was how he saw it: getting her, winning. It wasn’t fair. She deserved more.

Becoming a mom birthed my biggest fear—losing him. Sawyer marked my entrance into motherhood.

The Circumcision Decision If you have a baby boy, chances are you’ll be asked whether or not you want to circumcise him in the hospital. Most of us have inherited a vague sense that circumcision is somehow cleaner or healthier. But these are myths. We’ll share a few facts to jumpstart your research. - The significance of the infant’s pain is often overlooked in circumcision. Hospitals use painful Gomco clamps that sever nerve endings, and most docs make the cut without anesthesia. - Many infants go into shock as a result of the pain they experience in circumcision, and the breastfeeding relationship may be compromised as a result. - The circumcised penis is no cleaner than an intact penis, and requires far more care during the healing process. - “...[P]rofessional societies representing Australian, Canadian, and American pediatricians do not recommend routine circumcision of male newborns.” ~American Medical Association What if you plan to circumcise for reasons of Jewish faith? In Jewish circumcisions, - Boys are circumcised eight days after birth, when natural levels of Vitamin K are the highest. - Anesthetic is traditionally given (in the form of a tiny amount of wine and/or numbing agents). - Mohels (traditional circumcisers) don’t use painful skin clamps. Overheard… After reading up on circumcision, I knew I didn’t want to go through with it. The first reason was medical: the AAP doesn’t recommend routine circumcision. My second reason was emotional. It went against my mama bear instinct to protect my baby. Convincing dad was more difficult. He wanted to have his son like him. (I asked him if he and his dad compared their penises; the answer was no.) My husband watched videos of the procedure being done but had to stop them before they were over. He’d thought it was a simple snip of the ‘extra’ skin, but it’s not. The foreskin is actually fused to the head of the penis, like a fingernail to a nail bed. We took our baby home from the hospital the way he was born, and we haven’t regretted it. ~Lani, mom to Bentley Want to learn more? Check out the Circumcision Resource Center online, a helpful resource filled with medical and psychological literature for those questioning the practice.

Being a mother is not about ‘birthing a child into the world.’ Rather, it is about repeatedly ‘birthing into the child’ a steady sense of their inestimable worth, a prized understanding of their authentic self, a conviction that the impossible is largely the stuff of myth, and an utterly unwavering belief that the cold actions of men never represent the warm heart of God. It is the relentless act of birthing these things into the innermost soul of a thirsty child that makes a woman a mother.

The real legacy of the Internet is not the birth of thousands of new online companies but the transformation of existing businesses. We can see its signature on everything from mom-and-pop stores to large multinational agglomerates.

His mom was more the rich pampered type whose version of natural childbirth meant giving birth without makeup.

mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to

Don’t give everything to the baby. Especially remember that your breasts are for your husband.” I love this quote, a little bit of wisdom imparted to a French friend by her doctor after the birth of her first child. I love this quote for what it suggests—and for how hilarious it must seem to nearly every American mom.

CHILD ABUSE It is estimated that in the United States today, twenty-four percent of all children are abused at some time between birth through the age of twenty-two via some form of emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, abandonment, or neglect.

My birth certificate says “Gratuity Tucci,” but Mom’s called me Turtlebear ever since she learned that “gratuity” didn’t mean what she thought it did. My friends call me Tip. I

You don’t ever hear anyone talking about childing, do you?” “There should be a word like childing,” says Lauren. “Children give birth to parents. There wouldn’t be parents without children. Not only that, children raise parents. My mom and dad all the time tell me how they learn important lessons in life from me. They