Maternity Family Quotes

Maternity is a glorious thing, since all mankind has been conceived, born, and nourished of women. All human laws should encourage the multiplication of families.

I cannot imagine how much I must’ve suffered in my previous lives to be fortunate enough to have parents like you in this life.

I never really grew up until I had kids.

Oprah spent the first six years of her life in rural poverty with her maternal grandmother. Her family was so poor that Oprah wore dresses made of potato sacks,

Courage and strength moves like the steadfast waves of the ocean. Ebbs and flows, highs and lows, loud and soft, firm and vulnerable, passing encouragement from one generation to the next.

As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home. I have seen so many women inadvertently discourage their husbands from doing their share by being too controlling or critical. Social scientists call this "maternal gatekeeping" which is a fancy term for "Ohmigod, that's not the way you do it! Just move aside and let me!"...Anyone who wants her mate to be a true partner must treat him as an equal--and equally capable partner. And if that's note reason enough, bear in mind that a study found that wives who engage in gatekeeping behaviors do five more hours of family work per week than wives who take a more collaborative approach. Another common and counterproductive dynamic occurs when women assign or suggest taks to their partners. She is delegating, and that's a step in the right direction. But sharing responsibility should mean sharing responsibility. Each partner needs to be in charge of specific activities or it becomes too easy for one to feel like he's doing a favor instead of doing his part.

The United States is one of only eight countries in the world that do not provide paid maternity leave…This is startling evidence that the United States is far behind the rest of the world in honoring the needs of families.

There is a world of difference between the experience of 'care' – the wiping of a bottom, the bathing of a body: basic biological obligations – and the intimacy that makes us want to live.

The respectable family that supports worthless relatives or covers up their crimes in order to "protect the family name"(as if the moral stature of one man could be damaged by the actions of another) -the bum who boasts that his great-grandfather was an empire-builder, or the small-town spinster who boasts that her maternal great-uncle was a state senator and her third cousin gave a concert at carnegie hall (as if the achievement of one man could rub off on the mediocrity of another) -the parents who search geneological trees in order to evaluate their prospective son-in-law. -the celebrity who starts his autobiography with a detailed account of his family history -All these are samples of racism.

Men never fail to dwell on maternity as a disqualification for the possession of many civil and political rights. Suggest the idea of women having a voice in making laws and administering the Government in the halls of legislation, in Congress, or the British Parliament, and men will declaim at once on the disabilities of maternity in a sneering contemptuous way, as if the office of motherhood was undignified and did not comport with the highest public offices in church and state. It is vain that we point them to Queen Victoria, who has carefully reared a large family, while considering and signing...

superb maternal jujitsu: paying lip service to relating to her daughter’s experience when in fact she was obliterating it, draining it of all meaning, blotting it out.

There have been times," Father Mark admitted, "when I feared that God would turn out to be like my maternal grandmother [...] Ours was a large family, and every Christmas my grandmother gave gifts of cash in varying amounts, claiming she was rewarding her grandchildren according to how much they loved her. She swore she could look right into our hearts and know. One child would get a crisp fifty-dollar bill, the next a crumpled single. No two gifts were ever in the same amount." Miles nodded. "Well, maybe there's a hell.

Looking down at her fingernails, she also asked me had I not in my family a certain strange strain. I countered by inquiring whether she would still want to marry me if my father’s maternal grandfather had been, say, a Turk.

In praise of mu husband's hair A woman is alone in labor, for it is an unfortunate fact that there is nobody who can have the baby for you. However, this account would be inadequate if I did not speak to the scent of my husband's hair. Besides the cut flowers he sacrifices his lunches to afford, the purchase of bags of licorice, the plumping of pillows, steaming of fish, searching out of chic maternity dresses, taking over of work, listening to complaints and simply worrying, there was my husband's hair. His hair has always amazed stylists in beauty salons. At his every first appointment they gather their colleagues around Michael's head. He owns glossy and springy hair, of an animal vitality and resilience that seems to me so like his personality. The Black Irish on Michael's mother's side of the family have changeable hair--his great-grandmother's hair went from black to gold in old age. Michael's went from golden-brown of childhood to a deepening chestnut that gleams Modoc black from his father under certain lights. When pushing each baby I throw my arm over Michael and lean my full weight. When the desperate part is over, the effort, I turn my face into the hair above his ear. It is as though I am entering a small and temporary refuge. How much I want to be little and unnecessary, to stay there, to leave my struggling body at the entrance. Leaves on a tree all winter that now, in your hand, crushed, give off a dry, true odor. The brass underside of a door knocker in your fingers and its faint metallic polish. Fresh potter's clay hardening on the wrist of a child. The slow blackening of Lent, timeless and lighted with hunger. All of these things enter into my mind when drawing into my entire face the scent of my husband's hair. When I am most alone and drowning and I think I cannot go on, it is breathing into his hair that draws me to the surface and restores my small courage.

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.

Working outward in concentric circles from the single mother's situation, we can easily draw a picture of what a 'good' mother-son relationship needs in order to flourish. In its ideal form, mom would be experiencing physical, material, social, and emotional support from four interdependent sources: an intimate partner who is also attached to the child; a select group of close friends and family; a wider community that supports mom's values and goals; and a maternity-flexible workplace.

My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companion as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family as the geese, and adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys. My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people.

Americans need to demand change. Ours is the only nation in the developed world with no paid maternity leave. We have no paid family sick leave. We don't ensure affordable daycare, or provide universal pre-K, or mandate equal pay for equal work. And what do we do when our representatives fail to fight for these things? Nothing.

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.

Why one enjoys maternal grandparents more than the paternal ones, i have never understood, but it was like that for me.

I also came from a notable family—my mother was a US senator, my father was the dean of the college of medicine at UCLA, and my maternal grandfather was an astronaut.

But the lack of paid maternity leave—and paid parental leave—is an embarrassing sign of a society that does not value families and does not listen to women.

She had chained herself to her place in society and the family through the maternal functions of her nature, and only chains thus strong could have bound her lot as a brood animal for the masculine civilizations of the world.

A schizophrenic,” a Philadelphia psychiatrist named John Rosen wrote, within a year of Fromm-Reichmann’s invention of the term schizophrenogenic mother, “is always one who is reared by a woman who suffers from a perversion of the maternal instinct.

It was an impressive gathering for a woman who had claimed to come from nothing and been wanted by no one as a child. When Marimar had asked why everyone in the family carried the last name Montoya, even though it was the maternal last name, Orquídea simply said that she wanted to leave her mark,

My own choice of a single-variable measure for rapid and revealing comparisons of quality of life is infant mortality: the number of deaths during the first year of life that take place per 1,000 live births. Infant mortality is such a powerful indicator because low rates are impossible to achieve without having a combination of several critical conditions that define good quality of life—good healthcare in general, and appropriate prenatal, perinatal, and neonatal care in particular; proper maternal and infant nutrition; adequate and sanitary living conditions; and access to social support for disadvantaged families—and that are also predicated on relevant government and private spending, and on infrastructures and incomes that can maintain usage and access. A single variable thus captures a number of prerequisites for the near-universal survival of the most critical period of life: the first year.

I advocate for fatherhood because of the trauma I experienced as a father. When I separated from my daughters mother, she literally tried to destroy my relationship with my daughter. She did everything she could to jeapordize me and my daughters daddy-daughter relationship. She prioritized maternal control over the presence of paternal love. She was willing to hurt her own daughter in an effort to hurt me because she was jealous that I got married and was happy with my new family. I want to help create a world where no father and no daughter ever has to suffer the way me and my daughter did because of a divorce or separation.

Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may be guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many of her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible, amiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and invariably silly.

It was hardly a surprise to find St. Vincent here, since his family owned the club, and his maternal grandfather had been Ivo Jenner himself. In recent years, St. Vincent had taken over the management of the club from his father. By all accounts, he was doing an excellent job of it, with his customary cool and relaxed aplomb.

In France, the percentage of children exposed to three or more maternal partners is 0.5 percent—about one in two hundred. The second highest share is 2.6 percent, in Sweden, or about one in forty. In the United States, the figure is a shocking 8.2 percent—about one in twelve—and the figure is even higher in the working class.

A pair of young mothers now became the centre of interest. They had risen from their lying-in much sooner than the doctors would otherwise have allowed. (French doctors are always very good about recognizing the importance of social events, and certainly in this case had the patients been forbidden the ball the might easily have fretted themselves to death.) One came as the Duchesse de Berri with l’Enfant du Miracle, and the other as Madame de Montespan and the Duc du Maine. The two husbands, the ghost of the Duc de Berri, a dagger sticking out of his evening dress, and Louis XIV, were rather embarrassed really by the horrible screams of their so very young heirs, and hurried to the bar together. The noise was indeed terrific, and Albertine said crossly that had she been consulted she would, in this case, have permitted and even encouraged the substitution of dolls. The infants were then dumped down to cry themselves to sleep among the coats on her bed, whence they were presently collected by their mothers’ monthly nannies. Nobody thereafter could feel quite sure that the noble families of Bregendir and Belestat were not hopelessly and for ever interchanged. As their initials and coronets were, unfortunately, the same, and their baby linen came from the same shop, it was impossible to identify the children for certain. The mothers were sent for, but the pleasures of society rediscovered having greatly befogged their maternal instincts, they were obliged to admit they had no idea which was which. With a tremendous amount of guilty giggling they spun a coin for the prettier of the two babies and left it at that.

All social orders command their members to imbibe in pipe dreams of posterity, the mirage of immortality, to keep them ahead of the extinction that would ensue in a few generations if the species did not replenish itself. This is the implicit, and most pestiferous, rationale for propagation: to become fully integrated into a society, one must offer it fresh blood. Naturally, the average set of parents does not conceive of their conception as a sacrificial act. These are civilized human beings we are talking about, and thus they are quite able to fill their heads with a panoply of less barbaric rationales for reproduction, among them being the consolidation of a spousal relationship; the expectation of new and enjoyable experiences in the parental role; the hope that one will pass the test as a mother or father; the pleasing of one’s own parents, not to forget their parents and possibly a great-grandparent still loitering about; the serenity of taking one’s place in the seemingly deathless lineage of a familial enterprise; the creation of individuals who will care for their paternal and maternal selves in their dotage; the quelling of a sense of guilt or selfishness for not having done their duty as human beings; and the squelching of that faint pathos that is associated with the childless. Such are some of the overpowering pressures upon those who would fertilize the future. These pressures build up in people throughout their lifetimes and must be released, just as everyone must evacuate their bowels or fall victim to a fecal impaction. And who, if they could help it, would suffer a building, painful fecal impaction? So we make bowel movements to relieve this pressure. Quite a few people make gardens because they cannot stand the pressure of not making a garden. Others commit murder because they cannot stand the pressure building up to kill someone, either a person known to them or a total stranger. Everything is like that. Our whole lives consist of metaphorical as well as actual bowel movements, one after the other. Releasing these pressures can have greater or lesser consequences in the scheme of our lives. But they are all pressures, all bowel movements of some kind. At a certain age, children are praised for making a bowel movement in the approved manner. Later on, the praise of others dies down for this achievement and our bowel movements become our own business, although we may continue to praise ourselves for them. But overpowering pressures go on governing our lives, and the release of these essentially bowel-movement pressures may once again come up for praise, congratulations, and huzzahs of all kinds.

world economic growth) and might even do something to improve health care, maternity leave, and other family friendly policies. Of course, my hope is a little more audacious – that one day there might just be a President of the US who doesn’t feel they have to denigrate their mother’s secular humanism as their only hope of being elected. That the US might one day consider someone’s worth not as being measured purely by the size of their bank account and that paying taxes will be seen as something proudly done because it is the price one pays to live in a civilisation. 〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓 텔 - KrTop "코리아탑" 〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓 But Obama does look like he might try to help the poor, that he might seek to finally do something to address the shame that is racism, that he might do something to reduce the US deficit (which is increasingly a threat to I can’t help but feel that while the US cuts taxes to the bone, prefers its citizens to beg in the humiliation that is charity rather than turn when in need to the dignity of social welfare, while the US gleefully punishes the poor and the working class with unliveable wages, while the US talks of placing the ten commandments in the courtrooms that sentence people to death in contradiction of the ‘thou shalt not kill’ they would hypocritically engrave into the walls, it will always be hard for me to understand the US. juul 대마,juul 떨,lsd판매,떨 구매,떨 구매매,떨 액상,떨 판매,떨 판매매,떨판매,떨판매매

What is it about the relationship of a mother that can heal or hurt us? Her womb is the first landscape we inhabit. It is here we learn to respond - to move, to listen, to be nourished and grow. In her body we grow to be human as our tails disappear and our gills turn to lungs. Our maternal environment is perfectly safe - dark, warm, and wet. It is a residency inside the Feminine. When we outgrow our mother's body, our cramps become her own. We move. She labors. Our body turns upside down in hers as we journey through the birth canal. She pushes in pain. We emerge, a head. She pushes one more time, and we slide out like a fish. Slapped on the back by the doctor, we breath. The umbilical cord is cut - not at our request. Separation is immediate. A mother reclaims her body, for her own life. Not ours. Minutes old, our first death is our own birth.

There’s overwhelming evidence about what happens when these rights are denied. Texas has defunded Planned Parenthood and refused to expand Medicaid, and maternal mortality doubled between 2010 and 2014. That’s the worst in the nation, and it’s higher than the rate in many developing countries. Six hundred women have died in Texas—not from abortions, but from trying to give birth. The number of Texas teenagers having abortions actually increased when support for family planning was cut. In one county, Gregg, it went up 191 percent between 2012 and 2014.

Of course I don’t expect you to have any feelings for me, since I abandoned you when you were a baby. Nor do I feel any great maternal love for you. I know that very few women would speak this way—would permit themselves to—but when you were born, it was too late for an abortion and adoption was impossible in your father’s family. It’s not as if I ever had some great mission in life. I wasn’t an actress or a scientist or a writer or even a philanthropist. I had no goal, no destiny. But I knew that, restless as I was, I could bring you nothing but misery.

(Maternal anxiety may be the original addiction.) To some extent, the child's reaction will depend on the extent to which mother used the child as her own addiction, fusing with the child to ward off rejection or pain in her own life. The withdrawal phenomenon in a child is more severe to the extent that the child was originally mother's analgesic. Either way, the intensity of the symptom that surfaces will be proportional to the amount of pain the child was originally spared. This need for a "fix" can occur in any relationship, however, even between a shepherd and his flock.

My maternal grandmother died on December 21st, and her only concern was that we wouldn't find the Christmas gifts that she'd hidden away for the family. Right then, I understood why my mother was such a kind woman - she followed her mother's example and passed that compassion on to her children. My grandmother's example in life became her shining example of a noble death - selfless and caring until the end. While some choose the path unilaterally, for me, kindness is a learned behaviour: teach your children humility by your words and actions, and they will give something to this world and not just take from it.

In a world where women do not say no, the man is never forced to settle down and make serious choices. His sex drive--the most powerful compulsion in his life--is never used to make him part of civilization as the supporter of a family. If a woman does not force him to make a long-term commitment--to marry--in general, he doesn't. It is maternity that requires commitment. His sex drive only demands conquest, driving him from body to body in an unsettling hunt for variety and excitement in which much of the thrill is in the chase itself. The man still needs to be tamed. His problem is that many young women think they have better things to do than socialize single men.

Wenner began a campaign to get his parents back together. Sim told her son she wanted him to call only every other week to reduce her phone bills. “Your demand that Dad and I be something to each other that we’re not, is basically a child’s demand,” she wrote to him in 1959, when Wenner was thirteen. “One stamps one’s foot and says, ‘Change the world and I will be all right!’ and it’s a nice comforting thought to have, but the world can’t be changed, families can’t be changed, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers…There is only one thing that can be changed, or rather, only one thing that you can change, and that is yourself.” (“Maternally yours,” she signed the letter.)

Jules Verne was born on 8 February 1828 on Île Feydeau, a small artificial island on the Loire river located in the town of Nantes, in the house of his maternal grandmother Dame Sophie Allotte de la Fuÿe, in No. 4 Rue de Clisson. His father, Pierre Verne, was an attorney originally from Provins. His mother was Sophie Allotte de la Fuÿe, a Nantes woman of Scottish descent. She belonged to a local family of navigators and ship owners. The Verne family moved away to No. 2 Quai Jean-Bart in 1829, where Verne’s brother Paul was born the same year. Verne also had three sisters named Anne, Mathilde, and Marie, who were born in 1836, 1839, and 1842, respectively. In 1834, Verne was sent to the boarding school located at 5 Place du Bouffay in Nantes.

Scientists know your DNA reflects the genetic legacy of your parents, their parents, and your ancestors. It’s possible that it also reflects their emotional experiences. As researchers learn more about our DNA, maybe we’ll find that our cells have encoded the traumas of our ancestors. Experiments in mice have shown that aversion to certain smells is passed down to the offspring after the parental mice were trained to avoid a certain smell by being shocked every time they smelled it.8 While we know that a family history of heart disease may mean close relatives share genes and genetic markers, if we look back, we can often see in family stories hearts that are broken, conflicted, and prevented from loving fully. In my family, people tend to die of heart disease prematurely. My maternal

lake level: 4204.75' What is it about the relationship of a mother that can heal or hurt us? Her womb is the first landscape we inhabit. It is here we learn to respond - to move, to listen, to be nourished and grow. In her body we grow to be human as our tails disappear and our gills turn to lungs. Our maternal environment is perfectly safe - dark, warm, and wet. It is a residency inside the Feminine. When we outgrow our mother's body, our cramps become her own. We move. She labors. Our body turns upside down in hers as we journey through the birth canal. She pushes in pain. We emerge, a head. She pushes one more time, and we slide out like a fish. Slapped on the back by the doctor, we breathe. The umbilical cord is cut - not at our request. Separation is immediate. A mother reclaims her body, for her own life. Not ours. Minutes old, our first death is our own birth.

But I love [America] the way you love a wife of many years: not because you have a sentimental notion of her perfection, but because you know her thoroughly, from the courage of the maternity room to the pettiness of her morning moods; from seeing her sit for weeks by her dying mother's bedside, to watching her worry about which shoes to wear to a cocktail party given by a person she does not like. You know she has the capacity to get up at five in the morning and make you pancakes before you set off on a particularly arduous business trip, and you know she also has the capacity to say things, in the heat of an argument, that she should not say, to sneak the last piece of chocolate cake, to lose track of time and keep the rest of the family waiting for an hour, at the beach, on a burning hot afternoon. You know everything from what flavor lip gloss she likes to what books she would bring with her to the proverbial desert island and what she believes the meaning of life to be. And then, always, there is a part of her you do not know.

The patriarchal authoritarian sexual order that resulted from the revolutionary processes of latter-day matriarchy (economic independence of the chief's family from the maternal gens, a growing exchange of goods between the tribes, development of the means of production, etc.) becomes the primary basis of authoritarian ideology by depriving the women, children, and adolescents of their sexual freedom, making a commodity of sex and placing sexual interests in the service of economic subjugation. From now on, sexuality is indeed distorted; it becomes diabolical and demonic and has to be curbed. In terms of patriarchal demands, the innocent sensuousness of matriarchy appears as the lascivious unchaining of dark powers. The Dionysian becomes "sinful yearning," which patriarchal culture can conceive of only as something chaotic and "dirty." Surrounded by and imbued with human sexual structures that have become distorted and lascivious, patriarchal man is shackled for the first time in an ideology in which sexual and dirty, sexual and vulgar or demonic, became inseparable associations.

CICLU SEPTENAR (PRIMUL PĂTRAT DE 4 x 7): Un destin uman evoluează în cicluri de şapte ani. Fiecare ciclu se termină cu o criză care face trecerea la etapa superioară. De la 0 la 7 ani. Legătură puternică cu mama. Teamă orizontală de lume. Construirea simţurilor. Mirosul mamei, laptele mamei, vocea mamei, căldura mamei, sărutările mamei sunt primele referinţe. Perioada se termină în general prin crăparea coconului protector al iubirii materne şi descoperirea mai mult sau mai puţin temătoare a restului lumii. De la 7 la 14 ani. Legătură puternică cu tatăl. Teamă verticală de lume. Construirea personalităţii. Tatăl devine noul partener privilegiat, aliatul pentru descoperirea lumii din afara coconului familial. Tatăl măreşte coconul familial protector. Tatăl se impune ca referinţă. Mama era iubită, tatăl va trebui să fie admirat. De la 14 la 21 de ani. Revoltă împotriva societăţii. Teamă de materie. Construirea intelectului. E criza adolescentului. Vrei să schimbi lumea şi să distrugi structurile prezente. Tînărul atacă coconul familial, apoi societatea în general. Adolescentul este sedus de tot ce este „rebel”: muzică violentă, atitudine romantică, dorinţă de independenţă, fugă de acasă, legătură cu bande de tineri care trăiesc la marginea societăţii, adeziune la valorile anarhiste, negarea sistematică a vechilor valori. Perioada se termină cu o ieşire din coconul familial. De la 21 la 28 de ani. Adeziune la societate. Stabilizare după revoltă. Pentru că nu ai reuşit să distrugi lumea, te integrezi în ea, avînd la început dorinţa de a face mai bine decît generaţia precedentă. Căutarea unei meserii mai interesante decît cea a părinţilor. Căutarea unui loc de viaţă mai interesant decît cel al părinţilor. Tentativa de a realiza un cuplu mai fericit decît cel al părinţilor. Alegi un (o) partener(ă) şi întemeiezi un cămin. Construieşti propriul cocon. Perioada se termină în general cu o căsătorie. Acum omul şi-a îndeplinit misiunea şi a terminat cu primul său cocon protector. SFÎRŞITUL PRIMULUI PĂTRAT DE 4 x 7 ANI. Edmond Wells, Enciclopedia cunoaşterii relative şi absolute, volumul IV

I wanted to be alone.” “I see.” Except she didn’t, exactly. When had this child become a mystery to her own mother? “Why?” Sophie glanced at herself in the mirror, and Esther could only hope her daughter saw the truth: a lovely, poised woman—intelligent, caring, well dowered, and deserving of more than a stolen interlude with a convenient stranger and an inconvenient baby—Sophie’s brothers’ assurances notwithstanding. “I am lonely, that’s why.” Sophie’s posture relaxed with this pronouncement, but Esther’s consternation only increased. “How can you be lonely when you’re surrounded by loving family, for pity’s sake? Your father and I, your sisters, your brothers, even Uncle Tony and your cousins—we’re your family, Sophia.” She nodded, a sad smile playing around her lips that to Esther’s eyes made her daughter look positively beautiful. “You’re the family I was born with, and I love you too, but I’m still lonely, Your Grace. I’ve wished and wished for my own family, for children of my own, for a husband, not just a marital partner…” “You had many offers.” Esther spoke gently, because in Sophie’s words, in her calm, in her use of the present tense—“I am lonely”—there was an insight to be had. “Those offers weren’t from the right man.” “Was Baron Sindal the right man?” It was a chance arrow, but a woman who had raised ten children owned a store of maternal instinct. Sophie’s chin dropped, and she sighed. “I thought he was the right man, but it wasn’t the right offer, or perhaps it was, but I couldn’t hear it as such. And then there was the baby… It wouldn’t be the right marriage.” Esther took her courage in both hands and advanced on her daughter—her sensible daughter—and slipped an arm around Sophie’s waist. “Tell me about this baby. I’ve heard all manner of rumors about him, but you’ve said not one word.” She meant to walk Sophie over to the vanity, so she might drape Oma’s pearls around Sophie’s neck, but Sophie closed her eyes and stiffened. “He’s a good baby. He’s a wonderful baby, and I sent him away. Oh, Mama, I sent my baby away…” And then, for the first time in years, sensible Lady Sophia Windham cried on her mother’s shoulder as if she herself were once again a little, inconsolable baby. ***

While Mum was a busy working mother, helping my father in his constituency duties and beyond, Lara became my surrogate mum. She fed me almost every supper I ate--from when I was a baby up to about five years old. She changed my nappies, she taught me to speak, then to walk (which, with so much attention from her, of course happened ridiculously early). She taught me how to get dressed and to brush my teeth. In essence, she got me to do all the things that either she had been too scared to do herself or that just simply intrigued her, such as eating raw bacon or riding a tricycle down a steep hill with no brakes. I was the best rag doll of a baby brother that she could have ever dreamt of. It is why we have always been so close. To her, I am still her little baby brother. And I love her for that. But--and this is the big but--growing up with Lara, there was never a moment’s peace. Even from day one, as a newborn babe in the hospital’s maternity ward, I was paraded around, shown off to anyone and everyone--I was my sister’s new “toy.” And it never stopped. It makes me smile now, but I am sure it is why in later life I craved the peace and solitude that mountains and the sea bring. I didn’t want to perform for anyone, I just wanted space to grow and find myself among all the madness. It took a while to understand where this love of the wild came from, but in truth it probably developed from the intimacy found with my father on the shores of Northern Ireland and the will to escape a loving but bossy elder sister. (God bless her!) I can joke about this nowadays with Lara, and through it all she still remains my closest ally and friend; but she is always the extrovert, wishing she could be on the stage or on the chat show couch, where I tend just to long for quiet times with my friends and family. In short, Lara would be much better at being famous than me. She sums it up well, I think: Until Bear was born I hated being the only child--I complained to Mum and Dad that I was lonely. It felt weird not having a brother or sister when all my friends had them. Bear’s arrival was so exciting (once I’d got over the disappointment of him being a boy, because I’d always wanted a sister!). But the moment I set eyes on him, crying his eyes out in his crib, I thought: That’s my baby. I’m going to look after him. I picked him up, he stopped crying, and from then until he got too big, I dragged him around everywhere.

Blessed Man” is a tribute to Updike’s tenacious maternal grandmother, Katherine Hoyer, who died in 1955. Inspired by an heirloom, a silver thimble engraved with her initials, a keepsake Katherine gave to John and Mary as a wedding present (their best present, he told his mother), the story is an explicit attempt to bring her back to life (“O Lord, bless these poor paragraphs, that would do in their vile ignorance Your work of resurrection”), and a meditation on the extent to which it’s possible to recapture experience and preserve it through writing. The death of his grandparents diminished his family by two fifths and deprived him of a treasured part of his past, the sheltered years of his youth and childhood. Could he make his grandmother live again on the page? It’s certainly one of his finest prose portraits, tender, clear-eyed, wonderfully vivid. At one point the narrator remembers how, as a high-spirited teenager, he would scoop up his tiny grandmother, “lift her like a child, crooking one arm under her knees and cupping the other behind her back. Exultant in my height, my strength, I would lift that frail brittle body weighing perhaps a hundred pounds and twirl with it in my arms while the rest of the family watched with startled smiles of alarm.” When he adds, “I was giving my past a dance,” we hear the voice of John Updike exulting in his strength. Katherine takes center stage only after an account of the dramatic day of her husband’s death. John Hoyer died a few months after John and Mary were married, on the day both the newlyweds and Mary’s parents were due to arrive in Plowville. From this unfortunate coincidence, the Updike family managed to spin a pair of short stories. Six months before he wrote “Blessed Man,” Updike’s mother had her first story accepted by The New Yorker. For years her son had been doing his filial best to help get her work published—with no success. In college he sent out the manuscript of her novel about Ponce de León to the major Boston publishers, and when he landed at The New Yorker he made sure her stories were read by editors instead of languishing in the slush pile. These efforts finally bore fruit when an editor at the magazine named Rachel MacKenzie championed “Translation,” a portentous family saga featuring Linda’s version of her father’s demise. Maxwell assured Updike that his colleagues all thought his mother “immensely gifted”; if that sounds like tactful exaggeration, Maxwell’s idea that he could detect “the same quality of mind running through” mother and son is curious to say the least. Published in The New Yorker on March 11, 1961, “Translation” was signed Linda Grace Hoyer and narrated by a character named Linda—but it wasn’t likely to be mistaken for a memoir. The story is overstuffed with biblical allusion, psychodrama, and magical thinking, most of it Linda’s. She believes that her ninety-year-old father plans to be translated directly to heaven, ascending like Elijah in a whirlwind, with chariots of fire, and to pass his mantle to a new generation, again like Elijah. It’s not clear whether this grand design is his obsession, as she claims, or hers. As it happens, the whirlwind is only a tussle with his wife that lands the old folks on the floor beside the bed. Linda finds them there and says, “Of all things. . . . What are you two doing?” Her father answers, his voice “matter-of-fact and conversational”: “We are sitting on the floor.” Having spoken these words, he dies. Linda’s son Eric (a writer, of course) arrives on the scene almost immediately. When she tells him, “Grampy died,” he replies, “I know, Mother, I know. It happened as we turned off the turnpike. I felt

If I as Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala take my family, my brothers and sisters, myself, and our children, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable small business. If I take my extended family both maternal and partenal, my aunts and uncles and my cousins, myself, and our children, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable medium business. If I take Ba Ga Mohlala family in general, including aunts, uncles, and grandchildren, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable Big Business business. If I take Banareng clan including aunts, uncles, and grandchildren, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable multinational business. YET, we are not able to do that because of lack of unity, and the lack of unity is caused by selfishness and lack of trust. At the moment what we have is majority of successful independent individuals running their individual successful, profitable and sustainable small businesses and successful individuals pursuing their own fulfilling careers. If ever we want to succeed as families and one united clan, we need to start by addressing the issue of trust, and selfishness. Other than that, anything that we try to do to unite the family will fail. And to succeed in addressing the issue of trust, and selfishness, we must first start by acknowledging that we are related. We must start by living and helping oneanother as relatives, we must first start by creating platforms that will overtime make us to reestablish our genetic bond, and also to build platforms where we can do that. So, let us grab the opportunity to use existing platforms and build new ones, to participate, contribute positively, and add our brothers and sisters, our cousins, and other extended family members to those platforms as a way towards building unity, unity of purpose, purpose of reclaiming our glory and building a legacy. Unity of empowering ourself and our communities. Unity of building a successful and sustainable socioeconomic livelihood for ourselves and our communities. We will keep on preaching this gospel of being self sustainable as Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng in general, until people start to stop and take notice, until people start listening and acting, we will keep on preaching this gospel of being self sustainable as Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng in general, until people take it upon themselves and start organizing themselves around the issue of social and economic development as a family and as a clan, until people realize the importance of self sufficiency as a family and as a clan. In times of election, the media always keep on talking about the election machinery of the ruling parties in refence to branches of the ruling parties which are the power base of those ruling parties. Luckily as Ba Gs Mohlala, we also have Ba Ga Mohlala branches across the country as basic units in addition to family, and extended family units. So, let us use those structures as basic units and building blocks to build up Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng to become successful forces which will play a role in socioeconomic sphere locally, regionally, provinvially, nationally, and internationally. To build Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng to be a force to reckon with locally, provinvially, nationally, and internationally. The platforms are there, it is all up to us, the ball is in our court as a collective Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng. It must become a norn and a duty to serve the family and the clan, it must become a honour to selflessly serve the family and the clan without expecting anything in return. ALUTA !!!!!!!! "Struggle of selfsuffiency must continue

Always,’ said Evie and Max together. Points for harmony. In truth, in the six years she’d known him, Max had barely mentioned his mother other than to say she’d never been the maternal type and that she set exceptionally high standards for everything; be it a manicure or the behaviour of her husbands or her sons. ‘No engagement ring?’ queried Caroline with the lift of an elegant eyebrow. ‘Ah, no,’ said Evie. ‘Not yet. There was so much choice I, ah...couldn’t decide.’ ‘Indeed,’ said Caroline, before turning to Max. ‘I can, of course, make an appointment for you with my jeweller this afternoon. I’m sure he’ll have something more than suitable. That way Evie will have a ring on her finger when she attends the cocktail party I’m hosting for the pair of you tonight.’ ‘You didn’t have to fuss,’ said Max as he set their overnight cases just inside the door beside a wide staircase. ‘Introducing my soon-to-be daughter-in-law to family and friends is not fuss,’ said Max’s mother reprovingly. ‘It’s expected, and so is a ring. Your brother’s here, by the way.’ ‘You summoned him home as well?’ ‘He came of his own accord,’ she said dryly. ‘No one makes your brother do anything.’ ‘He’s my role model,’ whispered Max as they followed the doyenne of the house down the hall. ‘I need a cocktail dress,’ Evie whispered back. ‘Get it when I go ring hunting. What kind of stone do you want?’ ‘Diamond.’ ‘Colour?’ ‘White.’ ‘An excellent choice,’ said Caroline from up ahead and Max grinned ruefully. ‘Ears like a bat,’ he said in his normal deep baritone. ‘Whisper like a foghorn,’ his mother cut back, and surprised Evie by following up with a deliciously warm chuckle. The house was a beauty. Twenty-foot ceilings and a modern renovation that complemented the building’s Victorian bones. The wood glowed with beeswax shine and the air carried the scent of old-English roses. ‘Did you do the renovation?’ asked Evie and her dutiful fiancé nodded. ‘My first project after graduating.’ ‘Nice work,’ she said as Caroline ushered them into a large sitting room that fed seamlessly through to a wide, paved garden patio.

One result of active imagination, according to some reports, is an increase in synchronistic and paranormal phenomena. 32 This was certainly true of Jung. In 1916, Jung again felt that something within wanted to get out. An eerie restlessness seemed to permeate his home. Jung, I have to say, was lucky to have his house in Küsnacht, where he retired to a room, his “intellectual cave,” decorated in colored glass, to commune with his interior voices; he demanded and got absolute silence, and neither his children nor Emma—nor even the maid—were allowed to enter.33 As his maternal grandfather did, Jung felt the presence of the dead. His children seemed to feel it, too. One daughter saw a strange white figure; another had her blankets snatched from her at night. His son drew a picture of a fisherman he had seen in a dream: a flaming chimney rose from the fisherman’s head, and a devil flew through the air, cursing the fisherman for stealing his fish. An angel warned the devil that he couldn’t hurt the fisherman because he only caught bad fish. Jung had yet to mention Philemon the Kingfisher to his family. Then, on a Sunday afternoon, the doorbell rang loudly when it was clear no one was there. The pressure increased and Jung finally demanded “What in the world is this?” Then he heard the voices. “We have come back from Jerusalem,” they said, “where we found not what we sought,” the beginning of one of the strangest works of “automatic writing,” Jung’s Seven Sermons to the Dead, which he attributed to “Basilides in Alexandria, the City where the East toucheth the West.

137 million women who want to space or limit their pregnancies use no contraception, usually because they have no access to family planning services; 68,000 women a year die from unsafe abortions. Preventing unplanned pregnancies would save a quarter of maternal deaths.18

Fabiola Fotography has professional wedding photographers cheap and enjoys location portrait photographer serving Sarasota and surrounding areas. She specializes in maternity, wedding, newborn, baby, infant, toddler, children and family photography. For more details call us at +1 941-928-5560.

SOMATIC CONVERSION A third form of conversion is the conversion of needs and feelings into some form of bodily or somatic expression. Needs and feelings can be changed into bodily sickness. When one is sick, one is usually cared for. When one is sick, one can feel as bad as one really feels. This conversion dynamic is especially prevalent in family systems where sickness is given attention and rewarded. I was asthmatic as a child. Frequently when I wanted to miss a day of school, I would induce an asthma attack. I learned early on that sickness got a lot of sympathy in my family system. Getting attention with sickness is a very common phenomenon. When people want to miss work, they call in sick. Sickness works! Conversion of feelings into sickness is the basis of psychosomatic illness. In Max’s family there were several generations of hypochondriasis. His maternal great-grandmother was bedridden off and on for years. His maternal grandmother was literally bedridden for forty-five years, and his mom, Felicia, continually struggled with ulcers, colitis and arthritis. Max himself obsessed on illness a lot. My own belief is that families don’t convert feelings and needs to actual physical illness unless there are predisposing genetically based factors, such as a genetic history of asthma, arthritis or particular organ weakness. When parental modeling and high rewards for somatic illness are added to a genetic predisposition, the conversion of feelings and needs into bodily or somatic expression is a real possibility.

four appalling realities of daily life: maternal mortality, human trafficking, sexual violence, and the routine daily discrimination that causes girls to die at far higher rates than boys. The tools to address these challenges include girls’ education, family planning, micro-finance, and “empowerment” in every sense.

I knew early on that children weren’t in my plans. I never once played with baby dolls. I preferred Barbies because it would have been illegal to dress up a baby for her Studio 54 date with Ken. I never felt a biological tug looking at children. It’s not that I’m missing maternal feelings, it’s more like they apply only to cats and dogs, possibly small monkeys. While I’m happy for everyone who wants a family, I look at the notion of having kids the same way I look at people who get tattoos on their faces, like, “Hoo-boy, that’s permanent.

My maternal grandparents, Dr. Peter P. Cobbs (1892–1960), and Rosa Mashaw Cobbs (1899–1989), and their children, who were born in Los Angeles—Prince (1925–2019), Marcelyn (1927–95), and Price (1928–2018)—bore witness to this time, due to a decision to migrate to Los Angeles, California, from Montgomery, Alabama, in 1925, to begin new lives and start their own family. Upon their arrival, my grandfather was one of the few black physicians in the city, and my grandmother had a teaching degree.

my lifetime. My maternal grandparents, Dr. Peter P. Cobbs (1892–1960), and Rosa Mashaw Cobbs (1899–1989), and their children, who were born in Los Angeles—Prince (1925–2019), Marcelyn (1927–95), and Price (1928–2018)—bore witness to this time, due to a decision to migrate to Los Angeles, California, from Montgomery, Alabama, in 1925, to begin new lives and start their own family. Upon their arrival, my grandfather was one of the few black physicians in the city,

As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home. I have seen so many women inadvertently discourage their husbands from doing their share by being too controlling or critical. Social scientists call this "maternal gatekeeping" which is a fancy term for "Ohmigod, that's not the way you do it! Just move aside and let me!"...Anyone who wants her mate to be a true partner must treat him as an equal - and equally capable partner. And if that's note reason enough, bear in mind that a study found that wives who engage in gatekeeping behaviors do five more hours of family work per week than wives who take a more collaborative approach. Another common and counterproductive dynamic occurs when women assign or suggest tasks to their partners. She is delegating, and that's a step in the right direction. But sharing responsibility should mean sharing responsibility. Each partner needs to be in charge of specific activities or it becomes too easy for one to feel like he's doing a favour instead of doing his part.

Cousin Bette is an inimitable character, a villainess of the worst kind: mean-spirited, vengeful, small-minded. And yet what a joy she is. Bette’s desire for revenge stems from her obsession with her cousin. Adeline is more beautiful and charismatic than Bette. And she has “stolen” the man Bette should have married. Bette seems to conveniently ignore the fact that the man Adeline has married—Baron Hulot—is not someone anyone would want to be married to. The seed of resentment is sown early on, then, and Bette schemes to bring down Baron Hulot, his wife, and their entire family. Because if she can’t be happy, then no one can. She enlists Valérie Marneffe, her neighbor, to seduce Baron Hulot and wheedle as much money as possible out of him, all the while knowing that he is all but ruined by his previous mistress, Josépha. Meanwhile Bette develops a maternal/romantic attachment to her upstairs neighbor, Wenceslas Steinbock, a Polish artist, whom she prevented from committing suicide

I never felt a biological tug looking at children. It’s not that I’m missing maternal feelings, it’s more like they apply only to cats and dogs, possibly small monkeys. While I’m happy for everyone who wants a family, I look at the notion of having kids the same way I look at people who get tattoos on their faces, like, “Hoo-boy, that’s permanent.

The last of the Haworth trilogy: At the end of a long night shift, a bullying new father visits the maternity ward and brings back Linda's darkest nightmares, her terror of being locked in. Who is this man, and why does he scare her so? There are secrets dating back to the war that still haunt the family, and finding out what lies at their root might be the only way Linda can escape their murderous consequences.

International Socialist Review Issue 24, July–August 2002 Stephen Jay Gould: Dialectical Biologist by Phil Gasper Every major newspaper carried an obituary of Gould after his death, praising his scientific accomplishments. But most said nothing about another important aspect of Gould’s life–his radical politics. Gould was a red diaper baby. His maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants who worked in Manhattan’s garment sweatshops in the early years of the last century, just blocks from the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist fire that killed 146 workers in 1911. "I grew up in a family of Jewish immigrant garment workers," Gould wrote, "and this holocaust (in the literal meaning of a thorough sacrifice by burning)…set their views and helped to define their futures."4 Gould’s parents were New York leftists, probably in or around the Communist Party in the 1930s, and he once boasted that he had learned his Marxism "literally at [my] daddy’s knee.

The replacement of the father by the government, which is the current trend in the West, will undermine maternal sentiments, alter the very nature of motherhood from an emotional tie into a form of waged employment with money as an intermediary between mother and her love; motherhood then is no longer a bond, but a paid employment. It is obvious that this process would lead to the destruction of the family.

If we were to take another example, and apply the same rules, it becomes obvious just how inappropriate and harmful this trope is. For some (not all) trans people, one element of being trans is the physical process of transition. It can be joyful, it can be painful, it can be messy, and it can involve surgery. The same could be said of parenthood. Conception, pregnancy, and childbirth are necessary parts of making a family for the majority of people. Like medical transition, it is vital that we're educated about these processes if there's a chance we'll find ourselves personally affected. And luckily, in both of these cases, the medical information is freely and easily available online, through public health initiatives, in libraries, and from the relevant medical authorities. But it would never be appropriate to approach a new mother in a cafe and say, 'so, did you rip your vagina giving birth to that one?' When greeting a colleague returning to the office after maternity leave, we don't ask if we can examine the stretch marks and possible scars, or ask about hemorrhaging and post-natal incontinence. If we're close friends or family, we might well talk about the most personal physical aspects of creating and delivering a baby - the same is true of transition. But the need to be honest and close with our loved ones doesn't make the intrusion of strangers okay.

Damn,” he grunts. A grin tugs at the corners of my lips. “Something wrong?” I ask. “I like it when you kiss me, but I don’t like it when you use your kisses to evade my questions,” he says quietly. He squeezes me in a gentle hug. “I wasn’t evading,” I choke out. But I swallow hard trying to get past the lump in my throat. “Yes, you were. And I don’t hate it.” He chuckles softly. “I might even understand it, if you’d let me in. But don’t use my feelings for you as a smoke screen for what’s really going on between us, okay?” He squeezes me again. “What’s going on between us?” I ask, my voice cracking only slightly. “I’m getting to know you,” he says, very matter-of-factly. He tips my face up with the gentlest of touches. “I want to know you,” he says directly. “Everything.” I shake my head. “You wouldn’t like what you find out.” He would hate me. Family is everything to him and I gave mine away. “Try me,” he says. I hold on to his waist—he still has his arm around me—as the subway comes to a stop. He looks down at me for a second too long, long enough for me to see his brow furrow and the little vee form between his eyebrows. “What are you hiding?” he asks. “Everything,” I whisper. But I say it more to remind myself than to tell him anything he doesn’t know. I’m hiding everything. I pull him out the door and into the station, and we race to the top of the steps. “Friday,” he calls when I’m a few steps in front of him. “You have to at least give me a chance.” I pretend like his voice gets caught on the wind, but it doesn’t. It sinks deep inside my heart, and hope blooms. Hope blooms in a place where no light has lived in a really long time. I thought it was difficult being on the subway and having Paul ask me so many questions, but that was nothing compared to the memories that swamp me when we walk into the maternity ward.

Good afternoon,” came a pleasant feminine voice. It was the oldest Hathaway sister, Amelia. She was shorter and more voluptuous than her younger sister. There was a warm maternal air about her, as if she were prepared to ladle out sympathy and comfort at a moment’s notice. “Mrs. Rohan,” Christopher murmured, and bowed. “Sir,” she replied with a questioning lilt. Although they had met before, she clearly didn’t recognize him. “This is Captain Phelan, Amelia,” Beatrix said. The blue eyes widened. “What a lovely surprise,” she exclaimed, giving Christopher her hand. “Captain Phelan and I dislike each other,” Beatrix told her. “In fact, we’re sworn enemies.” Christopher glanced at her quickly. “When did we become sworn enemies?” Ignoring him, Beatrix said to her sister, “Regardless, he’s staying for tea.” “Wonderful,” Amelia said equably. “Why are you enemies, dear?” “I met him yesterday while I was out walking,” Beatrix explained. “And he called Medusa a ‘garden pest,’ and faulted me for bringing her to a picnic.” Amelia smiled at Christopher. “Medusa has been called many worse things around here, including ‘diseased pincushion,’ and ‘perambulating cactus.’” “I’ve never understood,” Beatrix said, “why people have such unreasonable dislike of hedgehogs.” “They dig up the garden,” Amelia said, “and they’re not what one would call cuddlesome. Captain Phelan has a point, dear--you might have brought your cat to the picnic instead.” “Don’t be silly. Cats don’t like picnics nearly as much as hedgehogs.” The conversation proceeded at such quicksilver speed that there was little opportunity for Christopher to break in. Somehow he managed to find an opening. “I apologized to Miss Hathaway for my remarks,” he told Amelia uncomfortably. This earned an approving glance. “Delightful. A man who’s not afraid to apologize. But really, apologies are wasted on our family--we’re usually pleased by the things we should be offended by, and vice versa.

At the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), we have worked with our international affiliate in Pakistan to combat the egregious international crimes that spring from this and other bigoted and intolerant cultures. One of our more high-profile cases revolves around Parwasha, an eight-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan whom Muslim men attacked in the public streets. Why? Because of the honor and shame culture. Here’s what happened. Parwasha’s maternal uncle, Iftikhar Masih, was visiting his Muslim girlfriend, Samina, late one night at her home. Interreligious romantic relationships are not accepted in Pakistan, largely due to the Muslim faith and the surrounding culture impacted by being predominantly Muslim. Therefore the girlfriend’s Muslim family was furious. Parwasha’s uncle admitted to the relationship and explained that he was invited over. But this did nothing to assuage the dishonor felt by Samina’s family, who called the village elders’ council. The family lied, telling the council that Iftikhar had robbed their house the night before and stolen a lot of money. Iftikhar told the council the true story. But the Muslim family decided that their honor had been besmirched. In their minds, the only way to correct this would be by humiliating a woman in the Christian family. So when young Parwasha was walking home from school the next day, they kidnapped her, stripped her naked, beat her, and left her in the streets. When Parwasha’s family sought help from the village elders (who were Muslim), they didn’t respond. When Parwasha’s grandfather went to the police station to file charges, he discovered that the Muslim family had already filed trumped-up charges against his family, charging them with assaulting and shaming Samina. The local police arrested members of Parwasha’s family and detained them until the village elders’ council could work everything out between the Muslim and Christian families. The council determined that the Christian family would have to sell its property and leave the area within thirty days. This is a common punishment doled out to non-Muslim families who are targeted by Muslims angry at them for any given reason.

black women were working all day (often scrubbing the homes of white women), it was impossible for them also to fulfill the at-home maternal ideal for which white women were being celebrated. If black men had a harder time getting educations and jobs, earning competitive wages or securing loans, it was harder for them to play the role of provider. If there were no government-subsidized split-levels to fill with publicly educated children, then the nuclear family chute into which white women were being funneled was not open to most black women. There simply weren’t the same incentives to marrying early or at all; there were fewer places to safely put down roots and fewer resources with which to nourish them. It

About 41 percent of mothers are primary breadwinners and earn the majority of their family’s income. Another 23 percent of mothers are co-breadwinners, contributing at least a quarter of the family’s earnings.30 The number of women supporting families on their own is increasing quickly; between 1973 and 2006, the proportion of families headed by a single mother grew from one in ten to one in five.31 These numbers are dramatically higher in Hispanic and African-American families. Twenty-seven percent of Latino children and 51 percent of African-American children are being raised by a single mother.32 Our country lags considerably behind others in efforts to help parents take care of their children and stay in the workforce. Of all the industrialized nations in the world, the United States is the only one without a paid maternity leave policy.33 As Ellen Bravo, director of the Family Values @ Work consortium, observed, most “women are not thinking about ‘having it all,’ they’re worried about losing it all—their jobs, their children’s health, their families’ financial stability—because of the regular conflicts that arise between being a good employee and a responsible parent.”34 For many men, the fundamental assumption is that they can have both a successful professional life and a fulfilling personal life. For many women, the assumption is that trying to do both is difficult at best and impossible at worst. Women are surrounded by headlines and stories warning them that they cannot be committed to both their families and careers. They are told over and over again that they have to choose, because if they try to do too much, they’ll be harried and unhappy. Framing the issue as “work-life balance”—as if the two were diametrically opposed—practically ensures work will lose out. Who would ever choose work over life? The good news is that not only can women have both families and careers, they can thrive while doing so. In 2009, Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober published Getting to 50/50, a comprehensive review of governmental, social science, and original research that led them to conclude that children, parents, and marriages can all flourish when both parents have full careers. The data plainly reveal that sharing financial and child-care responsibilities leads to less guilty moms, more involved dads, and thriving children.35 Professor Rosalind Chait Barnett of Brandeis University did a comprehensive review of studies on work-life balance and found that women who participate in multiple roles actually have lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of mental well-being.36 Employed women reap rewards including greater financial security, more stable marriages, better health, and, in general, increased life satisfaction.37 It may not be as dramatic or funny to make a movie about a woman who loves both her job and her family, but that would be a better reflection of reality. We need more portrayals of women as competent professionals and happy mothers—or even happy professionals and competent mothers. The current negative images may make us laugh, but they also make women unnecessarily fearful by presenting life’s challenges as insurmountable. Our culture remains baffled: I don’t know how she does it. Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.

Forty percent of employed mothers lack sick days and vacation leave, and about 50 percent of employed mothers are unable to take time off to care for a sick child.21 Only about half of women receive any pay during maternity leave.22 These policies can have severe consequences; families with no access to paid family leave often go into debt and can fall into poverty.23 Part-time jobs with fluctuating schedules offer little chance to plan and often stop short of the forty-hour week that provides basic benefits.24 Too many work standards remain inflexible and unfair, often penalizing women with children. Too many talented women try their hardest to reach the top and bump up against systemic barriers. So many others pull back because they do not think they have a choice.

The dusty facts are that; Ferdinand II, the Regent of Castile, was 63 years old when he died on January 23, 1516; his wife Queen Isabella was 53 years old when she died on November 26, 1504; and Columbus had passed away almost 10 years prior on May 20, 1506. The earlier death of Isabella and the death of her children changed the normal succession of heirs, forcing Ferdinand to yield the government of Castile to Philip of Habsburg, the husband of his second daughter Joanna. The son of Joanna and her husband Philip I of Castile was Charles I, who would inherit Spain from his maternal grandparents as well as the Habsburg and Burgundian Empires of his paternal family. Thus, the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella became the most powerful ruler in Europe and by 1516 King Charles I of Spain also ruled the Netherlands. In 1519 as Charles V, he became the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, King of Germany, as well as the King of Italy.

Give her a solid, practical name,' I told my wife when the child was born. Jane or Constance or something of the sort. Instead she chose Marguerite... French, mind you!... after a cousin on her maternal side. And then it degenerated further when Lillian, who was only four at the time, learned that Marguerite was the French word for a damned insignificant flower. But from then on Lillian called her Daisy, and it stuck..." As Bowman continued to ramble, Matthew thought of how perfect the name was, the small white-petaled flower that appeared so delicate and yet was remarkably hardy. It said something that in a family of overpowering personalities that Daisy had always remained stubbornly true to her own nature.

Jenny, what can I do to help?” Westhaven’s expression was merely genial, but in his words, Jenny heard determination and that most dratted of holiday gifts, sibling concern. “Help?” “You’re quiet as a dormouse. Maggie says you’re chewing your nails. Louisa reports that you’re taking odd notions, and Sophie won’t say anything, but she’s clearly worried. Her Grace muttered something about regretting all the time she’s permitted you to spend among the paint fumes.” “What would Her Grace know of paint fumes?” What would the duchess know of anything relating to painting? “She’s our mother. Where knowledge fails, maternal instinct serves. Is Bernward troubling you?” Westhaven was an excellent dancer, and if Jenny did not finish the dance with him, Her Grace would casually suggest that tomorrow be a day to rest from the activity in the studio. The idea made Jenny desperate. “Westhaven, you must not involve yourself in anything to do with Elijah.” “Elijah.” Westhaven’s gaze shifted to a spot over Jenny’s shoulder. “And does he call you Jenny?” He calls me Genevieve, and sometimes he even calls me “woman.” “He calls me talented and brilliant but uneducated and unorthodox too. I’ve enjoyed working with him these past weeks more than anything—” “Excuse me.” Elijah had tapped Westhaven on the shoulder. “May I cut in?” Westhaven’s smile was diabolical. “Of course. Jenny would never decline an opportunity to dance with a family friend.” Family friend? Her blighted, interfering, perishing brother was laying it on quite thick. Elijah bowed. “Lady Genevieve, may I have what remains of this dance?” Two days remained. Two days and three nights. Jenny curtsied and assumed waltz position. As Elijah’s hand settled on her back, his scent wafted to her, enveloping her in his presence. “You’re avoiding me,” he said. “You needn’t. I’ll be leaving soon, and I hope we can at least part friends.” With her siblings, she could dissemble and maintain appearances, but with Elijah… “I am honored you think me a friend, Elijah.” And he danced wonderfully, with the same sense of assurance and mastery that he undertook painting… and lovemaking. “I am your friend too, Genevieve.

Women still bear the vast brunt of the physical, emotional, and organizational labor involved in contraceptive use — whether any devices are available at all, whether they are safe or not, and when they fail. For the majority of the world’s women modern contraceptive measures such as the pill, condoms, injectibles, or IUDS are simply not an option—a situation that is exacerbated by the matricidal policies toward abortion and family planning by many of the world’s wealthiest countries (only family planning based on abstinence was supported under the “pro-Africa” Bush administration — a policy with extremely deleterious consequences for the ability of anti-retroviral treatment to prevent the spread of AIDS as well as for rates of maternal and child mortality). Access to safe, affordable, or free abortion is similarly limited. Famously, there is no country in the world where women have the legal right freely to make up their own minds about termination or continuation of pregnancy. Thus, despite the emphasis by many modern democratic nations on the protection of various individual rights and freedoms, women’s reproductive rights remain in an essentially pre-modern condition—a condition decried by both Firestone and Beauvoir as biological feudalism.

Cherokees had a matrilineal society, a social system in which their descent was traced strictly through their mother's side of the family. In the Cherokees' matrilineal kinship system a person received his mother's clan at birth and retained this clan for life, and his only kinsmen were those who could be traced through her; that is her mother's mother, mother's sisters, the children of mother's sisters and, the most important and powerful man in a child's life, the mother's brother. This social structure baffled whites. ^J.' he primary responsibility for discipline and instruction in hunting and warfare rested not with the child's father but with his maternal uncle. Not even the right of the father to stay in the home was certain because Cherokee women owned the dwellings.

Starting at the end of the 18th century, the family began to be characterised – or idealised – by more intimate relationships, while the child was increasingly treated not dispassionately as simply a means of securing property and continuing the family name (as in the past) but as an individual worthy of affection. Now, children should be cosseted, nurtured and adored by their parents, who were encouraged to take a more hands-on role in their care. In short, paternity and maternity had become deeply fashionable among the bourgeoisie, that same class who were, coincidentally, the main consumers of art.9 The Salon walls were obligingly filled with genre paintings in which, in a convenient recasting of the traditional Madonna and child theme, happy mothers cuddled contented, rosy-cheeked infants.

One overlooked aspect of the matriarchal image is the relationship with other matriarchs or mothers who are the heads of households. Mother-to-mother dependence is another element of African American motherhood. Whereas these women work hard for the money outside of the home, they also lean on each other to share childcare responsibilities. The concept of “other mothering” is a component in the African American maternal tradition. Women taking care of each other’s children helped to establish a form of extended family. If formal childcare is not available or too costly, one mother substitutes for another. Other mothering means that the level of respect and honor a child gives to her or his biological mother is due the neighbor, cousin, aunt, or family friend taking care of the child. In the same vein, this secondary mother has the right to discipline the “son” or “daughter” as she would her own. Such reciprocity promotes a sense of communal responsibility that cross-connects mothers and children. If a child misbehaves, it is not unusual to suffer the wrath of both a community and a biological mother. Although this level of motherly accountability may not be as prevalent today, in some communities African American women still depend on each other to pick up children before and after school, carpool to a practice or game, provide a meal here and there, and just serve as an additional family member and supporter.

Women of African descent came from a familial tradition where mother-centered authority was the core of tribal life. Yet slavery sought to uproot this matrilineal focus by shifting maternal roles to that of merely breeding.

older”—Daniel raises his eyebrows at this—“I get what the whole thing was about. How trapped you can feel as an American woman in early motherhood. The cultural systems of maternal support have all been eroded. You’re all alone. I’ve read, like, two books about it, and I see how my friends’ moms seem pissed all the time, like they wish things were different.” She fidgets, perhaps realizing now how far she’s stepped out. “And also, like, you. The hashtag-momspringa thing. Like, the feeling that the only way to get your true identity back is to run away from your family.

The United States spends more on health care than any other advanced economy, but we don't see better outcomes in exchange. Incredibly, in many parts of the country, life expectancy is actually shrinking, and when it comes to maternal mortality, the United States is one of only thirteen countries where rates have gotten worse over the past twenty-five years. Meanwhile, working families are overwhelmed by medical bills, which are one of America's leading causes of personal bankruptcy.

Part 1 A Woman is a Fate? Or a Bless? When a baby is girl is born, to some is a blessing. She will grow as wonderful woman, beautiful, with nice features and showers love as a daughter, a sister, as a wife, as a friend and as a mother. It is also luck, or a Mahalakshmi to the house. Some centuries back, and to some people when she is born, she is a fate. An ill fated to some in orthodox families and believe that she brings bad luck. So, there is this ritual in some places or villages where, when a new born baby girl will be poisoned to death upon her arrival on earth. It is brutal and devastating. Yes it is still happening till today. Where did this ritual came from? Who started it? Where was it written that the baby must be killed if it is a girl. And WHY? Has anyone thought, that it was a woman who carried her for 9 months, loved her from the day she is created in her womb, and the moment when she is born, the tear of a joy and her happiness the moment she sees her little tiny human girl arrived, and her dreams as mother and to love her all her life… will be no longer alive in the next few minutes? I have always respected woman, for uncountable reasons. As much as I am happy to see them successful, but it also worries me most of the time. 99.9% of it I am worried for them! The one who gave birth to us, is a woman. We also worship to a female God and beg her to show mercy on us. It is also a woman, who becomes a wife and satisfies a husband’s needs. But still, there are no respect shown to them despite knowing these basics. In some houses while her parents off to work, or being abandoned, or lets just say the parents passed. It is her responsibility to take care the rest of her family as the family head. When it comes to education, she is not safe to study among the boys, neither in higher education. Same goes to a woman at work. As she will have those wild eyes on her, she has to take care of her virginity, her womb, and her dignity. Beyond these, there are also some beasts, who is talented in sweet talking and flirtatious towards her. When she is too naïve and fall for the trap, it happens to be a one night stand. Once a woman marriage is fixed, she gets married and goes off to her in laws. Her life changes in the moment the knots tied by the man. In todays millennia, womens are still carrying the burden of the responsibility of her maternal side, together with her new in-laws. Every morning she wakes up, she serves the husband, deal the day with by preparing him for his day, every day. As well taking care of her new in-laws all of her life. Then, comes the pregnancy moment, again, she carries her child her womb, making sure he is safe in there, and taking care of her world on the outside. She loses all her beauty, her happiness, her wishes, her ambitions, and it is all sacrificed for the sake of her marriage. And then the cycle never stops. She raises her children, become beautiful, and then one day they too get married. But as mother, she never stopped caring and provide them all the love, the needs, etc. It never stops. There are some man and in laws who support their daughter in law and I have a big salute to them. They are an example for today’s woman millennia, don’t stop her for what she is capable of, and don’t clip her wings..

Giovanni, in love with her unabashed feminine strength and her reconciliation of love and revolution. I spent nearly every waking moment around Nikki, and I loved her dearly. But sibling relationships are often fraught with petty tortures. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her. But I had. At the time, I couldn’t understand my mother’s anger. I mean this wasn’t really a woman I was punching. This was Nikki. She could take it. Years would pass before I understood how that blow connected to my mom’s past. My mother came to the United States at the age of three. She was born in Lowe River in the tiny parish of Trelawny, Jamaica, hours away from the tourist traps that line the coast. Its swaths of deep brush and arable land made it great for farming but less appealing for honeymoons and hedonism. Lowe River was quiet, and remote, and it was home for my mother, her older brother Ralph, and my grandparents. My maternal great-grandfather Mas Fred, as he was known, would plant a coconut tree at his home in Mount Horeb, a neighboring area, for each of his kids and grandkids when they were born. My mom always bragged that hers was the tallest and strongest of the bunch. The land that Mas Fred and his wife, Miss Ros, tended had been cared for by our ancestors for generations. And it was home for my mom until her parents earned enough money to bring the family to the States to fulfill my grandfather’s dream of a theology degree from an American university. When my mom first landed in the Bronx, she was just a small child, but she was a survivor and learned quickly. She studied the other kids at school like an anthropologist, trying desperately to fit in. She started with the way she spoke. She diligently listened to the radio from the time she was old enough to turn it on and mimicked what she heard. She’d always pull back enough in her interactions with her classmates to give herself room to quietly observe them, so that when she got home she could practice imitating their accents, their idiosyncrasies, their style. Words like irie became cool. Constable became policeman. Easy-nuh became chill out. The melodic, swooping movement of her Jamaican patois was quickly replaced by the more stable cadences of American English. She jumped into the melting pot with both feet. Joy Thomas entered American University in Washington, D.C., in 1968, a year when she and her adopted homeland were both experiencing

Trained Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in Dubai Dr Elsa de Menezes Fernandes is a UK trained Obstetrician and Gynaecologist. She completed her basic training in Goa, India, graduating from Goa University in 1993. After Residency, she moved to the UK, where she worked as a Senior House Officer in London at the Homerton, Southend General, Royal London and St. Bartholomew’s Hospitals in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. She completed five years of Registrar and Senior Registrar training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in London at The Whittington, University College, Hammersmith, Ealing and Lister Hospitals and Gynaecological Oncology at the Hammersmith and The Royal Marsden Hospitals. During her post-graduate training in London she completed Membership from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In 2008 Dr Elsa moved to Dubai where she worked as a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Mediclinic City Hospital until establishing her own clinic in Dubai Healthcare City in March 2015. She has over 20 years specialist experience. Dr Elsa has focused her clinical work on maternal medicine and successfully achieved the RCOG Maternal Medicine Special Skills Module. She has acquired a vast amount of experience working with high risk obstetric patients and has worked jointly with other specialists to treat patients who have complex medical problems during pregnancy. During her training she gained experience in Gynaecological Oncology from her time working at St Bartholomew’s, Hammersmith and The Royal Marsden Hospitals in London. Dr Elsa is experienced in both open and laparoscopic surgery and has considerable clinical and operative experience in performing abdominal and vaginal hysterectomies and myomectomies. She is also proficient in the technique of hysteroscopy, both diagnostic and operative for resection of fibroids and the endometrium. The birth of your baby, whether it is your first or a happy addition to your family, is always a very personal experience and Dr Elsa has built a reputation on providing an experience that is positive and warmly remembered. She supports women’s choices surrounding birth and defines her role in the management of labour and delivery as the clinician who endeavours to achieve safe motherhood. She is a great supporter of vaginal delivery. Dr Elsa’s work has been published in medical journals and she is a member of the British Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society. She was awarded CCT (on the Specialist Register) in the UK. Dr Elsa strives to continue her professional development and has participated in a wide variety of courses in specialist areas, including renal diseases in pregnancy and medical complications in pregnancy.

Because women don’t always have to be what we’re told to be. Becoming a mother does not make us maternal. Having a child doesn’t mean we must comply with the standards men unilaterally impose on us. The women of my family have lived their own way for hundreds of years. The boy had a father, with a house and extended family around him. They had a shop, a trade, routines. I wanted none of it. And why should I? Men get to spread their seed and run away. Why do women never feel entitled to make the same decision?

My son’s murder killed our entire family; my wife and I both died with him. Somehow it was worse for her, I don’t know why. Maybe it was that maternal bond women speak of. For ten years I lived with a corpse. So did she, but at least the dead man in her midst got up, went to work, and tried to continue living.

Positive versus negative incentives. Most incentives are positive in that they reward a desired behavior change (like adoption of a new idea), but it is also possible to penalize an individual by imposing an unwanted penalty or by withdrawing some desiderata for not adopting an innovation. For example, the government of Singapore decreed that the mother in any family that has a third (or further) child is not eligible to receive maternity leave and that the parents must pay all hospital and delivery costs (which are otherwise free to all citizens).

To get at the heart of the social superego, we must locate its effects in the way subjects believe in the same command of its dictates. What distinguishes the break Lasch aptly points out, between the Fordist era of stable ego ideals to the rise of the social superego of neoliberalism, is how belief in the injunction serves as a pre-condition of the social superego. This point is illuminated by the anti-liberal polemicist and French intellectual Jean-Claude Michéa, who argues that today’s superego is the bad mother: possessive and castrating. The superego functions in two forms: the first is to establish a disciplinary order of submission, and the second is to cede the desire of the subject. The maternal has no other way of expressing its devotion other than by “love and sacrificial devotion.” Hence, the cruelty of the superego today resides in the ambiguous and necessary internalization of injunctions. Instead of the same repressive “double bind” of the father’s injunction in the prior era: “follow my advice, don’t follow my advice,” presenting a contradictory law, the contemporary period presents injunctions which follow a different logic: “you will visit your grandma, and you will like it.” There is thus an extra demand to internally act as if the subject conforms with the injunction itself.

[...] The revolution was left unfinished. The feminists of the sixties and seventies challenged the rigid division of labour between men and women; they wanted women to have access to the workplace, and men to rediscover their role at home. The psychotherapist Susie Orbach reflects on the thinking of the seventies: 'We wanted to challenge the whole distribution of work we wanted to put at the centre of everything the reproduction of daily life, but feminism got seduced by the work ethic. My generation wanted to change the values of the workplace so that it accepted family life.' This radical agenda for the reorganisation of work and home was abandoned in Britain. Instead we took on the American model of feminism, influenced by the rise of neo-liberalism and individualism. Feminism acquired shoulderpads and an appetite for power; it celebrated individual achievement rather than working out how to transform the separation between work and family, and the social processes of how we care for dependants and raise children. Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt remembers a turning point in the debate in the UK when she was at the National Council for Civil Liberties: 'The key moment was when we organised a major conference in the seventies with a lot of American speakers who were terrific feminists. When they arrived we were astonished that they were totally uninterested in an agenda around better maternity leave, etc. They argued that we couldn't claim special treatment in the workplace; women would simply prove they were equals. You couldn't make claims on the workplace. We thought it was appalling.

The thought of foals being taken away from their mothers, ripped without warning from everything familiar and loved, then starved, clubbed, or sold for meat, tore her heart to shreds. Tears filled her eyes as she imagined Blue and the nurse mare, scared and confused and frantic, wondering why someone had taken their babies. She could almost feel the horrible, heavy pain in their chests, the terror and helplessness in their minds. It didn't matter that they were animals. Mares still possessed the maternal instinct. She had seen it with her own eyes when Bonnie Blue looked back at her newborn filly. It was love at first sight. Her mother had never looked at her that way, but Julia had studied enough interactions between mothers and daughters to recognize unconditional love when she saw it.

At the end of her speech, a fellow student raised her hand to ask: “My family is Japanese American and has been in Hawai’i for many generations. What can we do to support the sovereignty movement? What can we do to help?” And Haunani-Kay Trask simply responded: “Get out.” And then she followed up by proudly and unapologetically stating: “I have zero aloha. None.” The way she used humor and spoke with such strength, all while in her sarong and long hair flowing down to her elbows, really inspired me and influenced how I perform. I loved how she didn’t try to repress her beauty or femininity in order to appear more authoritative. In fact, she channeled it into this goddess-queen energy that made her come off as a captivating maternal figure fighting for her beliefs and her people. I had never been so moved by a single speaker. Then I gained five more pounds because fuck it.

Limbic structures generate feelings of pleasure and sexual desire—the emotions that feed sexual passion. But the addition of the neocortex and its connections to the limbic system allowed for the mother-child bond that is the basis of the family unit and the long-term commitment to childrearing that makes human development possible. (Species that have no neocortex, such as reptiles, lack maternal affection; when their young hatch, the newborns must hide to avoid being cannibalized.)

I’m going to have to talk to HR sooner rather than later about arranging for my maternity leave anyway. And people are going to find out in time. I unlock my phone and open Instagram. I have an oddly high number of followers thanks to an article Forbes did on me right after I sold the app to Apple. I’m not that interesting of a person, but I do find the best funny memes to share. I upload my favorite picture of Archer and me from this weekend, heart fluttering when I look at it. We’re standing by the pink balloons, and looking lovingly into each other’s eyes. My hair is tucked awkwardly behind my ear, but we both look so happy. So inlove. Archer’s hand is on my stomach, and his smile is genuine. Man, I miss him. Tomorrow is too far away. Long distance sucks. “We cannot wait for spring. Hashtag thirteen weeks. Hashtag baby girl,” I say out loud as Itype. “Don’t forget hashtag blessed.” “And grateful. Please. I might be basic, but I know enough not to flaunt it around on social media,” I laugh and post the photo. But I really do feel those things.

If doubt has brought you to this page, you probably need a little genealogical cheat-sheet: Kimiâ Sadr, the narrator. Leïli Sadr, Kimiâ’s oldest sister. Mina Sadr, the younger sister. Sara Sadr (née Tadjamol), Kimiâ’s mother. Darius Sadr, Kimiâ’s father. Born in 1925 in Qazvin, he is the fourth son of Mirza-Ali Sadr and Nour. The Sadr uncles (six official ones, plus one more): Uncle Number One, the eldest, prosecuting attorney in Tehran. Uncle Number Two (Saddeq), responsible for managing the family lands in Mazandaran and Qazvin. Keeper of the family history. Uncle Number Three, notary. Uncle Number Five, manager of an electrical appliance shop near the Grand Bazar. Uncle Number Six (Pirouz), professor of literature at the University of Tehran. Owner of one of the largest real estate agencies in the city. Abbas, Uncle Number Seven (in a way). Illegitimate son of Mirza-Ali and a Qazvin prostitute. Nour, paternal grandmother of Kimiâ, whom her six sons call Mother. Born a few minutes after her twin sister, she was the thirtieth child of Montazemolmolk, and the only one to inherit her father’s blue eyes, the same shade of blue as the Caspian Sea. She died in 1971, the day of Kimiâ’s birth. Mirza-Ali, paternal grandfather. Son and grandson of wealthy Qazvin merchants; he was the only one of the eleven children of Rokhnedin Khan and Monavar Banou to have turquoise eyes the color of the sky over Najaf, the city of his birth. He married Nour in 1911 in order to perpetuate a line of Sadrs with blue eyes. Emma Aslanian, maternal grandmother of Kimiâ and mother of Sara. Her parents, Anahide and Artavaz Aslanian, fled Turkey shortly before the Armenian genocide in 1915. The custom of reading coffee grounds was passed down to her from her grandmother Sévana. Montazemolmolk, paternal great-grandfather of Kimiâ and father of Nour. Feudal lord born in Mazandaran. Parvindokht, one of Montazemolmolk’s many daughters; sister of Nour. Kamran Shiravan, son of one of Mirza-Ali’s sisters and Ebrahim Shiravan. Cousin of Darius . . .

Stories of maternal secrecy are rare. I wanted to think about my mother’s heart away from the troubling moralism that attached to female promiscuity. I wanted to know more about this heart. Not the trapped heart I knew growing up. The heart that found a lover.

Not only had Stewart’s mother gone to Vassar, but her sister and her mother were graduates as well. The school was legendary for its skeptical academic mantra, “Go to primary sources,” an outlook that was repeatedly conveyed to Brand through the maternal side of his family.

Imagine yourself standing before your ancestors. Your maternal ancestors to your right and your paternal ancestors to the left. They extend before you almost like the V shape made by the pattern of flying geese. Each ancestor has two ancestors behind them. If you wish, you may fold your hands and bow before the two lineages before you. This is the prayer that I say to each of my lineages, and you may wish to adapt it for yourself or choose words that resonate with you. It can be done between sunrise and sunset. I do it once in the morning. To my maternal lineage, three generations before me, I bow before you. May the lineage be in peace and love and light and harmony. May each of you be in peace, love, light, and harmony. I am grateful for all that I have received from this lineage, including the gifts of the challenges I face. To my paternal lineage, three generations before me, I bow before you. May the lineage be in peace and love and light and harmony. May each of you be in peace, love, light, and harmony. I am grateful for all that I have received from this lineage, including the gifts of the challenges I face. As I say it, I’m very conscious of my breathing, which grounds me and helps me enter a state of gratitude.

How to Start Working with Your Lineage Do you see patterns of experiences or events that run in your family? Perhaps some of these are obvious to you. You might have always noticed them, thought little of them, or treated them simply as a coincidence. Are there particular ages when patterns repeat? You might wish to start with your nuclear family and then move up the maternal or paternal line. Pick just one side of your family to start with. Are there behaviors or emotions that seem to underlie these events or experiences that are similar? There can be one predominant emotion or multiple emotions. Make a note of them. You will return to these in the next few chapters.

Mammy is the obedient, loyal domestic who loves most to serve her White family.23 Unfailingly maternal, she has no personal desires and is not herself desirable; her broad, corpulent body is meant solely for work and the comfort of others.24 Mammy is asexual, and to underscore this, she is generally depicted as dark skinned and with African features, a headscarf covering what we imagine to be nappy hair—the negative of the pale, fine-featured, light-eyed, and straight-haired Whiteness seen as the pinnacle of beauty.