I grew up with that completely fictive idea of motherhood, where the mother never strayed from the kitchen. All the women in my books are very afraid that if they do anything with their minds they won't be complete women. I don't think my daughters' generation has that feeling.
A. S. Byatt
Motherhood changes everything.
Adriana Trigiani
I don't know about changing my perspective, because motherhood is such a glorious blessing and I am very thankful for that. It's such a beautiful experience. I so strongly recommend it. It's bliss, love and fulfillment of another level.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
Even prior to marriage and motherhood, it's always been about prioritising and focusing on what you can commit to. That's been my approach to every aspect of my life, be it my relationships or my professional commitments.
I love being a mom and having two kids. But I've had two C-sections, and I have suffered enough. That's my favourite mantra when it comes to motherhood.
Ali Wong
I've seen many female comics that a lot of people haven't heard of who are so funny, and I saw them come up, and they were working so hard, and then all of a sudden they had a baby, and they just got tied up in motherhood, and eventually, they kind of just stopped doing stand-up, and I thought it was such a shame.
There's a motherhood penalty because we've been long taught things that are stigmatized about motherhood. As workers, we don't want to talk about our kids at work. We're afraid to, or that when we leave at 5:30 to relieve the sitter we're somehow going to be diminished.
Alissa Quart
Motherhood gives you access to a range of different intellectual experiences and ways of seeing the world, which, in a way, makes you more flexible in the workplace. But our employers, our colleagues, don't necessarily understand.
Mothers suffer in the workplace. That fact is by now so painfully familiar it even has a name: the motherhood penalty.
The software program for motherhood is impossible to fully download into the male brain. You give them two tasks and they're like, 'I have to change the baby and get the dry cleaning?'
Allison Pearson
There is enormous shame around depression of any kind and at any time. And there's enormous social stigma attached to it, which we need to go on fighting. But I think that the sense of depression during pregnancy and early motherhood has been particularly stigmatized, that people especially feel that should be the happiest time of your life.
Andrew Solomon
There's people constantly asking you for something on set, so the multi-tasking of motherhood transfers very well to being a director. And I think you're compassionate.
Angelina Jolie
Completeness? Happiness? These words don't come close to describing my emotions. There truly is nothing I can say to capture what motherhood means to me, particularly given my medical history.
Anita Baker
Motherhood was my career. I'm totally satisfied with that.
Ann Romney
Motherhood is like a big sleeping bag of guilt.
Anna Faris
Becoming a mother has been the best thing ever for me. It's become my life's work. Not just parenting, but sharing information and encouraging other women to be receptive to the basic nature of motherhood.
Anna Getty
None of my own experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my life - motherhood, middle age, etc. - often influence my subject matter.
Anne Tyler
I didn't really inhabit myself until I was in my 30s. And motherhood is an epic event. You can't help but be altered by it - and it is important to be.
Anne-Marie Duff
Motherhood was the great equaliser for me; I started to identify with everybody.
Annie Lennox
Motherhood was the great equaliser for me; I started to identify with everybody... as a mother, you have that impulse to wish that no child should ever be hurt, or abused, or go hungry, or not have opportunities in life.
I stand fearlessly for small dogs, the American Flag, motherhood and the Bible. That's why people love me.
The Lord has been there from wanting to be a momma, to having a wonderful childhood life and dreaming of having a good motherhood as a child; always wanting to meet a good old country boy and having someone to love as much as I love my husband Roland and having a little boy that is a mixture of the both of us.
I work hard and try to combine a demanding career with motherhood.
I am consumed, or I have been consumed, with these issues of motherhood and the way we act out societal expectations and roles. So both my nonfiction and my fiction have been pretty much exclusively about that.
Motherhood is far better than I expected. I love it with all of my heart.
Take motherhood: nobody ever thought of putting it on a moral pedestal until some brash feminists pointed out, about a century ago, that the pay is lousy and the career ladder nonexistent.
Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.
Motherhood is so sentimentalised and romanticised in our culture. It's practically against the law to say there are moments in the day when you hate your children. Everyone actually has those moments.
Motherhood is tough. If you just want a wonderful little creature to love, you can get a puppy.
The challenge with WWE was keeping up with the schedule and trying to stay healthy and uninjured during that time. Now, with motherhood, the biggest responsibility is trying to protect this little baby and care for her and her needs.
In many ways, being pregnant and working were more difficult than motherhood.
In Hindu societies, especially overprotected patriarchal families like mine, daughters are not at all desirable. They are trouble. And a mother who, as mine did, has three daughters, no sons, is supposed to go and hang herself, kill herself, because it is such an unlucky kind of motherhood to have.
I really love doing simple things. I'm surrounded by people all the time at work, so I want to have a normal life when I'm off duty: motherhood, food, and love!
I felt this during the first few months of my motherhood. You lose who you are - you lose your identity - because when your baby comes, you give, give, give, and no one gives back, and you just wonder, 'Who am I?' 'What am I?' 'How do I live life now?' It's all for this baby.
I think with motherhood and child-rearing in general, everyone's going to tell you how to do it and why. I've always said to other mothers and women when they've asked me, that you have to find your own way and find out what works for your family, at all costs.
It's been so wonderful to hear the realities behind motherhood.
Now that virtually every career is an option for ambitious girls, it can no longer be considered regressive or reactionary to reintroduce discussion of marriage and motherhood to primary education. We certainly do not want to return to the simplistic duality of home economics classes for girls and wood shop for boys.
I didn't have my first child until I was 40. I actually learned about motherhood from management.
Is there nothing the prodigiously talented Ann Patchett can't do? She's channeled the world of opera, Boston politics, magic, unwed motherhood, and race relations, creating scenarios so indelible, you swear they are right outside your door.
Motherhood has brought me many joys and insights, but the new perspective it granted me on the role I had inadvertently played in young women's lives for the 2 decades I spent in the modeling industry was downright sobering.
For a while, I was feeling so creative in motherhood that I had no longing to work. I felt that my children needed me, that I couldn't leave them for a second.
I've always been so apathetic. I figured, OK, maybe the world is going to fall down around me. Now I want to make a better world... that's motherhood.
There's so much dishonesty with motherhood in general... The truth is it's just a lot of embarrassing, humiliating moments.
Because there is less female storytelling, especially motherhood storytelling, there has been immense pressure on my storytelling to represent more people, and to do so in a sort of unrealistic way.
Motherhood to me is something that I always wanted, but never quite knew how it was going to happen.
Motherhood is a great honor and privilege, yet it is also synonymous with servanthood. Every day women are called upon to selflessly meet the needs of their families. Whether they are awake at night nursing a baby, spending their time and money on less-than-grateful teenagers, or preparing meals, moms continuously put others before themselves.
The only thing that I stress out about is, how am I going to make sure that I balance out my time for motherhood?
My favorite thing about motherhood is the outpouring of love that is non-judgmental and beautiful. My daughter just makes me happy, and she motivates me to be a kid again.
Motherhood may be a 'killer' when it comes to becoming a Master of the Universe, but among middle-class mothers, even after that touch of baby's lips to bosom, a big and growing number find themselves able - and often required - to bring home the family bacon.
I have a whole new perspective on pregnancy and motherhood now that I'm experiencing it. Just because it's so hard and so confusing and so exciting. Women are so amazing that their bodies can do this and that they're strong enough to do this. I can't believe almost every woman goes through this, because it's so hard.
