American journalist (1948- )
Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the "wrong crowd" read like tornado alerts in parent manuals.... It is a relative term that means different things in different places. In Fort Wayne, for example, the wrong crowd meant hanging out with liberal Democrats. In Connecticut, it meant kids who weren't planning to get a Ph.D. from Yale.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
Divorce is the psychological equivalent of a triple coronary bypass.
MARY KAY BLAKELEY
American Mom
Never accept an expert's opinion if it violates your own because the experts can change their minds.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
It takes twenty or so years before a mother can know with any certainty how effective her theories have been--and even then there are surprises. The daily newspapers raise the most frightening questions of all for a mother of sons: Could my once sweet babes ever become violent men? Are my sons really who I think they are?
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
Motherhood is perhaps the only unpaid position where failure to show up can result in arrest.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
The absolute dependence of a newborn infant inspired many things in me, but it did not activate any magical knowledge about what to do for the next twenty years.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
The truth invariably arrives several years after you need it.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
Wake Me When It's Over
Being asked to decide between your passion for work and your passion for children was like being asked by your doctor whether you preferred him to remove your brain or your heart.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
How can one explain all the time and thought that goes into raising a child, all the opportunities for mistakes, all the chances to recover and try again? How does one break the news that nothing permanent can be formed in an instant--children are not weaned, potty trained, taught manners, introduced to civilization in one or two tries--as everyone imagined.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
One life stamps and influences another, which in turn stamps and influences another, on and on, until the soul of human experience breathes on in generations we'll never even meet.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
Wake Me When It's Over
In motherhood, where seemingly opposite realities can be simultaneously true, the role of nurturer invariably conflicts with the role of socializer. When trouble came as it surely must, was I the good cop who understood, the bad cop who terrorized, or both?
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seemsas absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
Although a firm swat could bring a recalcitrant child swiftly into line, the changes were usually external, lasting only as long as the swatter remained in view.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
A father had to work only half as hard as any mother to be considered twice as good.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
A mother is never cocky or proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child has just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
Pulling Our Own Strings
In a culture that gives men irresponsible power and women powerless responsibility, the advancement of civilization cannot be a serious goal.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
American Mom
Our humor turns our anger into a fine art.
MARY KAY BLAKELY
Pulling Our Own Strings