One of the darkest, deepest shames so many of us mothers feel nowadays is our fear that we are Bad Mothers, that we are failing our children and falling far short of our own ideals. – Ayelet Waldman
I was a lesbian for a semester at Wesleyan – it was a graduation requirement. – Ayelet Waldman
Look, if you ask a child, Would you rather have a fulfilled mother or a stay-at-home Sylvia Plath, theyll pick Sylvia Plath every time. But I think its really important that children dont feel their parents emotional lives depend on their success. – Ayelet Waldman
I pity the young woman who will attempt to insinuate herself between my mamas boy and me. I sympathize with the monumental nature of her task. It will take a crowbar, two bulldozers and half a dozen Molotov cocktails to pry my Oedipus and me loose from one another. – Ayelet Waldman
My dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, hes always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. – Cornel West