There are times as a parent when you realize that your job is not to be the parent you always imagined youd be, the parent you always wished you had. Your job is to be the parent your child needs, given the particulars of his or her own life and nature. – Ayelet Waldman
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
As a novelist, I mined my history, my family and my memory, but in a very specific way. Writing fiction, I never made use of experiences immediately as they happened. I needed to let things fester in my memory, mature and transmogrify into something meaningful. – 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