Quotes About Family

I had thought, once, that I couldn't ever be a mother because I'd passed at the chance to raise my own son. But this summer had shown me--Matthew and Monica had shown me--that being a mother wasn't one thing. It was an indefinable, eternal state of love and acceptance, sacrifice and forgiveness. And hope. Because being a mother was nothing if not hope.

So I guess I'm ready to...start dating. I want to get married again. Have a family." Ethan leans forward, causing Fat Mikey to jump off his lap. "I see," he says. I look at the floor for a second. "Right." Risking a peek at Ethan, I add, "So we should probably stop sleeping together.

He was not Monica's biological child, and all the research said that no matter how good a mom she was, she would never be enough. Fathers didn't seem to be so accused in the literature.

That was the shitty thing about divorce. You lost that whole other family, that whole world.

I want you to be proud of me for what I did, giving him to Monica and Sanjay. It was the hardest thing I'll ever do in my life, and I have to believe it was the right thing.

When I think of the day you were born . . . the love I felt, like nothing else in my entire life, that fierceness . . ." She gripped my hand. "The fact that you did what you did, Harlow . . . you were so strong to do that. I want to go back in time and wrap you in my arms and take care of you and tell you how much I love you, my brave, good girl.

I didn't raise my child, but I was still his mother, and the fact was both indescribably precious and painful.

There were also plenty of articles about adopted kids loving their birth parents and not being tormented. Some had reasons for not wanting to find their biological family. But speaking generally, it did seem that many adopted kids wanted to meet their birth parents. Especially their mothers, who had carried them and given birth to them. It wasn't that they were looking for a replacement. Just answers.

They'd cared for her, provided for her and loved her. If anything, the knowledge that she wasn't their flesh and blood made her love them all the more. They had chosen her,

I loved my family. But as I got older, I felt myself . . . disappearing. The good child, the easy teenager, the strong student. My siblings outgrew their need for a sitter/shepherd.

Jen told me most birth mothers wanted at least some contact with the adoptive family after the baby was born. I pictured my little brother, what it would be like to say goodbye to him over and over, leaving him with someone else, his sweet little face in the window as I drove away. "I don't think I will," I said after a minute. "It sounds like torture for both of us, to be honest.

Parenthood was ninety percent forgiveness, ten percent lies and a hundred percent love

The best thing in a girl's life is a father she can count on.

Our families were herded out of the room, and I snuggled little Ainsley closer, smelling her head, a smell I already recognized. I'd cheerfully kill for her, happily lay down my life for her without a second's hesitation and with a smile on my face. My beautiful baby. My gift.

This is Nathan's mother," I said, wiping my eyes with the edge of Ainsley's blanket. "Yes, we've met," Eloise said. "You came to Nathan's wake." Daniel nodded. "Congratulations on your beautiful daughter. Kate..." She turned to me. "It was good to see you, deah.

You okay, sweetheart?" Daniel asked. He put the ice cream on the bedside table and sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes worried. I looked at him, then down at our little baby. "Never better," I said.

Because some adopted kids do. They feel like their mothers—because it's always the mothers, since we were the ones who were pregnant—abandoned them. There's a theory that every adopted kid is traumatized because they were adopted.

There was something about being a child of divorce...I'd always felt somehow responsible for everyone's mood. If I was cute and cheerful enough, I believed, everyone would be happy. If they weren't, clearly I wasn't trying hard enough.

I want to be with someone. I want to be part of a couple. I want kids. He's a good person, Georgia. All I have to do is—what's that saying?—make the scales fall from his eyes, and I think he could love me.

Your importance is dwarfed by their friends. Romantic interests. Cool professors and great coaches. A spouse, someday, and kids of their own, and you . . . you got left behind at a certain exit on the highway of their life, and all you can do is look down the road after them and remember when you were so needed, so loved, so sure of your place in the world, because you were Mommy, and that was everything.

It's the wretched contradiction of parenting. Once, you were their favorite human on the planet, and they were yours. For the rest of your life, your child will remain your heart . . . but it's not mutual. It's not supposed to be. Your importance is dwarfed by their friends. Romantic interests. Cool professors and great coaches.

My family's pretty intense. Like every other day, someone's having a first Communion or a christening or a baby. My mother calls me four times a day just to 'catch up.' I have to pretend the cell service sucks out here just to get some peace and quiet. I love them, but too much of a good thing, you know?

How many men are stupid enough to dump two Emerson girls?" Dad asked. "Too bad we're not mobbed up. We could have his body dumped in the Farmington River.

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded.