Because of my bipolar disorder, I tend to these mixed states, which are depressed but loud and agitated. So I can be terribly irritable. I go to cognitive behavioral therapy in order not to yell at my children. – Ayelet Waldman
I pity the young woman who will attempt to insinuate herself between my mama’s 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
But I really feel strongly that our kids do way too much homework. The research is on my side. It’s easy to make a fuss when you’re right. That can be the tagline of my life: ‘It’s Easy To Make A Fuss When You’re Right.’ – Ayelet Waldman
By the time the children go to bed, I am as drained as any mother who has spent her day working, car pooling, building Lego castles and shopping for the precisely correct soccer cleat. – Ayelet Waldman
I’m sure there are people who survive tragedy without humor, but I’ve never met any of them. Nor would I be particularly interested in writing about them if I did meet them. – Ayelet Waldman
I mean, I do actually think there is a qualitative difference between aborting in the early part of the first trimester and in, you know, the middle or later part of the second trimester, in a way that you feel about it in that you grow attached. – Ayelet Waldman
The stereotypical gay man is someone whose company I enjoy, someone who makes me laugh, someone I’d want my kid to be. The stereotypical gay woman makes me insecure, conscious of my failings as a feminist. – Ayelet Waldman
The first inkling my husband had that I was thinking about suicide was when he checked my blog. – Ayelet Waldman
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. – Ayelet Waldman
Well, you know, I was raised by a 1970s feminist. My mom had a consciousness-raising group. I used to sit at the top of the stairs and listen to them. – Ayelet Waldman
I think I wish I had never spanked my children, but I have. And they remember every instance like they tattooed it on their palms. I think it’s a terrible lesson, to use physical punishment to make a point about not behaving, not being kind to their siblings, to other people. I mean that’s just absurd. But I’ve lost it, I understand it. – Ayelet Waldman
It’s hard to separate your remembered childhood and its emotional legacy from the childhoods that are being lived out in your house, by your children. If you’re lucky, your kids will help you make that distinction. – Ayelet Waldman
Despite the fact that in America we incarcerate more juveniles for life terms than in any other country in the world, the truth is that the vast majority of youth offenders will one day be released. The question is simple and stark. Do we want to help them change or do we want to help them become even more violent and dangerous? – Ayelet Waldman
If producing a regular column is living out loud, then keeping a daily blog is living at the top of your lungs. For a couple of months there, I was shrieking like a banshee. – Ayelet Waldman
I went from resenting my mother-in-law to accepting her, finally to appreciating her. What appeared to be her diffidence when I was first married, I now value as serenity. – Ayelet Waldman
A good mother remembers to serve fruit at breakfast, is always cheerful and never yells, manages not to project her own neuroses and inadequacies onto her children, is an active and beloved community volunteer. She remembers to make play dates, her children’s clothes fit, she does art projects with them and enjoys all their games. – Ayelet Waldman
I tell myself that after four children my belly is already so stretched and flabby that I have to do origami to get my pants buttoned. One more pregnancy and I’d be doomed to elastic waists for the rest of my life. – Ayelet Waldman
You can take the babushka off the Jewish mother and dress her up in a pair of Seven jeans and Marc Jacobs sling-backs, but she’s still going to expect a passel of grandkids. – Ayelet Waldman
During the periods in my marriage when I chose to stay home with my kids rather than work as an attorney, it caused me no end of anxiety. Despite the fact that I knew I was contributing to our family by caring for our children, I still felt that my worth was less because I wasn’t earning. – Ayelet Waldman
The Q I loathe and despise, the Q every single writer I know loathes and despises, is this one: ‘Where,’ the reader asks, ‘do you get your ideas?’ It’s a simple question, and my usual response is a kind of helpless, ‘I don’t know.’ – Ayelet Waldman
I have made so many mistakes as a mother. But the one thing that I know I do is I make sure my children know how much I love them and they are absolutely secure in that. – Ayelet Waldman
I had a second trimester abortion. I was pregnant with a much-wanted child who was diagnosed with a genetic abnormality. I made a choice to terminate the pregnancy. It was my third pregnancy, and I was very obviously showing. More important, I could feel the baby move. – Ayelet Waldman
My kids are incredibly secure. More and more of their friends’ parents are divorcing, but my kids have absolute confidence that we’ll stay together forever. That goes a long, long way. – Ayelet Waldman
I learned that I suffered from bipolar II disorder, a less serious variant of bipolar I, which was once known as manic depression. The information was naturally frightening; up to 1 in 5 people with bipolar disorder will commit suicide, and rates may even be higher for those suffering from bipolar II. – Ayelet Waldman
My own husband was divorced when we met, but without kids. I don’t know what I would have done if he’d had them. I got the message very early on that the worst mistake a woman can make is marrying a man with children. – Ayelet Waldman
I believe that mothers should tell the truth, even – no, especially – when the truth is difficult. It’s always easier, and in the short term can even feel right, to pretend everything is okay, and to encourage your children to do the same. But concealment leads to shame, and of all hurts shame is the most painful. – Ayelet Waldman
I was born in Israel, to Canadian parents. My father immigrated in 1948, part of a wave of young men and women who came as pioneers, to fight for a Jewish homeland. Their motive was in large part a reaction to the Holocaust, and their slogan was ‘Never Again.’ – Ayelet Waldman
I mean, I absolutely call myself a feminist. And by that, I mean a woman who believes that your opportunities should not be constrained by your gender, that women should be entitled to the same opportunities as men. – Ayelet Waldman
