Control is a big issue when you're sick. It's the first thing you lose - other losses come later. Letty Cottin Pogrebin More Quotes by Letty Cottin Pogrebin More Quotes From Letty Cottin Pogrebin I feel about mothers the way I feel about dimples: because I do not have one myself, I notice everyone who does. Letty Cottin Pogrebin dimples mother doe Mothers remember a child's first words, and quote them in tones usually reserved for Byron. Letty Cottin Pogrebin mother children firsts I want to visit Memory Lane, I don't want to live there. Letty Cottin Pogrebin lanes want memories Before devising any blueprint that includes the assumption of Having It All, we need to ask ... Why do we need Everything? Letty Cottin Pogrebin blueprints assumption needs I find it profoundly symbolic that I am appearing before a committee of fifteen men who will report to a legislative body of one hundred men because of a decision handed down by a court comprised of nine men--on an issue that affects millions of women.... I have the feeling that if men could get pregnant, we wouldn't be struggling for this legislation. If men could get pregnant, maternity benefits would be as sacrosanct as the G.I. Bill. Letty Cottin Pogrebin women issues struggle I used to anticipate my childhood birthday parties as if each were an annual coronation. Like most kids, I loved sitting at the head of the table with a crown on my head. Letty Cottin Pogrebin childhood party kids Apathy is the self-defense of the powerless. Letty Cottin Pogrebin apathy defense self The all American work ethic, destructive enough by itself, also packs a gender double standard that strip-mines the natural resources of both parents. It has taught us that as their earnings and success increase, men become "more manly," while women become "less feminine." This perverse cultural dynamic gives fathers an incentive to stay away from their families and kill themselves at work, while coercing mothers to limit their career commitment, which in turn limits their wages and shortchanges their families. Letty Cottin Pogrebin women mother father The risk for a woman who considers her helpless children her "job" is that the children's growth toward self-sufficiency may be experienced as a refutation of the mother's indispensability, and she may unconsciously sabotage their growth as a result. Letty Cottin Pogrebin mother jobs children In the supposedly enlightened eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, parental indifference, child neglect, and raw cruelty appearedamong Europeans of all classes.... In mid-nineteenth- century France, families abandoned their children at the rate of thirty-three thousand a year.... It took sixty years after the criminalization of cruelty to animals for cruelty to children to be made punishable under English law.... Industrialized America added brutalizing child labor to the oppressions of the young. Letty Cottin Pogrebin work animal children Much is made of the accelerating brutality of young people's crimes, but rarely does our concern for dangerous children translateinto concern for children in danger. We fail to make the connection between the use of force on children themselves, and violent antisocial behavior, or the connection between watching father batter mother and the child deducing a link between violence and masculinity. Letty Cottin Pogrebin mother father children Compared to other parents, remarried parents seem more desirous of their child's approval, more alert to the child's emotional state, and more sensitive in their parent-child relations. Perhaps this is the result of heightened empathy for the child's suffering, perhaps it is a guilt reaction; in either case, it gives the child a potent weapon--the power to disrupt the new household and come between parent and the new spouse. Letty Cottin Pogrebin emotional giving children It angers me that sick people have to wait for everything and everybody - doctors, nurses, callbacks, lab results, prescriptions, medications, technicians, treatment rooms. If illness is the embodiment of powerlessness, which, believe me, is true, then waiting is its temporal incarnation. Letty Cottin Pogrebin doctors nurse believe We mothers are learning to mark our mothering success by our daughters' lengthening flight. Letty Cottin Pogrebin daughter mom mother Children's liberation is the next item on our civil rights shopping list. Letty Cottin Pogrebin shopping rights children Like plowing, housework makes the ground ready for the germination of family life. The kids will not invite a teacher home if beer cans litter the living room. The family isn't likely to have breakfast together if somebody didn't remember to buy eggs, milk, or muffins. Housework maintains an orderly setting in which family life can flourish. Letty Cottin Pogrebin work home teacher As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son's future are counting on me. Letty Cottin Pogrebin mother men son Over the years, I've found that I either live life or write about it. I can't seem to do both simultaneously - I have to do it sequentially. When I write incessantly, I lose touch with the issues and passions that fuel the work. But when I get too involved in organizations or movement endeavors, I almost forget that I'm a writer. It's a constant struggle to find a balance between these two worlds - the solitary writing life and the life of a social justice activist. Letty Cottin Pogrebin live-life passion struggle If the Richter scale could measure human calamities, the loss of a child would register a ten. Letty Cottin Pogrebin loss death children It's smart to be friends with one's sex partner but dumb to have sex with one's friends. Letty Cottin Pogrebin friends smart sex
