Quotes from Andrea J. Buchanan

Consider one study that estimates a mom simultaneously and often single-handedly performs as many as seventeen occupations in the course of raising a child, from child-rearing, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, and financial planning to resolving family emotional problems (not to mention often doing part-time paid work in addition to it all). That particular study estimated a mother's worth at $508,700 a year, according to Ann Crittenden's The Price of Motherhood.

But I know my real fear about your growing older is not only about the millions of things that could happen. It is about how afraid I am of what I imagine as the inevitable separation that will come between us. I don't know why I am so convinced it will happen, but I am afraid that it will, and I am already mourning the loss of these days when you had no choice but to love me.

Our staunch ideals of how we will raise our children get significantly reshaped by those very kids once they're here in the world running us ragged, wearing down our defenses, leaving us no choice but to embark on that slippery slope and say, "Just this once!" to stop the whining.

for the most part, my peers, like me, have embarked on the eternal compromise that is dealing with a toddler. We are no longer inexperienced, we are no longer naively confident that our superb parenting skills will produce the perfectly well-behaved mini-adult, we are willing to admit that for the most part we simply want to get through the day. We have been broken in. So we pick our battles.

I swear over everything from being woken up in the middle of the night to realizing I've left the wet clothes in the washer for three days. At this point, "fuck" isn't even a swear word anymore; sentences just don't sound right unless it's interspersed somewhere.

motherhood is not a job at all. It is a full-time, all-consuming, life-subsuming career with no pay, no stock options, no social security, and lots of lip service with little actual respect (just watch the difference in people's reactions to you when you tell them you are a project manager instead of a mother).

Pre-baby I used to fantasize about winning the lottery, or becoming deliriously famous and rich. Now I fantasize about sleep. I fantasize about slumber the way guys fantasize about sex. Hours of it, days of it. Sleeping on the couch, on the bed, on the floor, wherever I can find a comfortable spot. It is almost illicit, so decadent and unimaginable, it now seems to sleep when I want, where I want, and for as long as I want.

we all just figure this out as we go along. There's no textbook, there's no rules, there's no right way to love her. You just feel what you feel, you just love her the only way you know how.