My mother's idea of natural childbirth was giving birth without makeup. She was hyper-positive - the world is a wonderful place, rainbows and unicorns. If you said anything contrary to her, you were basically exiled.
Interpretation
The quote humorously reflects on a mother's overly optimistic view of childbirth and life.
Robin Williams encapsulates his mother's unique perspective on life and childbirth, illustrating her extreme positivity and the lengths to which she would go to maintain that outlook. The humor lies in the contrast between her idealism—exemplified by the notion of having a 'natural childbirth' without makeup—and the often harsh realities of life that she would dismiss, suggesting that negativity was not tolerated in her world.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about parenting to highlight different parenting styles.
It's that idea that you can have one drink - and no you can't. Within a week I was drinking heavily. It was so quick that even I was like, 'Wow.' Because you have that initial warm feeling going, 'Oh, I remember this'. And your body does, too. And your body goes, 'Yeah, so do I'. Then the demon voice comes, 'Yeah, so do I. You know what would be great? You know we bought a little bottle before? A full bottle would be wonderful'.
I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.
Sometimes over things that I did, movies that didn't turn out very well - you go, 'Why did you do that?' But in the end, I can't regret them because I met amazing people. There was always something that was worth it.
I've never been asked to appear on 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!,' so I guess I mustn't be on the professional skids just yet.
The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'
I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.
I grew up in a family of storytellers, but Google has destroyed us because you can fact-check everything. We'd always like the stories to be a little better than they were.
I conveniently forgot to remember that people only have two hands, or, as another parent once said of having a third child, it's time for a zone defense instead of man-to-man.
When you have kids, there's no such thing as quality time. There's just time. There's no, 'Ooh, his graduation's better than going to the mall.' It's all kind of equal. Changing her diaper and her winning a contest - it's all good.
My mother never watched me train in Romania. She wasn't allowed, it just wasn't done back then. My training was paid for by the government. My parents were not at the Olympics with me, either. I never expected them to be.
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.
Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.
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