With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember op…

- Mary Blakely

When trouble comes no mother should have to plead guilty alone. The pediatricians, psychologists, therapists, goat herders, fathers, and peer groups …

- Mary Blakely

Women aren't trying to do too much. Women have too much to do.

- Mary Blakely

Families don't always realize that mother is exhausted, because mother is always exhausted. Exhausted is what looks normal.

- Mary Blakely

Although a firm swat could bring a recalcitrant child swiftly into line, the changes were usually external, lasting only as long as the swatter remai…

- Mary Blakely

Spooky things happen in houses densely occupied by adolescent boys. When I checked out a four-inch dent in the living room ceilingone afternoon, even…

- Mary Blakely

Raising boys has made me a more generous woman than I really am. Undoubtedly, there are other routes to learning the wishes and dreams of the presuma…

- Mary Blakely

The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seemsas absurd to me as e…

- Mary Blakely

Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the "wrong crowd" read like tornado alerts…

- Mary Blakely