My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the complex and conflicting emotions a parent experiences regarding their children, encompassing both love and struggle.
Adrienne Rich reflects on the intense and often contradictory feelings that come with motherhood. The quote illustrates the dual nature of parental love, revealing how it can be accompanied by struggles with ambivalence, where moments of deep joy and gratitude coexist with feelings of frustration and resentment. This emotional complexity emphasizes the challenges inherent in nurturing children, highlighting how a parent's passionate feelings can oscillate between pride and distress, ultimately showcasing the depth of love intertwined with the burdens of responsibility.
In practice
During a heartfelt conversation about parenting at a family gathering.
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.'”
There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet
It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'
Pride is a tricky, glorious, double-edged feeling.
I have a certain memory of the way in which my father loved me until I was 10, and it was unconditional and eternal. I get to carry that for the rest of my life, but on a practical level after age 10, it's just me sort of figuring it out.
My son, he is the reason I got involved. It's been a joy to be around him and teach him the stuff that I know, and to the other kids as well. When he started playing I wanted to be involved in his hockey career. It's a lot of fun for both of us.
He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.
There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.
All of these things we do without children, and suddenly we don't do them anymore, and it comes home to us in a real way, that it's very different to have the responsibility of a child.
I love my mother, but there has been, ever since my boyhood, a sort of coldness of intercourse between us, such as is apt to come between people of strong feelings.
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