That women bring home the bacon, fry it up, serve it for breakfast, and use its greasy remains to make candles for their children's science projects is hardly news. Yet how parenting responsibilities get sorted out under these conditions remains unresolved.

— Jennifer Senior

The 20th century, the author observes, fostered the idea that fulfillment is possible on Earth.

— Jennifer Senior

The author describes the critic within us as adults as "the selves who live too much in their heads rather than their bodies, who are burdened with too much knowledge about how the world works rather than excited about how it could work or should, who are afraid of being judged and not being loved. Most adults do not live in a world of forgiveness and unconditional love, unless, that is, they have small children.

— Jennifer Senior

The author observes the shift now that children are not a source of labor for the family, that they have gone from employees of the parents to the bosses of the parents.

— Jennifer Senior

The author says that one of the difficulties of modern parenting is the uncertainty of what parents are preparing children for. In traditional societies this was clear, as parents prepared children for a society and for roles much like their own. She writes, "There is no folk wisdom.

— Jennifer Senior

The author says this socially respectable option NOT to parent has actually made parenthood more stressful. The knowledge that parents have chosen that role allows for unrealistic buildup of expectations and unavoidable second-guessing.

— Jennifer Senior

The phrase "having it all" has little to do with having what we want.

— Jennifer Senior

Vocabulary for aggravation is large. Vocabulary for transcendence is elusive.

— Jennifer Senior

We enshrine things to memory very differently than we experience them in real time. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman has coined a couple of terms to make the distinction. He talks about the "experiencing self" versus the "remembering self.

— Jennifer Senior

What makes a mother? Looking at your child and identifying emotion

— Jennifer Senior