Sublime

effusive.

everyone has a voice.

but it still felt like every time she looked up, William was in front of her, asking a silly question. Which shirt should he wear? Should he contact the movers about what time they planned to show up on the designated day? Did she want him to ask the super about the elevator button? Did these grapes look okay to eat? Julia finally said, “I can’t gi

These perennial difficulties are worth dissecting and will certainly play a role in this book. But I am also interested in what’s new and distinctive about modern parenting. There’s no denying that our lives as mothers and fathers have grown much more complex, and we still don’t have a new set of scripts to guide us through them. Normlessness is a

Alice told herself: If I stop asking questions, I’ll stop growing.

She wasn’t writing her family history in any particular order, though the recollections did seem to lap into one another like waves.

The thing about being a woman, a mother, a wife, was that if you wanted to be any more than those things you had to hire another wife. Somebody had to be the wife in a family. Rich women got to pay somebody else to be them—a stunt double to make it look like they were doing everything well when, in fact, they were doing only the fun parts.

Waiting for the right time may mean waiting forever. Looking for insight, or inspiration, may be in vain. Just do it.