The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one … - Sydney J. Harris

Being able to do exactly as one pleases is the surest way to remain perpetually unpleased.

One of the most frequent mistakes we make lies in assuming that personality is a collection of traits, or that a personality is merely the sum of its parts. Personality is a way of organizing these parts...If we look at persons dynamically, and not simply as a static set of traits, we can see that certain defects are the price they pay for their virtues...This is why “pointing out” a bad trait to a colleague or a subordinate - even in a kindly and a well-meaning way - usually does no good, and may even do some harm. It makes him feel worse, and does not enable him to act any better.

The beauty of “spacing” children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones — which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones.