Like so many of the other books I read, it never seemed to me like a book, but like a place I had lived in, had visited and would visit again, just a… - Anna Quindlen

the older we get, the more we understand that the women who know and love us - and love us despite what they know about us - are the joists that hold up the house of our existence.

there is still a kind of unique loneliness to child rearing for women. We so often do it in isolation. Add to the fact that in our competitive, perfectionist culture, in which the price woman are required to pay for freedom still seems to be martyrdom, almost everyone lies about motherhood. Part of that lying is loyalty - I can't let on that my kid is the only one on the playground who can't read or play the piano - and part of it is self-protection, since we've made hyper-motherhood a measure of female success. The preferred answer to the question "How are you?" is always "Fine," and the answer to the question "How are the kids?" is supposed to be "Great!" That's true even if the accurate answers would be "terrible" and "a mess." I think it produces its own kind of desperation, especially for women, who yearn to be emotionally open.

Perhaps only when we've made our peace with our own selves can we really be the kind of friends who listen, advise, but don't judge, or not too harshly.