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The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.

Ellen Goodman

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Ellen Goodman
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: April 11
Journalist
Newton
Massachusetts
Inspirational
Children
Outweigh
Adoption
Parenthood
Hopes
Central
Fears
Struggle

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Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe and aren't even aware of.
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Alternative Lifestyles, the emotional fly-drive packages of our times, come equipped with a set of clothes, a choice of authors, a limited menu of sports and a discount coupon book of clichés.
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In today's amphetamine world of news junkies, speed trumps thoughtfulness too often.
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She goes in with a prejudice and comes out with a statistic.
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If there's a single message passed down from each generation of American parents to their children, it is a two-word line: Better Yourself. And if there's a temple of self-betterment in each town, it is the local school. We have worshipped there for some time.
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Civility, it is said, means obeying the unenforceable.
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What he labels sexual, she labels harassment.
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Saving time, it seems, has a primacy that's too rarely examined.
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You can fire your secretary, divorce your spouse, abandon your children. But they remain your co-authors forever.
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I think most of us become self-critical as soon as we become self-conscious.
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We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.
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[E]very time you think the entertainment moguls have hit rock bottom, they reach for the jackhammer and rat-a-tat-tat a little deeper.
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instant opinion is an oxymoron. You don't get real opinions in an instant. You get reactions.
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I rewrite a great deal. I'm always fiddling, always changing something. I'll write a few words - then I'll change them. I add. I subtract. I work and fiddle and keep working and fiddling, and I only stop at the deadline.
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We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?
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