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There was a time when the respect and trust my children had for me would have made you sick to your stomach. They believed I could blow on a red traffic light and turn it green.

Erma Bombeck

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Erma Bombeck
Age: 69 †
Born: 1927
Born: February 21
Died: 1996
Died: April 22
Column Author
Journalist
Writer
Bellbrook
Ohio
Erma Louise Bombeck
Turn
Stomach
Turns
Red
Light
Believed
Children
Blow
Made
Green
Would
Sick
Time
Trust
Respect
Traffic

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Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.
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When the going gets tough, the tough make cookies.
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My mother phones daily to ask, Did you just try to reach me? When I reply no, she adds, So, if you're not too busy, call me while I'm still alive, . . . and hangs up.
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Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people's children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.
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Those magazine dieting stories always have the testimonial of a woman who wore a dress that could slipcover New Jersey in one photo and thirty days later looked like a well-dressed thermometer.
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I'm real ambivalent about [working mothers]. Those of use who have been in the women's movement for a long time know that we've talked a good game of go out and fulfill your dreams and be everything you were meant to be. But by the same token, we want daughters-in-law who are going to stay home and raise our grandchildren.
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A kitchen without an ironing board? Are you kidding? It's un-American. It's like Simon without Garfunkel.
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I got so much food spit back in my face when my kids were small, I put windshield wipers on my glasses.
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The art of never making a mistake is crucial to motherhood. To be effective and to gain the respect she needs to function, a mother must have her children believe she has never engaged in sex, never made a bad decision, never caused her own mother a moment's anxiety, and was never a child.
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Babies should enjoy the freedom to vocalize whether it be in church, a public meeting place, during a movie, or after hours when the lights are out. They have not yet learned that joy and laughter have to last a lifetime and must be conserved.
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Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one Helen Keller is the other.
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No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there is wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.
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It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line.
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I have never understood, for example, how come a child can climb up on the roof, scale the TV antenna, and rescue the cat ... yet cannot walk down the hallway without grabbing both walls with his grubby hands for balance.
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Never order food in excess of your body weight.
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I don't think women outlive men, Doctor. It only seems longer.
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With all the precautions and risks that accompany sex today, it sounds about as much fun as walking through a minefield.
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Shopping is a woman thing. It's a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase.
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With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It's all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.
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I have seen my kid struggle into the kitchen in the morning with outfits that need only one accessory: an empty gin bottle.
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