“Vocabulary for aggravation is large. Vocabulary for transcendence is elusive.”

“During childhood, it’s about trying to help develop who your kid’s going to be. During adolescence, it’s about responding to who your kid wants to be.”

“Couples with children may argue more, the author suggests, because children are a reminder of just how crucial our choices are.”

“Children live life as a controlled experiment.”

“Parenthood is harder than conventional work, the author suggests, because our jobs develop a somewhat predictable flow and offer relatively short-term feedback. This leads to internal comparisons to the improvisational nature of parenting”

“The phrase "having it all" has little to do with having what we want.”

“The 20th century, the author observes, fostered the idea that fulfillment is possible on Earth.”

“Vocabulary for aggravation is large. Vocabulary for transcendence is elusive.”

“That women bring home the bacon, fry it up, serve it for breakfast, and use its greasy remains to make candles for their children's science projects is hardly news. Yet how parenting responsibilities get sorted out under these conditions remains unresolved.”

“As parents, we sometimes mistakenly assume that things were always this way. They weren't. The modern family is just that - modern - and all of our places in it are quite new. Unless we keep in mind how new our lives as parents are, and how unusual and ahistorical, we won't see that world we live in, as mothers and fathers, is still under construction. Modern childhood was invented less than seventy years ago - the length of a catnap, in historical terms.”

“The author says that one of the difficulties of modern parenting is the uncertainty of what parents are preparing children for. In traditional societies this was clear, as parents prepared children for a society and for roles much like their own. She writes, "There is no folk wisdom.”