5 Inspiring Women on Lessons from Their Mothers

“My mother was a tough, no-nonsense Texas woman. She gave me lots of advice: Never wear patterns on television. If you’re going to be in the public eye, you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble if you pick a hairstyle and stick with it. Before naming your child, think about how it’ll look on a bumper sticker. (The list goes on!)

One of the best pieces of advice she ever gave me was this: If you hold out for an invitation, chances are you’ll miss the party. When she first ran for office, it wasn’t because someone knocked on her door and said, ‘You know, Ann, you’d be really great at this!’ It was because she knew in her heart she could do it, even if nobody else thought so. In other words, if you see a job you want to apply for or a chance to make a difference, don’t wait for someone to come along and ask you—just go for it.”

“My mom is not interested in what others think of her. When I was writing my book, The Likeability Trap, she was completely baffled by my preoccupation with likeability. ‘I assume everyone likes me,’ she said. ‘And if they don’t, screw them.’ That may never be me, but it is a sense of self I aspire to!”

“My mother had a gift. She wasn’t what you’d call witty or clever. She had no more than a high school education, and once the first of her five children was born (that would be me), she never worked outside the home. But she had a gift for unconditional love. I think each of us believe we were her favorite. And maybe, given the sheer size of her heart, that was the case.”

“Since I was a girl, I’ve admired my mother’s ability to work around the barriers of culture, patriarchy, education, and every other thing that gets in the way of an ambitious, intelligent woman. Whenever I came to her to talk about a new project, a new job, a new step in my career, she knew immediately that I wasn’t ‘telling’ her anything—I was silently seeking her advice without doing so. My mother and I are both stubborn. In those moments, she listened to me carefully, and when I finished, she’d say casually, ‘Well, I don’t know why you wouldn’t do it. Why not?’ And leave it there for me. These days, whenever I come up to a new challenge, I hear her still: Why not?”

“My mom tells me, ‘You need to eat and put on some weight.’ As simple as that. At surface level, there’s nothing profound or even intellectual about it, but it’s a mom’s love for a child who is obviously more interested in doing things than sitting down for a meal.”