Motherhood Quote by Lois Wyse

Wyse’s line lands because it’s a little wicked: it frames “true grandmotherhood” not as wisdom earned, but as selective attention perfected. The joke hinges on a quiet accusation every parent recognizes. When you’re raising kids, you’re tasked with noticing: the mess, the defiance, the bad choices that require consequence. Grandparenthood, in Wyse’s telling, is the relief of switching roles from enforcer to admirer. You don’t stop seeing reality; you stop prioritizing it.

The subtext is a domestic power shift. Children once lived under a mother’s scrutiny; now the mother’s emotional energy is rerouted to the next generation, and the adult children suddenly find themselves on the receiving end of indulgence they didn’t get. That’s the sting that makes it funny: the “terrible things” aren’t necessarily crimes, just the ordinary failures of adulthood, and the grandmother’s enchantment functions like a soft veto against criticism. Grandkids get the glow; grown kids get, at best, a shrug.

Context matters: Wyse wrote in a late-20th-century register that prized the punchy, knowing observation about family life - humor that acts as social commentary without announcing itself as such. The line also flatters its audience while gently indicting it. It tells grandmothers, “You’re not biased, you’re enchanted,” turning favoritism into a kind of romance. And for everyone else, it names an uncomfortable truth: family hierarchies don’t disappear, they just get reassigned to whoever is cutest.