"A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes"
About this Quote
The subtext is less romance than power. Motherhood here stands in for socialization itself: patience, sacrifice, moral coaching, the long-haul construction of respectability. “Another woman” arrives as the disruptive force of adult intimacy, the person who can puncture a man’s self-image with a look, a flirtation, a refusal, a challenge. The “fool” isn’t just the lovestruck suitor; it’s the grown man discovering that the identity he thought was solid is, in practice, negotiable and embarrassingly easy to manipulate.
Frost, a poet of New England restraint and domestic thresholds, often wrote about how the home isn’t a sanctuary so much as a pressure chamber. This quip channels that sensibility into a barbed, almost proverb-like form. It flatters mothers, needles sons, and quietly admits a harsher truth: adulthood isn’t a diploma you earn once. It’s a performance you can botch in public, fast, especially when the stakes are desire, pride, and being seen.
Quote Details
| Topic | Mother |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Frost, Robert. (2026, January 14). A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-mother-takes-twenty-years-to-make-a-man-of-her-26745/
Chicago Style
Frost, Robert. "A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes." FixQuotes. January 14, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-mother-takes-twenty-years-to-make-a-man-of-her-26745/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes." FixQuotes, 14 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-mother-takes-twenty-years-to-make-a-man-of-her-26745/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.
