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Motherhood Quote by Candice Bergen

"I guess I was a mom so late in life, my daughter was the greatest thing since sliced bread"

About this Quote

Self-deprecating glee is doing the heavy lifting here. Candice Bergen reaches for the corniest compliment in the American pantry - "the greatest thing since sliced bread" - and that choice is the point. It signals that this is not a carefully curated inspirational mom monologue; it is a celebrity admitting she got ambushed by ordinary, unfashionable joy.

The first clause, "I guess I was a mom so late in life", carries a whole cultural argument in miniature. Bergen came up in an era when women in Hollywood were expected to pick a lane: career woman or mother, ingenue or "past her prime". Saying it that casually ("I guess") is a quiet refusal to treat the timing as scandal, tragedy, or triumph. It reads like someone sidestepping the judgment baked into "late" pregnancy and parenting, especially for a woman whose public image has long been poised and controlled.

Then she pivots to the daughter as revelation. Not "I loved my child", which would land like PR. "Greatest thing since sliced bread" is funny because it's absurdly disproportionate, and because it's so aggressively middlebrow it punctures celebrity distance. The subtext: the most life-rearranging experience she can name isn't an award, a role, a red-carpet era. It's this domestic, almost banal miracle that doesn't care about status.

Context matters: Bergen's persona - glamorous, wry, famously smart - makes the line hit harder. She isn't trying to sound profound; she's letting sentiment slip through a joke, which is often how honest feelings survive in public.

Quote Details

TopicDaughter
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Bergen, Candice. (2026, January 16). I guess I was a mom so late in life, my daughter was the greatest thing since sliced bread. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-guess-i-was-a-mom-so-late-in-life-my-daughter-134324/

Chicago Style
Bergen, Candice. "I guess I was a mom so late in life, my daughter was the greatest thing since sliced bread." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-guess-i-was-a-mom-so-late-in-life-my-daughter-134324/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I guess I was a mom so late in life, my daughter was the greatest thing since sliced bread." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-guess-i-was-a-mom-so-late-in-life-my-daughter-134324/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Candice Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is a Actress from USA.

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