"I knew it was going to be the most extraordinary thing in my life, but how powerful it is, you can never know until you have a baby"
About this Quote
Celine Dion’s line lands with the force of a key change: it starts in certainty and ends in surrender. “I knew” signals the pre-scripted mythology around motherhood, the way culture tells women to anticipate it as the ultimate life event. Then she undercuts that script with a pivot that’s almost a confession: “how powerful it is, you can never know.” The tension is the point. Dion isn’t selling a Hallmark version of parenthood; she’s describing the moment when language and preparation fail, even for someone whose career is built on emotional maximalism.
The phrasing matters. “Extraordinary” sounds like the public-facing adjective, the one that fits interviews and red carpets. “Powerful” is messier: it implies bodily shock, vulnerability, and a reordering of priorities that doesn’t care about fame, control, or stagecraft. By saying “until you have a baby,” she draws a hard boundary between spectators and participants. It’s not exclusion for its own sake; it’s an insistence that certain knowledge is experiential, not performative.
Context sharpens the subtext. Dion became an emblem of big feelings in a late-90s media economy that prized confessional intimacy from celebrities. Motherhood, for her, isn’t just personal; it’s a cultural role audiences expect her to narrate. This quote fulfills that expectation while quietly resisting it: she offers awe, but also admits that awe can’t be fully translated.
The phrasing matters. “Extraordinary” sounds like the public-facing adjective, the one that fits interviews and red carpets. “Powerful” is messier: it implies bodily shock, vulnerability, and a reordering of priorities that doesn’t care about fame, control, or stagecraft. By saying “until you have a baby,” she draws a hard boundary between spectators and participants. It’s not exclusion for its own sake; it’s an insistence that certain knowledge is experiential, not performative.
Context sharpens the subtext. Dion became an emblem of big feelings in a late-90s media economy that prized confessional intimacy from celebrities. Motherhood, for her, isn’t just personal; it’s a cultural role audiences expect her to narrate. This quote fulfills that expectation while quietly resisting it: she offers awe, but also admits that awe can’t be fully translated.
Quote Details
| Topic | New Mom |
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