Daily Inspiration Quote by Candice Bergen

Bergen’s line lands because it frames postpartum emotion not as pure joy, but as premature grief. The hospital is supposed to be the site of beginnings; she turns it into the first scene of an ending. That temporal whiplash is the point: the parent-child bond is introduced as a countdown, a relationship defined as much by separation as by attachment.

The specificity does the heavy lifting. She isn’t crying about diapers, exhaustion, or even the frightening vulnerability of a newborn. She’s crying about a future autonomy she claims to want for her daughter but can’t emotionally metabolize in the moment. It’s an unsentimental admission of control anxiety dressed in tenderness: the fear that love, at its most intense, is also a rehearsed letting-go.

As an actress, Bergen understands narrative arcs, and you can feel that storytelling instinct here. “Someday” telescopes 18 years into a single, unbearable beat. “Leave home” carries cultural freight beyond the literal move-out: the slow migration of loyalty, attention, and identity away from the parent. There’s also an unspoken class and career context: women who built public lives were often told they’d “miss” motherhood; Bergen flips that script by showing the opposite worry - that motherhood will eventually miss you.

The quote’s intent is confession, but its subtext is sharper: parental love isn’t just protective, it’s possessive, and the first honest moment is admitting you feel both at once.