"So, babies are taken from their mothers because they get temporarily insane and it's not the mother's fault. This is the thing: they shouldn't feel ashamed. They didn't cause this. It is not something they did to themselves"
About this Quote
The context Osmond is gesturing at is the moment when a mother’s condition becomes so dangerous that separation is necessary. That’s the scenario people rarely want to imagine, and the stigma compounds the trauma: the cultural expectation that maternal instinct is automatic, serene, and self-sacrificing. Her phrasing pushes back against that myth. By repeating “not the mother’s fault” and “They didn’t cause this,” she’s anticipating the most common audience reaction: suspicion that the mother is either weak or somehow responsible for failing to cope.
Subtextually, she’s also protecting families from the shame spiral that keeps people silent and untreated. The repeated “they” matters: it shifts the mother from isolated “bad mom” to part of a group, a population that deserves care. As a pop figure, Osmond leverages familiarity and authority to normalize the unglamorous truth: sometimes love isn’t enough, sometimes biology and brain chemistry win for a while, and the humane response is intervention without humiliation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Mother |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Osmond, Marie. (n.d.). So, babies are taken from their mothers because they get temporarily insane and it's not the mother's fault. This is the thing: they shouldn't feel ashamed. They didn't cause this. It is not something they did to themselves. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/so-babies-are-taken-from-their-mothers-because-155506/
Chicago Style
Osmond, Marie. "So, babies are taken from their mothers because they get temporarily insane and it's not the mother's fault. This is the thing: they shouldn't feel ashamed. They didn't cause this. It is not something they did to themselves." FixQuotes. Accessed February 3, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/so-babies-are-taken-from-their-mothers-because-155506/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"So, babies are taken from their mothers because they get temporarily insane and it's not the mother's fault. This is the thing: they shouldn't feel ashamed. They didn't cause this. It is not something they did to themselves." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/so-babies-are-taken-from-their-mothers-because-155506/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.







