Motherhood Quote by Dick Gregory

Dick Gregory’s line lands because it refuses the tidy uplift people expect from “overcoming” stories. He gives you the balm and then yanks it back: God “kind of sits in” as a substitute father, but “It’s not enough.” That final clause is the whole act. Gregory isn’t mocking faith; he’s mocking the pressure placed on faith to patch structural absence and social neglect, especially in Black communities where the language of God has often been both refuge and requirement.

The phrasing is doing quiet heavy lifting. “Good mother” is specific, earned praise, while “no father” is blunt, unadorned fact. Then comes the sly personification: God as a stand-in adult, an emergency contact, a man hired last-minute to cover a shift. “Kind of” undercuts any sanctimony, signaling Gregory’s comedian’s instinct to distrust grand claims. The joke is almost domestic: divinity reduced to a sitter in the living room. It’s funny because it’s small and practical, and it’s devastating for the same reason.

Context matters: Gregory came up in mid-century America, shaped by poverty, racism, and the Civil Rights era, when survival often depended on a mix of church, community, and sheer improvisation. The line threads that lived reality. It honors the psychological utility of belief without romanticizing fatherlessness or letting society off the hook. Grace can help you get through the night; it can’t replace the person who never came home.