"Men would shudder, he thought, if they saw a mother bird plucking the feathers from the wings of her young, then pushing him out of the nest to struggle for survival- yet that was what they did to their children.

Armed with nothing but meaningless phrases, this boy had been thrown to fight for existance, he had hobbed and groped through a brief, doomed effort, he had screamed his indignant, bewildered protest- and had perished in his first attempt to soar on his mangled wings."

-Atlas Shrugged

(Unfortunately, this quote here reminded me quite a lot of how my fiance is treated by HIS mother... Thankfully, I can fix wings.)