Meaning of “It must be beautiful to have a mother!”

Little Men; the closing harvest imagery turns the children gathered at home into the household’s most important yield and source of gratitude.

The Prophet, “On Friendship.”

“To My Dear and Loving Husband,” posthumously published in the 1678 second edition of Several Poems; represented by Representative Poetry Online. The poem is a Puritan-era personal love lyric with explicitly religious closing language.

Little Women, Chapter 1, “Playing Pilgrims,” Project Gutenberg #514. Beth March answers her sisters’ complaints about poverty with “We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other,” naming family relationships as what remains available to them. This is Beth’s fictional dialogue inside the opening domestic scene.

King Lear, Act I, Scene IV, reviewed against the scan-backed First Folio facsimile. Lear's serpent's-tooth line occurs inside his curse against Goneril after the reduction of his retinue; it is angry dramatic speech, not a neutral rule about children or family relationships.

Eight Cousins; Or, The Aunt-Hill, Chapter 21, Project Gutenberg #38567. Rose chooses Uncle Alec when relatives ask which household she wants to join.