Quotes from Frank Pittman

A boy is not free to find a partner of his own as long as he must be the partner to his mother.

The most likely cause of a man's depression is his failure to be the man he thinks he should be

At the heart of the matter of masculine excess is a great longing for the love and approval of a father, a man who can tell another man that his masculinity is splendid enough and he can now relax.

When it comes to little girls, God the father has nothing on father, the god. It's an awesome responsibility.

Parents can make us distrust ourselves. To them, we seem always to be works-in-progress.

Fathering makes a man, whatever his standing in the eyes of the world, feel strong and good and important, just as he makes his child feel loved and valued.

We know how powerful our mother was when we were little, but is our wife that powerful to us now? Must we relive our great deed of escape from Mama with every other woman in our life?

No one, however powerful and successful, can function as an adult if his parents are not satisfied with him.

The more things we can laugh about, the more alive we become: The more things we can laugh about together, the more connected we become.

For most people, a life lived alone, with passing strangers or passing lovers, is incoherent and ultimately unbearable. Someone must be there to know what we have done for those we love.

The guys who fear becoming fathers don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. The end product of child raising is not the child, but the parent.

Happy people learn that happiness, like sweat, is a by-product of activity. You can only achieve happiness if you are too busy living your life to notice whether you are happy or not.

Mother love has been much maligned. An over mothered boy may go through life expecting each new woman to love him the way his mother did. Her love may make any other love seem inadequate. But an unloved boy would be even more likely to idealize love. I don't think it's possible for a mother or father to love a child too much.

The secret to having a good marriage is to understand that marriage must be total, it must be permanent, and it must be equal.

Bad marriages don't cause infidelity; infidelity causes bad marriages.

Love is not something people feel, but something people try to express no matter how they feel.

Fidelity is the single most important element in solidly enduring marriages.

Marriage, like a submarine, is only safe if you get all the way inside.

Marriage isn't supposed to make you happy - it's supposed to make you married.

Fathering is the most masculine thing a man can do.

Why do otherwise sane, competent, strong men, men who can wrestle bears or raid corporations, shrink away in horror at the thought of washing a dish or changing a diaper?

Fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man.

. . . in the end, there is nothing a man can do that a woman can't, except be a father.

Becoming Father the Nurturer rather than just Father the Provider enables a man to fully feel and express his humanity and his masculinity. Fathering is the most masculine thing a man can do.