Quotes About Parenting

When Renee and I talked about it years later, we agreed on one point: We were insane. Renee always said, "If any of our kids want to get married when they're twenty-five, we'll have to lock them in the attic." We were just kids, and everybody who came to the wedding party was guilty of shameful if not criminal negligence-- look at the shiny pretty toaster, isn't it cute to see the babies playing with it in the bathtub? Jesus, people!

As I took Allison to the airport for her flight into San Francisco and the rest of her life, I thought about how lucky her father and I were to have had her in our lives. My time with her was over, though I was sure we would stay in touch. I kept thinking I should be sad, but I felt content more than anything. Now, I'm not saying I won't want to call her every day, and she'll probably die without me, but why ruin something so perfect trying to stay together?

My kids love it. I thought I was the coolest dad in the world when I got to be in a Bond film, but 'Harry Potter', too? Well, I think I qualify for a medal for exceptional parenting or something, don't you?

My dad? He died when I was 19, which is a bad time for your dad to die, because there's an awful lot of things you have to resolve with your parents past your teens if you've been a difficult teenager.

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.

If you wish to give your children the best possible gift, the best possible entry into life, remove your shadow from them. To give them a clean heritage, psychologically speaking, is the greatest legacy.

All this has important implications for rearing children. It suggests that we should never heavily bribe or threaten our children to do the things we want them truly to believe in.

As an old adage advises, "If you really want to get something done, you've got three options: do it yourself, pay top dollar, or forbid your teenagers to do it.

We are born, we grow up, we live our lives as best we can. If we are thoughtful we are good parents and good partners. If we are wise we strive for integrity and intimacy. If we are fortunate we discover love and joy. If we are able, we make the world a little better than we found it. That is all there is for any of us.

There are two kinds of travel: first class and with children.

When a father, absent during the day, returns home at six, his children receive only his temperament, not his teaching.

The trouble with learning to parent on the job is that your child is the teacher.

What you don't realize as a kid is that if your parents are always going to be there for you, they aren't going to be somewhere else doing exciting and glamorous things.

A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to.

The trouble with selfish motives is that they harden into principles, and you end up sending your kids to war for them.

Life starts out as partly destiny and partly free will, but then you have kids, and it's all destiny.

A parent's love is whole no matter how many times divided.

When you have brought up kids, there are memories you store directly in your tear ducts.

I tell my child, if I seem obsessed to always know where you've been, it is because my DNA will be found at the scene.

Parenting is a stage of life's journey where the milestones come about every fifty feet.

The hardest thing about reality is returning to it after an hour inside your child's mind.

What you must accept as a parent is that you cannot always be there for your child without sometimes ruining everything.

In a dark moment I ask, "How can anyone bring a child into this world?" And the answer rings clear, "Because there is no other world, and because the child has no other way into it."