Quotes About Parenting

She says suicide is for cowards. This is an uglynasty Momside. She bought a book about it. Tough love. Sour sugar. Barbed velvet. Silent talk. She leaves the book on the back of the toilet to educate me. She has figured out that I don't say too much. It bugs her.

Gracie's father was an engineer, her mother an accountant. I couldn't picture either one of them yelling or throwing things or having affairs. I could see my dad doing stuff like that. Trish sure did. But Dad carried a war in his skull, and Trish was a drunk. Gracie's parents didn't have anything like that to deal with, but their daughter was falling apart on the bathroom floor.

When I was a real girl, my mother fed me her glass dreams one spoonful at a time. Harvard. Yale. Princeton. Duke. Undergrad. Med school. Internship, residency, God. She'd brush my hair and braid it with long words, weaving the Latin roots and Greek branches into my head so memorizing anatomy would come easy.

She wants to hear all about our day, how long I've lived in town, and asks little sideways questions about my parents, so she can figure out if I'm the kind of friend she wants for her daughter. I don't mind. I think it's nice that she cares.

It's like she thinks she's your mother or something.

I nostri genitori ci danno la lista degli ingredienti e ci ricordano di fare scelte sane: uno sport, due club, un hobby artistico, impegno sociale, niente voti sotto l'8, perché sul serio, nessuno vuol essere mediocre, non da queste parti. E' una danza dai passi complicati e con un ritmo che cambio di continuo. Io sono la ragazza che inciampa in mezzo alla pista da ballo e che non riesce a trovare l'uscita. Ho tutti gli occhi puntati addosso.

I have got a daughter, whose life is already separate from mine, whose will already follows its own directions, and who has quickly corrected my woolly preconceptions of her by being something remorselessly different. She is the child of herself and will be what she is. I am merely the keeper of her temporary helplessness.

And you know, I really have to say this: If your baby isn't even in the room and you can't bear to come equipped with a blanket, kindly put your boob away in its rightful compartment. Don't leave it hanging out for ten to fifteen minutes at a barbecue like you're waiting for someone to hang a Christmas ornament on it.

And this almost tautological business of having done one's best can't be reserved exclusively for parents.

Its a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.

Why are they sad and glad and bad? I do not know, go ask your dad.

What's so sad is when we're younger, if you have a bad parent, that is normal to you and that's what you think of as healthy.

What greater pain could mortals have than this: To see their children dead before their eyes?

One of the sad realities of being a parent is that the same stuff you know is exciting, educational, and enriching in your child'slife is often messy, smelly and exhausting to deal with.

It's sad to see that something you have done or the decisions that you have made affect your children in a negative way.

Writing jokes for others is like having babies for someone else. It's sad. Like the woman who gives up her baby but needs to be close so she secretly becomes the maid in the household.

When a child enters your life it's time to learn [not time to teach].

With kids, they force you to get out of bed. They force you to smile. They remind you of spontaneity.

We live in a society where we wake up our kids for school but not Fajr.

We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.

When gentle persuasion [of children] falls on deaf ears, we resort to ridicule and rebuke. Then we return to threats and punishment. This is the modus operandi of a mutual frustration society.

Parents need to be more accepting of who their kids are and less concerned about what society thinks they need to be.

aber was weiß man schon, solange man keine Kinder hat? Nichts weiß man, man wandert mit anderen Ahnungslosen durch ein Tal der Ahnungslosigkeit, ich wusste früher auch nicht, wie das sein könnte, ich habe nicht gefragt, was tun diese Mütter den ganzen Tag?

The drinking parent lied to the sober parent; the sober parent deceived the drinking parent. Most children of alcoholics have learned that no one can be trusted.