Quotes About Parenting

My parents always wanted me to know why eating healthfully was important to overall performance, probably to drown out my whining for junk food.

There are all of these people that say, my mommy doesn't love me enough, my daddy doesn't hug me enough. There are some people that would want to coddle them somewhere. I want them to shut up and stop whining.

When I protested because they wouldn't buy me new skates or if someone complained a teacher gave too much homework, Dad would respond: There's no whining in this house. It was his way of saying: there is no place in this house for feeling sorry for yourself.

Today's new age parenting guarantees you'll hear children screaming, whining, and begging for items and attention in an airplane, store or any other public place.

I was in awe of my father. His generosity was beyond anything I ever could imagine. The reason I say he's like Don Corleone is he was always breaking off hundreds. I'd be like, 'Hey Dad, I'm going to McDonald's with my friends,' and he'd just whip out a hundred: 'Here, go, have fun.'

I walked on eggshells a lot. I have a bad self-esteem problem, and my father probably facilitated it. He once looked at me very seriously when I was about 15 and had whipped cream smeared all over myself. He said, 'You'd do anything for a laugh, wouldn't you?'

I can't tell you how many times I've gone to present at the Golden Globes, come home, whipped the dress off and read to my daughter wearing gazillion-dollar earrings. That's how it goes in my house, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I think about the milestones from my childhood and what it will be like to watch our kids go through them. Taking Riley to her first day of school was a whirlwind. I can't imagine what middle school is going to be like, and high school, and graduation.

Kids need to remember that when you put something on Twitter, it's not like whispering to your friend, you've put it on a billboard that the whole world, including your own kids someday, can see.

All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.

Autism is a neurological disorder. It's not caused by bad parenting. It's caused by, you know, abnormal development in the brain. The emotional circuits in the brain are abnormal. And there also are differences in the white matter, which is the brain's computer cables that hook up the different brain departments.

I was adopted by two amazing people: a Salvadoran mother and a white father who were incredibly supportive of me and my work. I am eternally grateful for them.

I've said this time and again: My greatest concern coming into the White House was making sure my girls came out whole and normal, and decent and kind, just like I would expect them to if we were living on the South Side of Chicago. And it takes work to keep White House life normal for the kids.

With my own son, my style of mothering has been to bring him everywhere. He's sitting on my lap during interviews. When I went to the White House to meet President Obama, he was there.

I think I'm lucky having parents that have been in show business for a while, and they don't care about the shiny stuff so much. They raised me in that way - to stay grounded, not to chase the shiny, pretty things.

I don't plan on ever letting my daughters date. I'm going to try to do everything I can to prevent it. You know, it just terrifies me. It just terrifies me.

I've read about actors trying to prevent their kids from getting into it, and I think that's from what they themselves experienced in the industry.

I wish I could prevent my kids from making all the mistakes I've made. But I can't do that. No parent can.

Certainly I see no reason why society should prevent grieving parents from having a baby cloned from the cells of a dead child if they wish.

The state of my poor boy's health prevents me from leaving home for a night.

Look, I've got incredible pride for my family. I've absolutely fallen into that cliche of a dad who could just happily talk about my daughter endlessly.

My formative years were all shaped by a mother who was very sad and had a drinking problem, while my father was lonely and angry. He was an Episcopal priest and raised four kids on his own.

The bond between a parent and child is the primary bond, the foundation for the rest of the child's life. The presence or absence of this bond determines much about the child's resiliency and what kind of adult they will grow up to be.

It was when my children were 5, 3 and 10 months old that I just felt the desperate need to get to know God through the pages of my Bible. And as a result, I started a Bible class in my city for the primary purpose of being in it.