Quotes About Parenting

If you live long enough as a parent nowadays, you discover that you have made mistakes you didn't bother to know about along with the ones you do know about all too well. You are somewhat humbled at heart, sometimes disgusted with yourself.

Parents and children help each other to grow. In raising their children, parents are also raising themselves. Child rearing gives parents the chance to redo their own childhood and to improve on it.

It is neither possible nor desirable to be always attuned and responsive to the moods and wishes of children.

The child may feel strongly about his or her goals, but it is the parent who is raising the child and not vice versa. While retaining their empathy, adults need to achieve the self-confidence to have the last word when they are not being cruel or unreasonably arbitrary.

but the often observed increased involvement of fathers in the toddler years may be linked to findings that fathers as a group are more likely than mothers to promote the adventurous exploration and challenging play that toddlers are now ready to join.

Although I'm good at enumerating my father's flaws, it's hard for me to sustain much anger at him. I expect this is partly because he's dead, and partly because the bar is lower for fathers than for mothers.

Maybe the mother manages to be a mirror only part of the time. In such 'tantalizing' cases, some babies learn to withdraw their own needs when the mother's are evident.

I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture.

Loving children doesn't give them a destination. It gives them sustenance for the journey.

A three-year old was examining his testicles while taking a bath. 'Mom,' he asked,'are these my brains?' 'Not yet.' she replied.

A woman knows her children's friends, hopes, dreams, romances, secret fears, what they are thinking, how they are feeling and, usually, what mischief they are plotting. Men are vaguely aware of some short people also living in the house.

My kids are tough," said Nina. He scoffed. "I work in Harvard Square. My art's been peed on.

Don't you kids get any ideas about dragging a trailer into the backyard. after you graduate from high school, i don't want to see you again.

Being a parent doesn't get any easier, ... it just gets hard in a different way.

I still remember the little boy who shouted with astonished joy when I told him I was leaving my job at EMF. Are you going to be a Real Mummy now? he asked. Had I not been a real mummy to him while I worked?

Becoming a parent was like trying to build a boat while you were at sea.

Your children will be wild and undisciplined. Your daughters will run off with stable hands and your sons will become attorneys.

make your children unhappy so they can face the world, but then, what is a world without children's laughter?

MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.

Shaking a baby or child in a moment of frustration or anger can cause serious harm or death. Babies have weak neck muscles and heavy heads, and when a baby is shaken, the head flops back and forth, causing serious damage. Shaking a baby or child can cause sever injury, resulting in problems ranging from brain damage to death.

being a parent … there is no plan. It's just a set of mistakes you hardly notice making.

Being a parent means always being afraid. Afraid for your children. Afraid of your children.

Perhaps you'll see now you have children of your own … being a parent … there is no plan. It's just a set of mistakes you hardly notice making.

She looked down at them, both sleeping. Ardee on her side, one long-lashed eye closed and her mouth wide open. Harod on his back, tiny hands palm-up as if he was surrendering. So small. So perfect. So vulnerable. She remembered something her father once told her. Being a parent means always being afraid. Afraid for your children. Afraid of your children.