Quotes About Parenting

Having a child makes you realize the importance of life - narcissism goes out the window. Heaven on earth is looking at my little boy. The minute he was born, I knew if I never did anything other than being a mom, I'd be fine.

My kids would watch from the window and wave to me during batting practice.

Half of the days in 2014, I had to confine my daughter to my home like a prisoner because the air quality in Beijing was so poor. One morning, I saw my daughter banging on the window... The day will come when she asks me, 'Why do you keep me here? What is going to hurt me when I go outside?'

The '70s were a different time as far as parenting was concerned. People left their kids in the car with the windows cracked while they went to the grocery store.

I sometimes read about authors who say they require a perfectly silent room maintained at precisely 68 degrees, with trash bags taped over the windows and a white-noise machine in the corner to write, and I think, 'Who are these people, and do any of them have kids?'

In spring 2011, I was arrested for allowing my son, then 4, to wait in a car with the windows open for a few minutes.

With learning lines, before I had Alfie, I'd put it off and think, 'Oh, I'll just have a glass of wine and then do it later,' but when you've finally got a child to bed and you know you've only got an hour, then you achieve so much.

We're never home later than 9:30 P. M. and once the children are in bed, Paul and I have some wine and watch a box-set such as Breaking Bad.'

I think is important to give a child room to make mistakes in order to learn. Mistakes build wings so later in life they can fly and go on their own. Let them fall once in awhile... Be their friend and parent as well. When they're in trouble, they will come to you first. Don't try to change their opinion.

I know parents have a hard time letting their kids spread their wings and fly.

I think our job as parents is to give our kids roots to grow and wings to fly.

I started off when I was seven years old doing musicals. I was in 'Les Miserables' and 'The Sound of Music,' and my mum's an actress. My parents divorced when I was young, and when she couldn't find a babysitter, I was in the wings, sleeping.

I've often said that the most important thing you can give your children is wings. Because, you're not gonna always be able to bring food to the nest. You're... sometimes... they're gonna have to be able to fly by themselves.

I think some parents fall into a trap, teaching their kids that everything is always perfect and everyone is always a winner.

That's how I judge a winner - how somebody manages their family and raises their family.

My parents both had Oxford degrees, they read important books, spoke foreign languages, drank real coffee and went to museums for pleasure. People like that don't have fat kids: they were cut out to be winners and winners don't have children who are overweight.

I feel very happy that the society has matured and parents have opened up to their girls studying more and becoming working professionals and becoming bread winners for themselves.

I used to get stressed out all the time when I thought winning was important. I wanted to try to win and help my kids win. Once I figured out it wasn't about winning or losing, it was about teaching these kids about being men, that's when I started to relax.

I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents!

I don't want my children to feel the same sense of failure I did growing up because they're not good at passing tests.

The more successful sons and daughters know when to lean on their parents - and when to go their own way. George W. Bush helped run his father's presidential campaigns in 1988 and 1992. But in his winning campaign for governor of Texas, he never mentioned his father's name in any of his campaign commercials.

These days, children can text on their cell phone all night long, and no one else is seeing that phone. You don't know who is calling that child.

When 60 - 70 percent of all interpersonal conversations and relationships exist through text messaging or social media, it's hard to get advice from a parent who didn't grow up in that world.

I've never sent an email in my life. My kids laugh. I often hand the phone to them and say, 'Can you text this message to somebody.' I don't even have a computer on my desk.