Quotes About Parenting

I'd get off the set of 'The Wire' at 3 A.M. or even 4 A.M. and drive home to Washington to see my kids sleep and give them a kiss. I'd get up at 7 A.M., while the kids were still in bed, and drive back to Baltimore.

If your parents only listen to jazz or folk, you're like one of those trees you see in botanic gardens that have wire frames on them - you grow into that shape, you follow it or you have to break away from it. But I didn't have influences to embrace or kick against - I also had no idea what anything was.

I've raised three kids: my wife and I have three kids. I've observed through direct contact the adults they are now is partially the product of where they came from and what we did. With them growing up, but partially how they were wired at birth.

It doesn't matter how late you get home or how wired you are, you still wake up early with your kids. That's the most important thing you do in a day, whether or not you're in a hit Broadway show.

I wouldn't say that a big family is for everybody, and I've brought my kids, for example, to New York City, and I can tell you it's much harder to raise that number of kids in a city like New York than it is to raise them in rural Wisconsin where I live.

Think of the universe as a benevolent parent. A child may want a tub of ice-cream and marshmallows, but a wise parent will give it fruits and vegetables instead. That is not what the child wants, but it is what the child needs.

I was fortunate to have a dad who was very involved, very present, very wise.

My parents called me their wise little baby. I was mature when I was 4 or 5. My brother and sister were older, so I was raised by four adults.

All parents hope and pray that their children will make wise decisions. Children who are obedient and responsible bring to their parents unending pride and satisfaction.

My parents are so amazing; they're brilliant. We try to take one step at a time and be wise about the decisions we make and keep our values and the things that are important.

It's not easy to be a good or wise parent. You do the best you can.

If I meet a wise person, I think, 'Yes, tell me more about parenting, about marriage, about how to stay in love. Tell me more about how to be a decent person living in a world that's filled with chaos.'

Let my son stay in jail a little longer. It will make him tougher and wiser.

The thing that's changed the way I do my stand-up act is having kids and getting older and wiser and smarter. There might be a joke or two in the past that I wish I hadn't done, but in the past, you can't have it back.

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

I wish I had been home more when the children were growing up. I missed a lot.

I always wish I had a road map for how to navigate my life as a parent and a producer, but in truth, it's a lot of trial and error.

Taking a child to the toy store is the nearest thing to a death wish parents can have.

I listened to my kids talk about me as a parent, and I learned about things they wished I'd done and said. And I wished that I had done more of those things.

One of mom's greatest acts of generosity was that she trained me to be defiant. Her great gift to me was encouraging me to be the person that I wanted to be, not the one that she and my father wished I was.

I pop gum. My parents get so annoyed with me. I know my dad wishes he never taught me how to do that.

And I don't believe that children are innocent. In fact, no one seriously believes that. Just go to a playground and watch the kids playing in the sandbox! The romantic notion of the sweet child is simply the parents projecting their own wishes.

It's a universal truth that no parent wishes to acknowledge that the fear and phobias we are in thrall to in adulthood almost invariably connect back to childhood experiences.

My mom has always said that the one thing she wishes she had done differently is have a job. She felt like the single-mindedness made her a little nuts sometimes, and she could have used an outlet for herself when we were little.