Quotes About Parenting

When you've got children, it's easy to do that thing of keeping a tally of who woke up earliest and whose turn it is to put them to bed. But I think the important thing is to appreciate and love each other and to show that appreciation.

I'm an early riser, for one thing. This started back when our kids were small. My wife and I would get up at 4 A.M. so that we could have a couple of peaceful hours before they woke up. That pattern has continued. I get up, make coffee, and while it's brewing, I do 50 sit-ups.

Kids experience hormonal changes from birth, I'm trying to be as woke as I can with my kids.

Like, for the first week and a half, I think we both woke up to every single noise the baby makes to make sure he is OK. Is it too cold? Is he still hungry? Is his diaper changed? You're just so worried that it's like it's the end of the world. I was freaking out, but it's not like there is a book on how to be a parent.

In our society leaving baby with Daddy is just one step above leaving the kids to be raised by wolves or apes.

I got involved in Liv's career because I didn't want to throw my daughter to the wolves of the Hollywood world when she was so young.

Everyone thinks I'm this jock of a woman, but I didn't play any sports. I didn't even let my kids play baseball because I was afraid they were going to get hit by balls.

The culture looms much larger than you do as a parent, and one can hardly rely on the culture to impart the lesson that womanhood is valuable.

My mother and father split up when I was three and my brother was still in the womb.

Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading books to babies in the womb.

I no longer remember when I started speaking to Raffi in Russian. I didn't speak to him in Russian when he was in his mother's womb, though I've since learned that this is when babies first start recognizing sound patterns.

I think that technology - computers and smart phones and 24-hour availability - often leaves me, and others I know, feeling blank and depressed at the end of a day. I also believe that hyped expectations for raising children leaves many women and men feeling as if their days are a blur of carpools and play-groups and tutors.

No, but women are saying, and they say, are you crazy? But because they've had children since they were 20 years old. I haven't. So I had a child when I was 43, and now he's really out with his friends.

I have a baby that is 21 months old, and I watch Disney Junior with him. A lot of those shows are about pirates. Even the T-shirts and pajamas I buy for him have pirate themes like, 'Aye-aye, argh and mate.' But, I definitely grew up watching pirates.

Parents forgive their children least readily for the faults they themselves instilled in them.

People should be free to find or make for themselves the kinds of educational experience they want their children to have.

Listen to the desires of your children. Encourage them and then give them the autonomy to make their own decision.

Few parents are aware of the difficulties that beset the minds of the little philosophers and theologians who sit upon their knees or play at their feet; and many a parent could not comprehend the disturbance, if he were aware of it.

I have no theories about the divorce rate or things like that, but it does occur to me that dealing with kids and their problems can be real binding glue. It keeps you out of the range of too much ego.

My office is just off my master bedroom. One of my theories is I needed to double-door it with three kids at home.

My theory is children don't do what you tell them to do, they do what you do. You have to always do the right thing because they follow you.

When I was younger, I was very scared to talk to people. To the point where my parents took me to a therapist because they thought something was wrong with me.

The only thing I know is that no one ever sat in a therapist's or a psychiatrist's room saying, 'My parents just loved me too much.' The only thing you can do is love them and be around. Kids don't really care what your car is like or how big their house is. All they really care about is that you are around.

Parents still have a big influence on their kids - just ask any therapist. No, really, I think the parent is the most important influence on children: It's how they learn to love and treat other people.