Quotes About Parenting

Only Grandfather knew the truth, that there was no career or calling more thrilling, demanding or rewarding than raising a child.

I don't want her to feel as if she's responsible for my happiness. Good lord, who would wish that on a child?

So much of a parent's identity was wrapped up in the child: love, pride, self-worth, validation. It was an unfair burden on a small human being, but every child bore it, the lofty, seemingly unreachable expectations of her parents.

When Darla told her parents she was pregnant, they made her leave. They were old-school. Said they couldn't handle the shame.

He had practically made a career out of reading parenting books, even though they all seemed to give conflicting advice. One thing they agreed on was that rebellion stemmed from a need to escape parental control, running up against a need for boundaries and limits. Not that it made dealing with a thirteen-year-old any easier.

To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.

I've always wanted to be a dad. I just can't wait to have a little rug rat running around. I used to want five or six kids, but maybe I've become too self-absorbed over the years. I think two would be perfect.

I visited those friends who'd just had a baby, and she was washing dishes and he was cleaning the house, and I burst with happiness. And in their minds, they were in this terrible domestic rut.

Every kid needs to say, 'I want what my mom and dad have.'

A heartfelt, empathetically present, incrementally inspiring mom or dad or coach can liberate an ambitious child to take the world by the horns. As

Put a person like this with four developing children and you're gonna need more than love poems and ice sculpture to stay afloat. Trust me. So. So, we're done here."

Rule: "My adult child should be able to balance out whatever mistakes I have made with all of the good that I have done as a parent." Counter: "While I wish that my child could see all of the ways that I have been dedicated, I

Since my child is choosing not to spend time with me, it is healthy for me to think about how I want to spend my time without him or her in my life. Putting my child out of my mind is useful for my happiness and serenity. When I punish myself for the past, I perpetuate the myth that I deserve to suffer. I have suffered enough and as of today I choose to feel good about myself as a parent and as a person.

In contrast to prior generations, conflict is no longer seen as an unavoidable, and perhaps even necessary, component of family life, but rather a referendum on each person: Does my parent limit my potential? My happiness?

maintain that one of the reasons some adult children estrange themselves, or claim to have narcissistic parents, is that they experience their parents' demand for intimacy as more than they can fulfill, and in some cases, more than they should be asked to bear.

Carl Jung wrote that nothing affects children more than the unlived lives of their parents.

What Chinese parents understand," Chua wrote, "is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up.

Many men feel hurt and rejected by the central focus that a child gains in his wife's life. Men who feel displaced, hurt, rejected, or devalued by the arrival of a child are more likely to retreat from doing housework or parenting. Their "laziness" is a protest for feeling displaced and unimportant.

If your child actually dies, everyone will feel sorry for you. If your child stops talking to you, everyone will judge you. At least that's what it feels like.

There's a saying that depression is anger turned inward. I think depression is more complex than that, but there is a pearl of wisdom there for estranged parents.

It was my mom's doing. He would not have thought enough of himself to want anyone to have his name. Except when he was manic, when he probably would have happily named me Conrad Conrad Conrad.

I'm always saying a mother never loses her peach pit instinct. Even with a grown son, you have to stop yourself from sticking out your hand when your child finishes a piece of fruit.

Probably. Parents are engineered to be proud.

All I really needed to know about being a freelance assassin I learned before my youngest daughter, Trisha, started kindergarten.