Quotes About Parenting

The unconditional love for you child, it's truly amazing.

That's how adoption works, Kate—a child gets born in your heart, and every ounce of your bone and your flesh and your soul become part of that child from then on.

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.

Imagine if you succeeded in making the world perfect for your children what a shock the rest of life would be for them.

Children had to know pain or how would they ever know what to do when they encountered it. Trouble would come no matter what. The best you could do was to raise your children in such a way that when trouble found them, as it would, they'd be able to survive it. Teach your children well.

Those fourteen months had shaken me to my core, to the point where I no longer knew anything for sure except that parents should not look to their children to meet their needs. You don't adopt a child because you need more love in your life. You had better have the love part figured out already.

This was the terrible part of being a parent. The more you loved, the more you had to lose. It might as well be your own heart the pitcher was firing off toward the plate, hovering out in midair, ready for some bat to smash into it. Once you had a child you were never safe again.

You had to let your children venture out in the world. You couldn't always find the Barbie shoe. Children had to know pain, or how would they ever know what to do when they encountered it? Trouble would come, no matter what. The best you could do was to raise your children in such a way that when trouble found them—as it would—they'd be able to survive it. Teach your children well.

When we the moment her obsession took hold, to spare her children the pain of loss. As if any parent could do that. As if it would be a good thing, if she could...The best you could do was to raise your children in such a way that when trouble found them-- as it would--they'd be able to survive it.

When was the moment her obsession took hold, to spare her children the pain of loss. As if any parent could do that. As if it would be a good thing, if she could...The best you could do was to raise your children in such a way that when trouble found them-- as it would--they'd be able to survive it.

A parent could no more protect her children from sorrow and loss than she could keep the sun from setting, or rising again the next day.

You made these precious people. You hovered over them closely, your only goal impossible: to keep them out of harm's way. But sooner or later you had to let the cork people set off without you, and once you did there would be nothing for it but to stand on the shore or run along the edge yelling encouragement, praying they'd make it.

Las vidas de nuestros hijos son como flechas en nuestras manos, aprendiz. Para que sean útiles hay que impulsarlas lo más lejos posible.

Hagas lo que hagas, te equivocarás. Y cuando crezca, te echará la culpa de todos sus problemas y defectos

He'd thought diapers were bad. The barfing was arguably worse. Maybe it was an early warning sign of alcoholism: the girl would chugalug an entire bottle at one sitting, and then she'd hurl—and then she'd pass out.

it occurred to him that having a newborn ought to qualify a person as handicapped. He

He was afraid to pick up the baby. If he touched it, it might bond with him or something. Or he might leave fingerprints all over it.

He will be eighteen in January, but he looks younger than that, and vulnerable; yet older at the same time. Tired. His face is drawn. He has an urge to shield him, but how? There is no way. No way at all.

Current youth policy and parenting advice teeter between high-anxiety child protection and high-anger child punishment. It would appear that children are fragilely innocent until the moment they step over some line, at which point they become instantly, irredeemably wicked.

Parents should conduct their arguments in quiet, respectful tones, but in a foreign language. You'd be surprised what an inducement that is to the education of children.

There is no quick and easy way to rear a child. It takes eighteen years of constant work to get one into presentable enough shape so that a college will take him or her off your hands for the winter season, and it can easily take the child on permanently.

Getting children to say 'Please' and 'Thank you,' directly and in writing, is one of the chief tasks of child-rearing. It is a simple matter, requiring about ten years of contant vigilance, but those who give up on it might as well—and generally do—concede failure on the entire enterprise of civilizing their young.

We will have to give up the hope that, if we try hard, we somehow will always do right by our children. The connection is imperfect. We will sometimes do wrong.

Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear.