Quotes About Parenting

We always had so many kids in our family, running around the yard, sweaty little kids jumping in and out of the pool, the front door and back doors swinging open and shut, all of the parents getting pissed off telling us to stay outside.

The children of the 1980s were the last before a lot of things changed. We were the last generation not to have cell phones, not to have video games, not to have parents who worried if we strayed from the yard.

I really enjoy the company of my kids... I'm not one of those people who goes 'Yeah, my kids are my mates', that's a dreadful kind of mother, but I'm fortunate that there are times that they do want me around, and I feel lucky that they let me into their world.

If you're going to be a father and whatnot, yeah, you better be responsible about it as best you can.

I know there's an impression that I'm someone who seeks to have violent confrontations with people. I don't. Do I regret screaming at some guy who practically clipped my kid in the head with the lens of a camera? Yeah, I probably do, because it's only caused me problems.

My teacher told my mum, 'I think William has dyspraxia,' and Mum asked what that meant. She said, 'Well, if I put a chair in the middle of the room and asked every child in the class to walk around it, William would be the only child in the class to walk into it.' Mum was like, 'Yeah, that's my boy'.

'After 17' is a song I wrote when my first daughter went to college, so that's kind of where I'm at in that part of my life. If you listen to that song and knew anything about me, you'd say, 'Oh yeah, he wrote that about his daughter,' but I try not to write them that they are so specific that they wouldn't apply to anybody that has a child.

I try to be a hard boiled sometimes. My kids see right through it. I'm acting. It's always, 'When I say you'll be back at 11, that means 11, not 11.15. Do you hear me!?' Then, 'Yeah, Dad.'

Yeah, I read Judy Blume. My mother didn't like that, but I read it anyhow.

I say to my mother all the time, 'You're the child.' And she says, 'Yeah, you're the mother.' I've been that way with her since I was 11.

When you hold your baby in your arms the first time, and you think of all the things you can say and do to influence him, it's a tremendous responsibility. What you do with him can influence not only him, but everyone he meets and not for a day or a month or a year but for time and eternity.

My father kept me busy from dawn to dusk when I was a kid. When I wasn't pitching hay, hauling corn or running a tractor, I was heaving a baseball into his mitt behind the barn... If all the parents in the country followed his rule, juvenile delinquency would be cut in half in a year's time.

It was a very scary place to be. I don't think any mother or father would like to have their five year old wandering alone in the slums and train stations of Calcutta.

Contemporary families can be made in many ways. You might step up when relatives or friends are unable to meet their obligation to their children. You might marry someone who is already a parent. Or you might, as in my case, yearn to create a family and decide to adopt.

Parents bobble between a nostalgia-infused yearning for their children to play and fear that time spent playing is time lost to more practical pursuits.

I had five children in six years. The day I brought my fifth baby home, that week, my daughter turned 6.

To all those mothers and fathers who are struggling with teen-agers, I say, just be patient: even though it looks like you can't do anything right for a number of years, parents become popular again when kids reach 20.

I worry about putting food on the table, paying for my kids needs, their college fees in years to come. It's about earning enough to have a living to be able to look after your children.

From their teenage years on, children are considerably more capable of causing parents unhappiness than bringing them happiness. That is one reason parents who rely on their children for happiness make both their children and themselves miserable.

The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years.

My mum didn't really let me watch TV until I was about 5 years old.

I am a father. My son's name is Max and my daughter's name is Billie Grace. Twelve years ago Max was born with Down Syndrome. His journey has been complicated by infantile seizures, sleep apnea, dietary challenges and now, puberty!

I will always be the way I was a couple years ago before anything happened. And that's to my parents' credit, my amazing parents who have been around me my whole life and raised me right. I'm very happy with what has happened so far.

Eleven years ago, my wife and I had had a baby, so I didn't go to Edinburgh Fringe for the first time in years. Tim Key won the comedy award and I was sat at home with the baby feeling very jealous, genuinely.