Quotes About Parenting

To the extent that we retain the critical attitudes and destructive elements we have incorporated into our own personalities, we remain undifferentiated from our parents throughout our lifetime.

We can best help our children not by sacrificing ourselves for them, but by trying to fulfill our own lives. When we are involved in an honest pursuit of our own goals, we serve as positive role models for our children.

You try as a parent. You love beyond reason. You fight beyond endurance. You hope beyond despair. You never think, until the very last moment, that it still might not be enough.

Parents think the worst thing that can happen to their five-year-old is cancer. They're wrong; the worst thing that can happen to their five-year-old is mental illness.

Mothers hold close, fathers let go. Maybe that's the way of the world.

Nick turned out to be a shy boy, uncertain in groups and in new situations, but also very brave, determined to overcome his fear." - Will, as a parent describing his son

No doubt he'd been with Heidi until all hours of the morning. He knew where she stood about sex, condoms, his future, Heidi's ... bringing it up now would only exacerbate an already prickly situation. "Nothing good happens after midnight," she reminded him. "You're wrong, Mom, and you know it.

Let him grow up, Regan. Quit fighting the inevitable. For Christ's sake, Jeremy's nearly a man." "Haven't you heard? Twenty's the new twelve." "Only from overprotective, control-freak mothers.

with parenting there's a long game and a short game. The aim of the short game is to make your children bearable to live with. Easy to transport. Well behaved in public places. In other words, to make your own life easier. And, yes, you can achieve that with punishments, with discipline, with a clip here and there. But the aim of the long game is to produce a good human being.

I will never guilt trip my children when they are adults, she'd vowed. I will never expect more than they are

Hanna. Her middle child. The difficult one. The tiring one. The one she wouldn't want to be stranded on a desert island with. And a terrible thought shot through her, so fast she barely registered it. 'It should be you missing and Ellie eating beans on toast.

No child wants to feel that they weren't wanted, even if they don't care much for the abandoner.

And it was Dad who helped monetise it all, got me on Glitch, managed my subscriptions, opened my bank accounts. He did all of that for me. He was the one who made me famous.

Walter didn't really have much to do with the girls' schooling, especially after all that business with the social services when Erin was in year six.

Shit. Sorry. It was on silent,' he mimics her. 'What the sort of mother goes out without telling anyone and leaves their phone on silent?

From the first night that both her children slept through the night, Kim has placed a very – possibly disproportionately – high value on an unbroken night. She had her kids young and easily had time enough and room in her heart for another one or two. But she could not face the prospect of sleepless nights again. For

and you know my alarm goes off at six thirty yet you couldn't even wait for half an hour because you're too fucking selfish. So yes, thanks a lot, Nathan. I've had four hours' sleep and now I have to get our kids up and get them ready for school and

But no, Scarlett was even worse than Rex, if anything, always wanting to be outdoors, always wanting to run, to disobey, to talk. Oh my God, to talk.' She rests a delicate hand against her cheekbone and then rubs it across her forehead. 'Such a nightmare of a child. And then the teenage years. Oh my goodness. The boys – you know, she lost her virginity when she was thirteen. Thirteen. She was obsessed with boys.

But it is clear to Alix that Pat is actually a raging narcissist, and that no child of a narcissist ever makes it out into the world unscathed.

The knot in Kim's stomach hardens and she turns to Megs and she says, 'What the fuck is the matter with you? Huh? I mean, what the fuck is the fucking matter with you? Our kids have been missing for three days. Three days! And all you can do is moan and tut and sigh and act like this is all some kind of massive inconvenience. Well, I'm so sorry to drag you out of the pub, out of your back garden, so sorry to keep you from getting on with your day.

In some ways, yes,' she replies. 'When you are a parent, not being able to feed your child is just about the worst, most soul-destroying thing imaginable. And now I can feed you. I can clothe you. I can give you warm beds to sleep in—' 'But they're not our beds.

A man is not entitled to be called a father merely because he once had a well-timed spasm of the loins.

When you love a child, you forgive her before she can even ask. Basically you've already forgiven her for things she hasn't even done yet.

The baby woke up before you did. I took him to the other room to let you get a little more sleep. We've been watching a game." "Did he cry?" "Only when he realized the Astros were having another first-round play-off flame out. But I told him there's no shame in crying over the Astros. It's how we Houston guys bond.