Quotes About Parenting

If only you could keep them that way: cast in amber, never growing up

Never ask your child a open-ended question, such as Do you want to go to bed now? You won't want to hear the answer, believe me. Do you want me to carry you upstairs, or do you want to walk upstairs to go to bed? That way, you get the outcome you want and they feel empowered.

It was a hairline crack, one might never have noticed, except for the fact it grew wider and wider, until there was a canyon between them. A child's job, ostensibly, was to grow up. So why, when it happened, did a parent feel so disappointed?

What is a parent, really, but somebody who picks up the things a child leaves behind - a trail made of stripped off clothing, orphaned shoes, tiny bright plastic game pieces, and nostalgia - and who hands back each of these when its needed?

You'd be surprised. Charlie said. You go to bed one night singing her a lullaby, and she wakes up listening to Limp Bizkit. What the hell is Limp Bizkit?

I just completed The Tenth Circle. It is an excellent mystery story surrounding a family with modern day issues.

It is a strange thing, being suddenly motherless. It's like losing a rudder that was keeping me on course, one that I never paid much mind to before now. Who will teach me how to parent, how to deal with the unkindness of strangers, how to be humble? You already did, I realize.

Taking credit for what a child did well also meant accepting responsibility for what they did wrong.

What do parents look like? You know how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see that he's really just hoping he makes it all the way across? Like that.

Your child is hurt. How quickly can you make it better? What if you can't?

I am the kid who played with matches. I used to steal them from the shelf above the refrigerator, take them into my parents' bathroom. Jean Naté Bath Splash ignites, did you know that? Spill it, strike, and you can set fire to the floor. It burns blue, and when the alcohol is gone, it stops.

matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint.

I'm telling you, if aliens landed on earth today and took a good hard look at why babies get born, they'd conclude that most people have children by accident, or because they drink too much on a certain night, or because birth control isn't one hundred percent, or for a thousand other reasons that really aren't very flattering.

But kids don't stay where they're supposed to. You turn around and find her not in the bedroom but hiding in a closet; you turn around and see she's not three but thirteen. Parenting is really just a matter of tracking, of hoping your kids do not get so far ahead you can no longer see their next moves.

My scholar, my serious, sweet boy, is now a rebel—holed up in his room listening to music so loud it makes the walls shake or texting friends I did not know he had; coming home past curfew smelling of hard liquor and weed. I have fought, I have cried, and now, I am not sure what else to do. The whole train of our lives is in the process of derailing; this is only one of the cars skidding off the tracks.

His stone walls are knee-high, not castle-worthy. They have large gaps in them for driveways and paths and grape arbors. And yet every time he drives past a property he's shaped with his own heavy hands, he pictures the parents sitting down to dinner with their children, harmony wrapping the table like mosquito netting as if literal foundations might lay the pattern for emotional ones.

Now I know: adulthood is a line drawn in the sand. At some point, your child will be standing on the other side.

I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them.

Anna is thirteen. Anna lives with her mother. Anna's mother is opposing counsel. How can Anna possibly live in the same home and not be swayed by Sara Fitzgerald?

Do you have kids? Anna asks. I laugh. What do you think? It's probably a good thing, she admits. No offense, but you don't exactly look like a parent. That fascinates me. What do parents look like? She seems to think about this. You know how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see that he's really just hoping he makes it all the way across? Like that.

no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint. As it

I mean, when the world comes for your children, with the knives out, it's your job to stand in the way.

Don't ever have children, Tyler, unless you're ready to be afraid everyday for the rest of your life.

Incredible as it seems, high-calorie, trans-fat-filled french fries are the most common vegetable eaten by young children today.