Quotes About Family

He had not, perhaps, understood that Agatha would mind so much; he might have believed that her independence would sustain her. She had money, a career, Rosalind, Carlo, Madge. She could travel if she wanted to. She had so much more in her life than a husband. That was part of the problem for him, after all: that she had so much else besides him.

As adults, overall, in two-parent families have spent more time working for pay, the time they spend interacting with their kids has also increased.

Maybe there's something you can do to make your usual activities just a bit more memorable. Get matching T-shirts for a family excursion. Print up a silly photo for your desk, and switch it out frequently, or put a vignette outside your home office window (garden gnomes are the epitome of whimsy). Hang a disco ball or a string of lights

Building a career—and raising a family—are meaningful activities, but they require a lot of energy. To do our best, we need time we can count on to recharge, apart from these obligations. We need time to do things we find intrinsically energizing for ourselves, as individuals.

I would argue that, over the last 40 years, as a higher proportion of parents' time in two-parent families has been compensated at market rates, parental time overall has become more valuable. Consequently, parents allocate this valuable time differently during their nonworking hours than people did in the past.

Over time, the way parents have allocated their non-market-work hours has shifted considerably. The biggest change in the new home economics has been time devoted to housework. This has fallen precipitously—almost in half over 40 years.

We keep our houses somewhat clean, but not as clean as we did in 1965, when stay-at-home moms spent, on average, 37.4 hours per week spiffing up their abodes (and married moms overall, including employed ones, spent 34.5 hours on such chores).

Sometimes the answers are profound—for example, win a Nobel Prize—and sometimes they're more basic, such as "cook dinner for my family two nights per week.

The way I see it, anything you do once a week happens often enough to be important to you, whether it's church, a strategic thinking session at work, your Sunday dinner with your parents, or your softball team practice.

This conscious decision to hunt for the positive can help combat the common tendency to focus on dark moments, the sort that lead us to stormy conclusions about whether life with a big career and a family is doable. Sometimes things look bleak, but life is not all black-and-white.

I feel like I spend much of my energy some days convincing the younger people in my house to go to bed so I can go to bed. There is always something else that has to happen. The toddler wants to be rocked again. Someone else's homework must go in the backpack. Someone has forgotten to tell me something very important, some story that takes meandering minutes

in the wings, as often mothers and grandmothers are, ready to catch the children should they need saving

I knew that she was trying to save her little girl, but sometimes mothers with the best intentions kill their daughters all the same.

Be good. Be a nice girl. Don't ruin our happy family.

After school I all but ran to Gran's and it was funny how even with her so sick, being with her could still make me feel safe.

The weight in my pocket nudges my thigh, suddenly becomes my knife. I put my hand to its unforgiving outline and can't stop crying years of tears because if I don't stab my father with my weapon, then he is going to stab me with his.

No," I shout, because my mother doesn't know what I like anymore. "I don't eat things that bleed. Just cheese with lettuce or tomato and mayo. No dead fish or animals, please." "You see what I have to put up with?" my mother says.

How can you make someone love you when they won't? And what if that person happens to be your mother?

My mother plants her hands on her hips, peevish. "Is that the best welcome you can come up with? Why don't you come over here and give your father a hug?" Hug him? Touch him? How can she even suggest it?

If not for you or your daughter, then for Nicky? Couldn't you do it for Nicky?' I stop breathing. My mother pales. 'You know what, Mom? You're right. Let me do for Nicky exactly what he did for me.' She wheels and with one savage sweep of her arm, she clears the table and sends everything crashing to the floor.

From we to three. Oh, my dear, I love you so.

I suppose I should make all the skis six foot and let Leif grow into them. That way we could all use them easy enough." He shook his head. "I know my wife would love to ski again. You ever seen anyone carry a baby in a sling or backpack while on skis?

too. "Grandma makes the best pies." "Me pie too." Carl banged his

I turned away from her again. "I hate you," I whispered. "I hate you.