Quotes About Nurturing

Jazzy Jeff is somebody who taught me what I really wanted to do for other people. He has the big ol' house where musicians can come there, stay for a while, create music, eat, reset.

You can't do more mama than Italian Jewish mama.

A baby is born with a need to be loved–and never outgrows it.

With a more expansive stretch, there's a better chance that I'll be around at the precise, random moment when one of my nephews drops his guard and solicits my advice about something private. Or when one of my nieces will need someone other than her parents to tell her that she's smart and beautiful.

The guys who fear becoming fathers don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. The end product of child raising is not the child, but the parent.

education and money. I go to church with the kids for the same reason Genie and I play our grandchildren classical music and litter the floors and chairs all over our home with open art books. Jack, age three, eats his lunch with a big Goya book propped in front of him asking for the

This is what I want. I want people to take care of me. I want them to force comfort upon me. I want the soft-pillow feeling that I associate with memories of being ill when I was younger, soft pillows and fresh linens and satin-edged blankets and hot chocolate. It's not so much the comfort itself as knowing there's someone who wants to take care of you.

Young female primates are as infant-obsessed as girls, whereas male interest in infants reflects an almost technical curiosity rather than a nurturing tendency. Young male chimpanzees often carry babies in an awkward manner without letting them cling to their bodies as ape babies love to do. I have watched in horror as young males inspect a small infant by stretching its limbs to the limit, sticking their big fingers down its throat, or making it the object of a tussle with a male peer.

There's a world of difference between insisting on someone's doing something and establishing an atmosphere in which that person can grow into wanting to do it.

I]f we can bring our children understanding, comfort, and hopefulness when they need this kind of support, then they are more likely to grow into adults who can find these resources within themselves later on. (from the introduction)

In fact, from the time you were very little, you've had people who have smiled you into smiling, people who have talked you into talking, sung you into singing, loved you into loving.

Love is at the root of everything. All learning, all parenting, all relationships. Love or the lack of it.

A berry ripens in its own good time . . . and so does a child's readiness. Just as the one needs water and sunlight, the other needs the patient reassurance of loving adults who can trust children to grow according to their own timetables.

Watching a baby grow with our help tells us other things we like to feel about ourselves: that we are competent and loving.

When you're a parent you have a new chance to grow.

I grew up in the arms of the gods.

Like well-adjusted children, dogs require significant training and supervision. They must be fed, watered, and exercised every single day. They need love, lots and lots of love, and they need to know you are there for them. In other words, caring for a dog is not a hobby or a part-time responsibility – it's a real relationship. This is somewhat true of cats, as well. The relationship maybe weirdly one-sided and kind of embarrassing, but you still have to turn up.

My parents are wonderful, and I'm really lucky - but my mom has always been almost exclusively a right-brained person. She goes completely on her feelings of things, on her intuition, and so she instilled that in my brothers and I.

I kept asking myself: What do these people with strong relationships, parents with deep connections to their children, teachers nurturing creativity and learning, clergy walking with people through faith, and trusted leaders have in common? The answer was clear: They recognize the power of emotion and they're not afraid to lean in to discomfort.

I Wholeheartedly believe that when we are fully engaged in parenting, regardless of how imperfect, vulnerable, and messy it is, we are creating something sacred.

And perhaps the most painful lesson of that day hit me so hard that it took my breath away: It was clear from the data that we cannot give our children what we don't have. Where we are on our journey of living and loving with our whole hearts is a much stronger indicator of parenting success than anything we can learn from how-to books.

Like our lovability and divinity, we must care for and nurture the stories we tell ourselves about our creativity and ability. Just because we didn't measure up to some standard of achievement doesn't mean that we don't possess gifts and talents that only we can bring to the world. Just because someone failed to see the value in what we can create or achieve doesn't change its worth or ours.

We cannot give our children what we don't have.

We must be guardians of a space that allows students to breathe and be curious and explore the world and be who they are without suffocation. They deserve one place where they can rumble with vulnerability and their hearts can exhale.