Quotes About Fatherhood

James Brown became my father. He would talk to me the way a father talked to a son. He became the father I never had.

My dad showed me a football and would throw it up and have my dog - a German Shepherd - chase me around when I went after the ball. I caught it because I was scared of that dog. The next year, my dad talked to the commissioner of a local league and convinced him to let me play as a first grader with third graders.

I was talking to a guy who was holding his 18-month-old daughter with the only limb he had left, and he had a smile on his face. I thought, 'I'm not even a 10th of this man.'

My kids are not that interested in my movie career, by the way. My son, in particular, never talks about it. He just wants me as his dad.

My dad was not a tall man, but he always made me feel like he was a giant. I was never afraid when I was with him.

Will.i.am and I performed at Wango Tango. That's when my daughter said that I had made it in music.

Hell, boy. At some point, all fathers want to kill their sons. Just like all sons think about killing their old man. They're too much alike or they're not enough alike. It doesn't matter. What's beautiful is that they don't do it.

The Bad Dad thing usually works. Hellions are big on pecking orders and I have to remind them regularly who's at the top. Now they need a pat on the head from Good Dad before things go all Hansel and Gretel and I end up in the oven.

Anyway, there's nothing at all humiliating about clutching ten pounds of ice like your firstborn while the damn bag leaks all over your crotch so it looks like you pissed yourself with joy. I crack open another beer to celebrate fatherhood and keep reminding myself that I'm doing this for Candy.

There was a stubborn strain of authoritarianism in More that embarrasses some of his modern admirers. Having never revolted against his own father, he could be merciless to those who dared to rebel against the surrogate fathers that every society raises as a standard of order in the world.

Child support payments should be set with greater sensitivity to a father's ability to pay, and considering their nonmonetary contributions, including the direct provision of care for their children. Oregon, for example, has a "parenting time credit" that reduces child support payments made by a noncustodial parent if they spend more time caring for their children.

Finally, granting nontransferable parental leave to fathers will encourage and allow men to become equal partners on the home front. To support a more direct model of fatherhood, we need to think of parental leave as an individual benefit rather than a family one. The evidence suggests that providing father-only "use it or lose it" leave policies significantly increases take-up rates among dads.

Dan Rosenthal rose happily from his drawing board to shake hands on hearing there was a baby on the way. But after that brief ceremony, when we'd both sat down again, he peered at me reflectively. "How can you be a father," he asked, "when you still look like a son?" 

Most fathers don't threaten to disembowel their daughter's boyfriends." "That's not true. And anyway, that's not what I actually said. It was much worse.

What have you gotten me into?" I hissed at him. "Me? What have you gotten yourself into? Couldn't I have just picked you up at the police station for underage drinking, like most fathers?

A man can never compete with a woman's father

Never would I have guessed I'd fall so comfortably into the role of husband and father. Never would I have guessed I'd be married to a human. And I certainly wouldn't have guessed I'd be so happy without spirit.

Your daughter's a cheat and a liar," the father said

Fathers need to take their sons hunting and fishing, work on cars with them, take them to work, coach their teams, take them to ball games, work out with them, take them on business trips, and let them tag along with them when they go out with the guys. All of these activities help boys move successfully into the male world. This process is not just limited to a man's biological sons. Nice Guys can get involved with young relatives, scouts, sports teams, school activities, or big brothers.

After everything he'd built, planned, fought for, fretted over, dreamed of, this was the summation of his life; one disappointing son and two suitcases.

In Kabul, hot running water had been like fathers, a rare commodity.

Listening to them, I realized how much of who I was, what I was, had been defined by Baba and the marks he had left on people's lives. My whole life, I had been "Baba's son." Now he was gone. Baba couldn't show me the way anymore; I'd have to find it on my own. The thought of it terrified me.

And so it was that, about a week later, we crossed a strip of warm, black tarmac and I brought Hassan's son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty.

After all, didn't all fathers in their secret hearts harbor a desire to kill their sons?