Quotes About Autonomy

I think I'm in control of what I do and what I've done. I think that's the ultimate feminine power. Do as you want.

When I ask French parents what they most want for their children, they say things like "to feel comfortable in their own skin" and "to find their path in the world." They want their kids to develop their own tastes and opinions. In fact, French parents worry if their kids are too docile. They want them to have character. But they believe that children can achieve these goals only if they respect boundaries and have self-control. So alongside character, there has to be cadre .

Autonomy is something fundamental that your child needs. (Francoise Dolto said that by age six, a child should be able to do everything at home that concerns him.)

French parents are very concerned about their kids. They know about pedophiles, allergies, and choking hazards. They take reasonable precautions. But they aren't panicked about their children's well-being. This calmer outlook makes them better at both establishing boundaries and giving their kids some autonomy.

Walter Mischel says the worst-case scenario for a kid from eighteen to twenty-four months of age is "the child is busy and the child is happy, and the mother comes along with a forkful of spinach... "The mothers who really foul it up are the ones who are coming in when the child is busy and doesn't want or need them, and are not there when the child is eager to have them. So becoming alert to that is absolutely critical.

The de'clic (DEH-kleek) is an aha moment when a child figures out how to do something important on his own...it's a welcome sign of maturity and autonomy.

The child must not invade the parents' whole universe . . . for family balance, the parents also need personal space,

Letting children "live their lives" isn't about releasing them into the wild or abandoning them (though French school trips do feel a bit like that to me). It's about acknowledging that children aren't repositories for their parents' ambitions or projects for their parents to perfect. They are separate and capable, with their own tastes, pleasures, and experiences of the world. They even have their own secrets.

Maybe we should freak him out and start following him for a change. That would force him to either do his own thinking or give up.

You are not anyone's opinion of you. You are whoever you choose to be.

Everything inside her rebelled at the coercion. But he was giving her a choice, and he didn't have to.

I had grown up with very little parental input, so I learned to be über-responsible, self-reliant, and self-sufficient. As a result, I never wanted to seem

I had grown up with very little parental input, so I learned to be über-responsible, self-reliant, and self-sufficient. As a result, I never wanted to seem like I needed help or to impose on anyone else.

To accept the conventions of traditional society is to be less than an individual. To reject them is yo assume an intolerable burden of freedom in often fundamentally discouraging conditions.

If I cared for human approval, I would have been dead long ago.

Be not another, if you can be yourself.

Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest. (Let no man belong to another that can belong to himself.)

Here's what I believe: Your reality is totally up for grabs; if you don't create your own life, someone else will create something based on their own agenda and project that on you. Don't let them do it, my loves. Don't let them tell you that their something is bigger than your everything.

MUSIC CUE: Ultra Naté, "Free

Ultra Naté, "Free

The rise of selfie culture isn't about vanity; it's about women taking back control of our images—and our self-images. I don't think that's a bad thing.

From first days in school, we are taught to listen to everything and everyone but ourselves, to take in all our clues about living from the people and powers around us.

Where there are no visible conflicts, there is no freedom," Montesquieu said.

Let everyone be left free not to be happy without feeling ashamed, or to be happy episodically as one sees fit. Issue no decisions, make no laws, impose nothing. If we do not want a legitimate aspiration to degenerate into a collective punishment, we must treat the pitiless idol of happiness with the most extreme disrespect.