Quotes About Parents

You wouldn't go to a hospital, you wouldn't go to a law firm where the doctors and lawyers were not retained on merit: where they all had tenure regardless of competence. Parents feel the same way about schools that they send their children to.

My mother and my father have been married 50 years, and he's just started to understand that something's wrong with the system. He accepted the whole thing, you see. Yet this industrious kind of engagement didn't bring him the success, according to American terms, that he wanted. I was probably affected by this very much. In fact, I know I was.

In terms of diet, my parents had a restaurant business so I don't eat any junk food - they taught me to appreciate good food.

The word 'divorce' wasn't foreign to me. As a child of the 1970s, I grew up as part of a generation of kids whose parents got divorced, and it wasn't seen as this terrible thing. Maybe that's why I believed what my father told me and Reina that day: that everything would be okay. But it wasn't.

My parents took an interest in nothing, at home no books, no records. My mother and my father are the emblem of indifference, dryness and bad taste. My father is also terribly stingy, in life as well as in feelings: I have never seen him filling up the bathtub.

My parents were terrific - mother was a church organist and my father was probably the most respected person in our church outside of the minister and sometimes maybe that much. The neighbors all called him - a gentleman.

I love my parents and we have a terrific relationship. They have been very supportive of my career choice.

When I was in China, Mao was Chairman, and parents were terrified to tell their children anything that differed from the party line in case the children repeated it and endangered the whole family.

I have always been terrified of the death of my parents. I never knew if I could count on myself. I never knew if that would send me over the edge.

My parents were decent, aspirant first-generation middle class. They read 'Reader's Digest', listened to classical music; my grandparents had a bust of Stalin on the mantelpiece. The kids of that generation were terrified of being below par, class-wise.

Education seems to be placing increased emphasis on assessment and tracking, which means parents are terrified that if their kid doesn't exceed their expected learning level at six years old, they are immediately put in the class that ends up working at McDonald's.

I remember as a little kid, I would always feel comfortable if the light in the crack of my parents' door was on at night. When it went off, that meant they were asleep. Then that terror and the fear of being by myself started to creep in.

Osama bin Laden characterized his terrorist activities as 'defensive jihad,' provoked by 'debauched infidels' bent on enslaving the Muslim world. The lead industry blamed 'ignorant parents' for applying lead paint to juvenile furniture.

Well, I was always really mature for my age. I'm an above-age reader. I'm not trying to come off like, 'I have a high IQ number. My parents gave me the test.' That's the way I was, I guess. I am still a kid. I love doing kid activities. I'm such a kid, but when I'm on set, I do like to be professional.

My parents are always a great litmus test. Based on the amount of shrieks my mother gives when we're out in public, her constant shock when somebody comes up and says something nice.

The most important lesson my parents taught me is that writing is a job, one that requires discipline and commitment. Most of the time it's a fun job, a wonderful job, but sometimes it isn't, and those are the days that test you.

Genetics is the major reason why people differ in personality, mental health and illness, and learning and cognitive abilities. In essence, the most important thing that parents give to their children is their genes. Your parents' systematic influence on who you are lies within the genes they gave you.

In summary, parents matter, schools matter and life experiences matter, but they don't make a difference in shaping who we are. DNA is the only thing that makes a substantial systematic difference, accounting for 50 per cent of the variance in psychological traits. The rest comes down to chance environmental experiences that do not have long-term effects.

Genuine education equity will be achieved only when schools serving low-income children mirror in number, variety, and access the options that affluent parents have come to expect for their children.

If Eva Moskowitz is to be charged with creating an opportunity for parents like Ayan Wilson, Evelyn Ortega, Vanessa and Andre Farrer, and other families with more ambition for their children than means, it is a curious charge. If you demand that engaged and committed parents send their children to school with the children of disengaged and uncommitted parents, then you are obligated to explain why this standard applies to low-income black and brown parents—and only to them.

I don't know what your childhood was like, but we didn't have much money. We'd go to a movie on a Saturday night, then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book.

Along with individual responsibility goes some societal responsibility to enable young people and their parents to do what they need to do. Otherwise, what is a society?

The offspring cannot rely on its parents for disinterested guidance. One expects the offspring to be preprogrammed to resist some parental manipulation while being open to other forms. When the parent imposes an arbitrary system of reinforcement (punishment and reward) in order to manipulate the offspring to act against its own best interests, selection will favor offspring that resist such schedules of reinforcement.

Numerous case histories have been documented about children previously neglected or abused by their parents, who, when placed with loving foster parents, have distorted their new surroundings and therefore reacted adversely.