Best 405 quotes in «parenthood quotes» category

On first hearing that little voice – as fine and friable, I felt, as cotton thread, the impact on my soul was that of the highest magnitude of earthquake, those that occur every hundred years, say, or every thousand. The old shell I called myself cracked and was swallowed by a sudden crevasse, and just as suddenly was lost in the commotion.

Originality must compound with inheritance.

Parenthood is a high calling. It’s our first mission field and our first place for discipleship. I think that it is one of the toughest places to make disciples. God loves family, and his heart is that parents disciple and raise their children.

Parenthood makes such sweet hypocrites of us all.

Parenthood is the only job that gets progressively harder every single year, and you never, ever, ever get a raise.

Parents in the early half of the twentieth century were primarily concerned with the development of character in their children. They wanted to be certain that their children were ready to cope with adversity, for it was surely coming to them one day whether in personal or national life. The development of character involves self-discipline and often sacrifice of one's own desires for the good of self and others. Montessori education, developed in this historical period, reflects this emphasis on the formation of the child's character. However, parents today are more likely to say their primary wish for their children is that they be happy. In pursuit of this goal they indulge their children, often unconsciously, to a degree that is startling to previous generations. All parents need to remember that true happiness comes through having character and discipline, and living a life of meaningful contribution -- not by having and doing whatever you wish.

Parenthood is a very sacred journey but only a few owe it!

Parenting was difficult in a world of easy access

Part of the ache, I know, comes from my own sense of still not being quite up to the job of being me. Not a good enough mother, wife, friend, no matter how much I care or what I do. not a good enough writer, or yoga student, or meditator, no matter how hard I try. Not a good enough public speaker, or checkbook balancer, or wage earner, no matter how much effort I put in. I know that where I see lack and failure, others may see competence. But I compile my own secret list of insecurities and shortcomings, certain that what seems to come so easily and naturally to others must be harder for me. I want to be better at living my life than I am these days. To feel sufficient, more certain of what I'm meant to do now and how I'm meant to be.

Reject the fearmongering. Adopt best practices. Slow down.

On her way toward the shore, she kept coming across weekend tourists. Every cluster of them presented the same pattern: the man was pushing a stroller with a baby in it, the woman was walking beside him; the man's expression was meek, solicitous, smiling, a bit embarrassed, and endlessly willing to bend over the child, wipe its nose, soothe its cries; the woman’s expression was blasé, distant, smug, sometimes even (inexplicably) spiteful. This pattern Chantal saw repeated in several variants: the man alongside a woman was pushing the stroller and also carrying another baby on his hack, in a specially made sack: the man alongside a woman was pushing the stroller, carrying one baby on his shoulders and another in a belly carrier: the man alongside a woman had no stroller but was holding one child by the hand and carrying three others, on his back, his belly, and his shoulders. Then, finally, with no man. a woman was pushing the stroller: she was doing it with a force unseen in the men, such that Chantal, walking on the same sidewalk, had to leap out of her way at the last moment. Chantal thinks: men have daddified themselves. They aren't fathers, they're just daddies, which means: fathers without a father's authority.

On my fifteenth birthday, I came to realize that the expression spoiled rotten meant exactly that. We kids were the apples of our parents' eyes, and I, for one, was rotting from inside out.

PARENTHOOD is journey of being driven to the BRINK of INSANITY and BACK...Like a YO YO!!

Parenting is not about the parents, it's about the children.

Parents expect only two things from their children, obedience in their childhood and respect in their adulthood.

Parenthood anywhere from the heart of Texas to the middle of Manhattan is one long coping with maladjusted personalities, crooked teeth, allergies to goose feathers and lamentable traits inherited from the other side of the family.

Parenthood doesn’t improve one’s character, it exposes it.

Parenthood is a walk in the park... A park full of scorpions that you can't leave without jumping through fiery hoop on a pogo stick.

Parenthood is some people’s subconscious revenge for having been brought into existence without their consent.

Parents are programmed to want the best for their kids, regardless of what they get in return. That's what love is supposed to be like, right? But in fact, if you think about it, that's kind of a strange belief. Given what we know about the way people really are. Selfish and shortsighted and egotistical and needy. Why should being a parent, in and of itself, somehow confer superior-personhood on everybody who tries it? Obviously it doesn't.

Passing their toilet training is the very last thing that some adults did that has made their parents proud of them.

Passion stimulates you, love intoxicates you, marriage sobers you, and parenthood tries you.

People who are not fully enlightened have no business becoming parents. This contradicts the conventionally accepted notion that people have an inherent "right" to have children. They do not. People who have a compulsion to traumatize a child, even in the mildest forms, are breaking the child's human rights, though of course the parental compulsion to find false pleasure through procreation obliterates their awareness of these rights. But interestingly, many parents would agree that convicted pedophiles and child murderers have no right to procreate, because of the dynamics in which they are so likely to engage.

Raise your kids and grand-kids not as strong men or strong women, not as good Christians, Jews, or Muslims, not as responsible Americans, Europeans or anything else, not as efficient professionals or smart academics, but as strong, good, responsible, efficient and wise human beings.

Raising teenage sons and daughters is a long and tiresome journey. With God's help the final outcome will be worthwhile.

Recalling his mother’s endless drudgery, (Senator) Richard (Russell) Jr. was to say that he was ten years old before he saw his mother asleep; previously, he had “thought that mothers never had to sleep.

Roughly a month into my stay in jail, I began the first of twelve letters. The choice of titles had much to do with my reason (or circumstances) for being incarcerated: I was a parent of a past-marriage; and though the courts had dissolved the marriage long ago, the matter of parenting was still being debated (by me)—but prohibited by the courts. I had to accept the possibility that my days as a father might be behind me while remaining dutiful to the possibility that, at anytime, circumstances could change. On the one hand, I am a former-father, but on the other hand, I cannot be anything but a father to my children—at any age.

Sex is an open secret parents try to hide to their children

She had dealt with her pregnancy by wrapping herself in dreams.

She had responded to the loss of her husband, to poverty, to disease, and to family cruelty with boldness and ingenuity, by opening herself to others, especially to her children and her Church, pouring into these precious vessels her knowledge, hope, and devotion.

She noticed, as an exceptional woman would, that her stepson was exceptional.

So he thinks he has a baby and everything falls into place? What gets me is, people have babies and they're thinking what the baby will do for them. It's sick.

Sometimes I almost go hours without crying, Then I feel if I don't, I'll go insane. It can seem her whole life was her dying. She tried so hard, then she tired of trying; Now I'm tired, too, of trying to explain. Sometimes I almost go hours without crying. The anxiety, the rage, the denying; Though I never blamed her for my pain, It can seem her whole life was her dying. And mine was struggling to save her; prying, Conniving: it was the chemistry in her brain. Sometimes I almost go hours without crying. If I said she was easy, I'd be lying; The lens between her and the world was stained: It can seem her whole life was her dying. But the fact, the fact, is stupefying: Her absence tears at me like a chain. Sometimes I almost go hours without crying. It can seem her whole life was her dying. - Villanelle for a Suicide's Mother

Some men do not know the father of 'their' children.

Some people have made some mistakes … and some mistakes have made some people.

Some people would deem their parents or children ugly if they were not theirs.

Sometimes, she wondered what she was missing, if her life was somehow incomplete because she didn't see the reflection of her face in the face of a son or daughter. Maybe. That's what mothers told her: Oh, you don't know what you're missing; it's spiritual; I feel closer to the earth, to the creator of all things. Perhaps all of that was true--it must be true--but Grace also knew that mothering was work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that. She'd known too many women who'd vanished after childbirth; women whose hopes and fears had been pushed to the back of the family closet; women who'd magically been replaced by their children and their children's desires.

Start working on your child’s mind. Start building your child’s character. Raise your child as a human being, instead of raising boys and girls. Raise human beings with the religion of love in their hearts. Raise human beings with the language of compassion on their lips. Raise human beings with the color of joy on their face. Raise human beings with the force of bravery in their nerves. And these brave conscientious souls with the flames of compassion in their hearts shall one day change the course of human history.

Successes are those highlights of life we look back on with a smile. But it's the day to day grind of getting them that defines the laugh lines etched until the end of time. Enjoy each moment along the way

That's parents. Fucking up their kids for generations.

The aphorism "If you want something done, ask a busy woman" is in direct acknowledgment of the efficiency boot camp parenthood puts you through.

The author stipulates that while television lately background noise for a child, it tends to shift to the foreground for the adult. The adult pays enough attention to the media attention is paid to the child.

The best way to teach a child is live an exemplary life.

The birth of a child is a joy to the parent and the world.

The cane is just not going to cut it. I shared with some of my colleagues that these brothers live in neighborhoods where they are getting whapped with a piece of stick all night, stabbed with knives, and pegged with screwdrivers that have been sharpened down, and they are leaking blood. When you come to a fella without even interviewing him, without sitting him down to find out why you did what you did, your only interest is caning him, because you are burned out and frustrated yourself. You say to him, ‘Bend over, you are getting six.’ And the boy grits his teeth, skin up his face, takes those six cuts, and he is gone. But have you really been effective? Caning him is no big deal, because he’s probably ducking bullets at night. He has a lot more things on his mind than that. On the other hand, we can further send our delinquent students into damnation by telling them they are no body and all we want to do is punish, punish, punish. Here at R.M. Bailey, we have been trying a lot of different things. But at the end of the day, nothing that we do is better than the voice itself. Nothing is better than talking to the child, listening, developing trust, developing a friendship. Feel free to come to me anytime if something is bothering you, because I was your age once before. Charles chuck Mackey, former vice principal and coach of the R. M. Bailey Pacers school.

The debt we owe our parents can never be squared, and jolly good too, because doing so would threaten to nullify all relationship, all emotional commerce between the two generations. Being in debt, just like being in credit, means an active interest applies between the two parties and, once the debt is taken care of, the interest is bound to wane.

The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.

The fullness ends when we give Nature her ransom, when we make children for her. Then she is through with us, and we become, first inside, and then outside, junk. Flower stalks.

The high road of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.

The highway of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.