Best 314 quotes in «fatherhood quotes» category

I don't know why I wanted a girl,' he says, as if to himself. 'I mean, I wouldn't swap Louis, but when they said, 'It's a boy!', I thought: 'Oh, well.' Everyone else was incredibly pleased that it was a boy – grandparents are always very pleased when it's a boy for some reason. Another one's on the way, and I hope it's going to be a girl. After that, I'll stop. I think it can be a real mistake to sort of plug away for a particular sex … you end up having millions and they're all boys.

i don't want to give the impression that I fault my father. I don't. The truth is that he's one of my heroes. He's monumental to me. I believed - and still do - that a man must stand in the door of his home and let the wolf get him before the wolf gets his family. The wolf never got my father or his family, and I admire Daddy's guts. He never slacked off work or lied to me or shrugged his responsibilities. He dealt with his family from a distance, but was available, when needed. Eventually I'd do the same. I don't know whether I was copying him or whether, by coincidence, my work, like Daddy's, simply kept me away. All I know is that in many ways, big and small, I've followed my father.

I felt something I had never felt before, a mixture of fear and pride. I liked it. This was fatherhood. The biggest mistake anyone could make, and yet universally accepted. I had arrived.

...if I were an angel of the Lord, I would mark the doors of each of my children's homes with an X, so that plague and misfortune would pass over them. Alas, I lack the qualifications. So when there was still world and time enough I fretted. I nagged. I corrected. I got everything wrong.

If there's a perk to having such a fucked up father, it's that he's in no position to judge.

If you can't afford to give your child the right to pursue their dreams, you have no right to breed.

I knew a lot of fellas who live in Lizzy and never got involved in some of the stuff that we were getting into. This was because they had a strong father figure at home, so they couldn’t have gotten involved. The few of those who did end up in the gang even though their father was in the home, their father was just there as a provider, but he was not directly involved in their lives. Shelton ‘Apples’ Burrows reform gang leader

I knew, truth be told, that a present American man would likely teach me how to be a present American man. and I couldn't imagine how those teachings would have made me healthier or more generous.

I knew there was a point in my life where I couldn't go to Baba for much; I had to hide a lot from him, and it wasn't because he wouldn't have listened. He lost my trust somewhere along the line because I didn't think he would be able to handle my life, because it was so different from his own. I want you to know both the good and bad; I want you to see me as your fellow human, and not a God. I want you to see me as your friend one day and to not fear approaching me.

I know that not every family is a clean-cut nuclear Mom and Dad at home situation - but I think every father needs to do whatever he can to be present in the lives of his kids. If you are in a situation where you have not been - fight for it. Don’t give up till you get it. Don’t be a jerk about it - don’t “fight” mom - but “fight” whatever things tell you to just give up. Send cards, make phone calls, pay your support, and do whatever you can to be present in the lives of your children.

I knew then that I must survive for something more than survival's sake. I must survive for you.

I look at the helpless bundle in the crib and she looks up at me and I wonder what I would not do to protect her. I would lay down my life in a second. And truth be told, if push came to shove, I would lay down yours too.

I look at my parents the way mothers look at their toddlers. I take every chance to witness them undisturbed. To study every detail as if sitting for an important exam. I take note of their hands, the curves of their ears, the way they envelop a room and greet others. The way their souls shine through when they speak of something they love, like a candid photograph unveiling beauty and truth. Even though I am present in the same space as them, I am distanced because of the intensity of my love. Every heartbeat reminds me of the ephemeral nature of our bodies and the blessedness of these moments until my father looks up from his book and catches me smiling. And like a child he is bewildered for a moment and smiles back.

I loved her instantly. Of course, most parents love their children instantly. But I mention it here because I still find it a remarkable thing. Where was the love before? Where did you acquire it from? The way it is suddenly there, total and complete, as sudden as grief, but in reverse, is one of the wonders about being human.

I love it when I'm the one who makes Dad laugh, since he's usually the funnyman that gets everybody else laughing

I’m there for my son 24/7, because I don’t want him to take the road we took. I believe if I had a father around, I would’ve learned plenty things. There was no father there to tell me look here son, this is the wrong way to go. When we were coming up, we learned through trial and error. Anthony ‘Ada’ Allen, one of the former leaders and founders of the Rebellion Raiders street gang.

Implicit [in the psychiatric literature] is a set of normative assumptions regarding the father's prerogatives and the mother's obligations within the family, The father, like the children, is presumed to be entitled to the mother's love, nurturance, and care. In fact, his dependent needs actually supersede those of the children, for if a mother falls to provide the accustomed intentions, it is taken for granted that some other female must be found to take her place. The oldest daughter is a frequent choice... The father's wish, indeed his right, to continue to receive female nurturance, whatever the circumstances, is accepted without question.

I love you Daddy, not because you always loved my, because you are always living inside of me as an inspiration of my being.

I'm very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn't think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that's happening to me. I'm rather surprised at who I am, because I'm actually like my dad! David Bowie

In a patriarchal society, one of the most important functions of the institution of the family is to make feel like a somebody whenever he is in his own yard a man who is a nobody whenever he is in his employer’s yard.

In the beginning, his holding could calm the babies, but soon they wanted more motion and wouldn't allow their father to sit down, so Lin had to pace back and forth to stop them from crying......At times he was so miserable that he felt like crying together with his sons, but he controlled himself.

In his sovereignty, God looked down through history and specifically chose you to be the father of your child. He decided no one else could raise that boy or girl better than you. In all of history, there were no other guys better equipped to lead our children through this wilderness than you and I could. He’s put a lot of faith in us and he’s the ultimate strategic planner.

In retrospect, it seems obvious that my research about parenting was also a means to subdue my anxieties about becoming a parent.... I grew up afraid of illness and disability, inclined to avert my gaze from anyone who was too different – despite all the ways I knew myself to be different. This book helped me kill that bigoted impulse, which I had always known to be ugly. The obvious melancholy in the stories I heard should, perhaps, have made me shy away from paternity, but it had the opposite effect.

In the history of American fatherhood, there have been roughly three stages, each a response to economic change. In the first, agrarian stage, a father trained and disciplined his son for employment, and often offered him work on the farm, while his wife brought up the girls. (For blacks, this stage began after slavery ended.) As economic life and vocational training moved out of the family in the early nineteenth century, fathers left more of the child-rearing to their wives. According to the historian John Nash, in both these stages, fathers were often distant and stern. Not until the early twentieth century, when increasing numbers of women developed identities, beyond brief jobs before marriage, in the schoolhouse, factory, and office, did the culture discover the idea that "father was friendly". In the early 1950s, popular magazines began to offer articles with titles such as "Fathers Are Parents Too" and "It's Time Father Got Back into the Family". Today, we are in the third stage of economic development but the second stage of fatherhood.

It is a pity that we cannot persuade all ministers to be men, for it is hard to see how other was they can be truly men of God.

I think of your grandmother calling me and noting how you were growing tall and would one day try to “test me.” And I said to her that I would regard that day, should it come, as the total failure of fatherhood because if all I had over you were my hands, then I really had nothing at all.

I think it's much easier for a man to have children than for children to have a father. Children need their fathers more than we think. A father spurs a child on to succeed. A fathers love gives his children wings and confidence in life.

it's my responsibility to cultivate the man in my son. I can't be passive about that.

It is indeed great news that, despite the challenges, in some ways it is more possible than ever before to have a great career and be a great dad.

It is very easy to be a military strategist, a mercenary, or a king, but much harder to be a father.

It's not like you're becoming a born-again Christian or teetotal or an accountant or something you can stop being after a while. You'll never not be a father now.' 'It feels great, Rob' he said. 'Just great.

It's terrible never to find a father in a world chock-full of fathers of all sorts.

It’s time to stop dreaming about who you want your son to be and help him become the healthy, happy, and successful man he’s supposed to be.

It took to lose my father, To see the toll of being a rock, A solid rock - The one solid rock... Someone can depend on, rely on, base on! But he never said, he is tired, Tired of being that solid rock, The secret behind his persistence, Maybe i will never know... For he is not here anymore, To show how to keep on being a solid rock, I will have to learn the hard way, Just like he learned it - I guess! It took to lose my father, To see the toll of being a rock, A rock - The one solid rock... Everyone can depend on, rely on, base on!

It was a phone call she didn’t want to make. She didn’t want to hurt him. Whatever words she gave him, it would take being a daddy away from him.

I've survived revolution, war, and over a decade on this continent," the Burgrave reflected. "But by all the ghosts of the hundred emperors, I think fatherhood will finally do me in.

It was not till I experimented with seeds plucked straight from a growing plant that I had my first success...the first thrill of creation...the first taste of blood. This, surely, must be akin to the pride of paternity...indeed, many soured bachelors would wager that it must be almost as wonderful to see the first tiny crinkled leaves of one's first plant as to see the tiny crinkled face of one's first child.

I wanted you to know that the world in its entirety could never be found in the schools, alone, nor the streets, alone, nor in the trophy case. I wanted you to claim the whole world, as it is.

Make me the father, O Lord, who will show my sons enough of a sense of humor, so that they will always be serious, but never take themselves too seriously. Give them humility, so they will always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

I was once, I am, and I will always be my children’s father. As to those individuals who have tried so desperately to destroy the fact, I offer forgiveness and seek reconciliation. As to the institutions that have supported the effort to destroy the fact, I pray that: Lady Justice will seek the truth rather than excuse it; and that she will extol the American family rather than destroy it.

Many men have children, but not many children have 'Fathers'. Age releases to you reproductive skills. Fatherhood requires LEADERSHIP skills

Many Christians have no understanding of God’s fatherhood

Memory loss is the key to human reproduction. If you remembered what new parenthood was actually like you wouldn’t go around lying to people about how wonderful it is, and you certainly wouldn’t ever do it twice.

Men were often far different in their roles as fathers than they were as suitors, the memories of which kept them, out of necessity, both vigilant and violent, and even in tender moments, to their daughters.

Mom hadn't met Ramon; her advocacy was more arm's length - petitions, the website, letter writing, meetings with politicians. Her friend Hanna had formed a close friendship with Ramon though, visiting him as often as she could. Hanna told me that Ramon's greatest regret was that he wouldn't get to see his daughter grow up. And Jeremy's dad, who had that opportunity, was just throwing it away. It made me furious, and I couldn't let it go.

[Nathan] wasn't blindly obsessed with a possession. He wasn't crazy. He was a hero--a father who'd risked his life to rescue his son.

My children won't understand just how much they inspire me, until they have children of their own.

My entire life was about nothing but me for twenty-five years, but then your mother came along, and you came along, and now I wake up in the middle of the night, several times a week, and have to check you're still breathing before I can get back to sleep. Can you grasp that? If I had acted this way before I became someone's dad, they would have locked me up in a padded cell with an iPod full of dolphin sounds. I am not afraid of saying I love you, it's just the rest of it that scares the living crap out of me.

My handsome husband and I didn’t make love for almost six months. I was enraptured, lost to my old life, and, in this obsession, disregarded author Ayelet Waldman – who famously wrote of her 'smug well-being' and 'always vital, even torrid' sex life in the wake of childbirth: I ignored my husband as a man. Instead, I revelled in him as a different thing altogether, far more seductive and important, and infinitely more resonant. My husband was no longer just a man: he was the father of my child.

My son, there may be a time when I explain these things to you, because there may be a time when I understand them.