“How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.”
Parenting is the most important job you will never feel qualified for. These quotes cover the chaos, joy, worry, and profound love that come with raising another human being — and the humbling realization that your kids are teaching you as much as you teach them.
“Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.”
“How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.”
“I'm torn about late parenting. I believe people should spend their twenties living and having fun and not having any regrets later. I also think people in their thirties generally make better parents but so many of my friends are having trouble - myself included - as fathers get older.”
“The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.”
“Most American children suffer too much mother and too little father.”
“I barely have time for my own children. To adopt more children and not have time for them, that would be poor parenting on my part.”
“Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.”
“Parenting is the most important job on the planet next to keeping Gary Busey off the nation's highways.”
“Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.”
“I have a neuroscience background - that's what my doctorate is in - and I was trained to study hormones of attachment, so I definitely feel my parenting is informed by that.”
“Kids are a great analogy. You want your kids to grow up, and you don't want your kids to grow up. You want your kids to become independent of you, but it's also a parent's worst nightmare: That they won't need you. It's like the real tragedy of parenting.”
“A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.”
“I came to parenting the way most of us do - knowing nothing and trying to learn everything.”
“The truth is that parents are not really interested in justice. They just want quiet.”
“Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.”
“Autism is a neurological disorder. It's not caused by bad parenting. It's caused by, you know, abnormal development in the brain. The emotional circuits in the brain are abnormal. And there also are differences in the white matter, which is the brain's computer cables that hook up the different brain departments.”