“Don't try to make children grow up to be like you, or they may do it.”
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.
“Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own.”
“Don't try to make children grow up to be like you, or they may do it.”
“Parenting is the most important job on the planet next to keeping Gary Busey off the nation's highways.”
“No, I've never wanted kids. But I do read about parenting a lot.”
“I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.”
“You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.”
“Don't reward bad behavior. It is one of the first rules of parenting. During the financial cataclysm of 2008, we said it differently. When we bailed out banks that had created their own misfortune, we called it a 'moral hazard,' because the bailout absolved the bank's bad acts and created an incentive for it to make the same bad loans again.”
“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.”
“Very often when you see families it's all perfect and neat, and parenting isn't like that. You do have constant negotiations. Things are ever developing and ever changing, and you constantly have to evaluate how you deal with your kids.”
“A new father quickly learns that his child invariably comes to the bathroom at precisely the times when he's in there, as if he needed company. The only way for this father to be certain of bathroom privacy is to shave at the gas station.”
“Most American children suffer too much mother and too little father.”
“While not impossible, it is especially challenging for teenage parents to develop bonds with their children. A high percent of them were themselves children of teenage parents and have never experienced appropriate parenting.”
“Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.”
“Parents should not smoke in order to discourage their kids from smoking. A child is more likely to smoke when they have been raised in the environment of a smoker.”
“I would like to do another piece of fiction dealing with a number of issues: Lesbian parenting, the 1960's, and interracial relationships in the Lesbian and Gay community.”
“If there is any truth to my parenting the dreamwork movement, it comes from the power of the press.”