Parenting

“Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.”

“The greatest gift you can bestow upon your children is your time and undivided attention.”

“I learned the right way to live from my parents. I never heard any hate in my house. I never heard my father say a mean word to my mother, or my mother to my father, either. During the war, when food was hard to get, my parents fed their children first and they ate what was left. They always thought of us.”

““What’s the matter?”“Oh, that—” she said, lightly. “That’s normal. That’s the proof that you’re going to do okay. It’s only those parents who don’t worry who need to.””

“One of the things I tell new parents is something that was told to me when my daughter still had that new-baby smell: “Prepare for long days but short years.” No statement more succinctly captures the exhaustion, excitement, and melancholy nostalgia that come with parenthood. I have no doubt whole books have not covered it more eloquently.”

“The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes one a mother, which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.”

“When we talk of parental influence we do not think of terror in connection with it—that is not the primary idea—it is not terror and coercion, but kindness and affection, which may bias the child's mind, and induce the child to do that which may be highly imprudent, and which, if the child were properly protected, he would never do.”

“I suppose that every parent loves his child; but I know, without any supposing, that in a large number of homes the love is hidden behind authority, or its expression is crowded out by daily duties and cares.”

“Long before a thermonuclear war can come about, we have had to lay waste our own sanity. We begin with the children. It is imperative to catch them in time. Without the most thorough and rapid brainwashing their dirty minds would see through our dirty tricks. Children are not yet fools, but we shall turn them into imbeciles like ourselves, with high I.Q.s if possible.”

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   And add some extra, just for you.”

“But they were fucked up in their turn   And half at one another's throats.”

“Man hands on misery to man.   And don't have any kids yourself.”

“Kids are a great analogy. You want your kids to grow up and you don't want your kids to grow up. And you can't have it both ways. You want your kids to become independent of you, but it's also in a way a parent's worst nightmare: for them to not need you. So, how do you reconcile those two very strong emotions? You don't. You live with that problem. It's the real tragedy of parenting. And maybe there's some sense in which in art you can have it both ways whereas in life you can't.”

“Walter Slezak says he's tired of arguing with his kids about borrowing the car. "The next time I want it," he says, "I'm just going to take it."”

“Cherish the children your love gave life.”

“Parenting is the science of art of upbringing children.”

“Have children to your heart's content.”

“[H]e who does not support a child, has no cause for celebration.”

“Marrying is human. Having children is divine.”

“You that are parents, discharge your duty; though you cannot impart grace to your children, yet you may impart knowledge. Let your children know the commandments of God. "Ye shall teach them your children." You are careful to leave your children a portion; leave the oracles of heaven with them; instruct them in the law of God. If God spake all these words, you may well speak them over again to your children.”

“The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents-- because they have a tame child-creature in their house.”

“Your Lord has ordained that you must not worship anything other than Him and that you must be kind to your parents. If either or both of your parents should become advanced in age, do not express to them words which show your slightest disappointment. Never yell at them but always speak to them with kindness.Be humble and merciful towards them and say, "Lord, have mercy upon them as they cherished me in my childhood."”