Instead of needing lots of children, we need high-quality children.
Interpretation
The focus should be on raising well-rounded and capable children rather than simply having many children.
Margaret Mead emphasizes the importance of investing in the quality of upbringing and education of children rather than the quantity. This quote advocates for a thoughtful approach to parenting that prioritizes nurturing children's potentials and values to ensure they grow into successful and fulfilled individuals.
In practice
This quote could be used in a parenting class discussion to emphasize the importance of quality over quantity in child-rearing.
Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous communication through space.
Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, doesn't pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.
EARTH DAY uses one of humanity's great discoveries, the discovery of anniversaries by which, throughout time, human beings have kept their sorrows and their joys, their victories, their revelations and their obligations alive, for re-celebration and re-dedication another year, another decade, another century, another eon.
American society is very like a fish society. . . . Among certain species of fish, the only thing which determines order of dominance is length of time in the fishbowl. The oldest resident picks on the newest resident, and if the newest resident is removed to a new bowl, he, as oldest resident, will pick on the newcomers.
Motherhood is priced Of God, at price no man may dare To lessen or misunderstand.
I think that in order to parent effectively, we are going to have to admit two things: We can't keep our children safe. We can't accept the fact that we can't keep our children safe.
The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.
Never forget the nine most important words of any family- I love you. You are beautiful. Please forgive me.
Having my son has changed so much of what I dream about. It used to be about business, business, what's the next deal? What's the next movie? Now it's about him.
It's not the child's responsibility to teach the parent who they are. It's the parent's responsibility to learn who the child is.
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