I want to give my kids the world, but I also want them to appreciate everything, to succeed, to be good people, to enjoy life. This is my most important role. If I fail at this, I fail at everything.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of nurturing children's character and values over material wealth.
Mark Wahlberg expresses a deep commitment to parenting, highlighting that his primary goal is not just to provide for his children materially but to instill in them values such as appreciation, success, goodness, and enjoyment of life. He believes that if he cannot succeed in shaping these qualities in his children, then he would consider his role as a parent to be a failure, signifying the priority he places on moral upbringing over material abundance.
In practice
In a speech about parenting at a community event.
There is always a place where, if you listen closely in the night, you will hear a mother telling a story and at the end of the tale, she will ask you this question: 'Ou libéré?' Are you free, my daughter?" My grandmother quickly pressed her fingers over my lips. Now," she said, "you will know how to answer.
When I chose to leave a career as a young lawyer in Washington to move to Arkansas to marry Bill and start a family, my friends asked, 'Are you out of your mind?'
Our favorite teams bring people together, keep family members close, bond people from different generations. Some of the happiest moments of my life involve something that happened with one of my teams. Some of the best relationships I ever had were with Boston athletes that I never even met.
I've seen fathers criticizing their sons the moment a game's over. Not my dad. It doesn't matter if I threw an interception or a Hail Mary, he always says, 'Good job, son, I'm proud of you.' Then he shakes my hand and gives me a hug. Every time.
People who work for me know that family comes first. And I'm fortunate to have a family that is very supportive of the work I do, so I don't have to live two separate lives.
I was aware, in those early days of motherhood, that my behaviour was strange to the people who knew me well. It was as though I had been brainwashed, taken over by a cult religion. And yet this cult, motherhood, was not a place where I could actually live. Like any cult, it demanded a complete surrender of identity to belong to it.
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