Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.
Interpretation
Parents provide the foundational support and guidance for their children as they grow and learn.
This quote by Peter Ustinov emphasizes the crucial role parents play in the development of their children. Just as teeth cut through bones, children learn, grow, and develop their own identities built upon the lessons, values, and support provided by their parents. It highlights the idea that parental influence is integral in shaping the future of children.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech on the importance of parenting and familial guidance.
Marriage is like a three-speed gearbox - affection, friendship, love. It is not advisable to crash your gears and go right through to love straightaway. You need to ease your way through. The basis of love is respect, and that needs to be learned from affection and friendship.
I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.
I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.
Because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.
Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.
World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest sense,in its only sense, the patriotism of humans who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good.
Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends." ~ (1925- ), English political leader.
My mother has made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her peace. She did not cop out on herself. The benefits of her choices are massive-a long, stable marriage to a man she still calls her best friend; a family that has extended now into grandchildren who adore her; a certainty in her own strength. Maybe some things were sacrificed, and my dad made his sacrifices, too-but who amongst us lives without sacrifice?
All my life, up until that moment, I'd had a warm, protective blanket wrapped around me, knitted of aunts and uncles, purled of first and second and third cousins, knot-tied with grandmas and grandpas and greats. That blanket had just dropped from my shoulders. I felt cold, lost and alone.
I had a lovely, feral, free childhood - out and then come back when you're hungry or it gets too dark. I feel slightly cruel that I'm not offering my children the same.
My mother 'gave teas' the way other mothers breathed. Her own mother 'gave teas.' All of their friends 'gave teas,' each involving butter cookies extruded from a metal press and pastel bonbons ordered from See's.
The family is one of nature's masterpieces.
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