It's like being a gym rat, but you're a theater rat, and then that becomes your fraternity house. That becomes your extended family.
Billy CrystalRead
You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they're raising them. You can't push your way into areas where you shouldn't be saying anything. You have to always remember they're not your own kids. Play with them, love them, spoil them to death - then hand them back.
Interpretation
Respect the parenting choices of your children and enjoy your role as a grandparent.
This quote emphasizes the importance of respecting the parenting decisions of one's children while also highlighting the joy and freedom that comes with being a grandparent. It suggests that grandparents should engage with their grandchildren through love and play, but also acknowledge the boundaries of their role in the children's upbringing, reflecting on the shift in relationships as family dynamics evolve.
In practice
During a family reunion, you can share this quote to highlight the role of grandparents.
It's like being a gym rat, but you're a theater rat, and then that becomes your fraternity house. That becomes your extended family.
I can't bear to think of life without Janice. I want to go first because I don't want to miss her, because that would be a pain far worse than any death.
In high school, I was the class comedian as opposed to the class clown. The difference is the class clown is the guy who drops his pants at the football game, the class comedian is the guy who talked him into it.
One night, I wrote down all the things I was waiting to do with my little granddaughter, and it became a book, 'I Already Know I Love You.' It was one of those really lovely things in life.
I never missed a birthday. I never missed a school play. We carpooled. And the greatest compliment I can ever get is not about my career or performance or anything; it's when people say, 'You know, your girls are great.' That's the real thing for me.
From the first time I saw Sid Caesar be funny I knew that's what I had to do.
I grew up in St. Louis in a tiny house full of large music - Mahalia Jackson and Marian Anderson singing majestically on the stereo, my German-American mother fingering 'The Lost Chord' on the piano as golden light sank through trees, my Palestinian father trilling in Arabic in the shower each dawn.
My mom is one of those people that you feel honored to meet. And no matter who you are, you fall in love with her because she is spiritual, she's inspiring, she's strong, she's funny, she's creative, she's talented... she's everything that I want to be.
My father and mother had no sense of entitlement for their children.
A house is built of logs and stone, of tiles and posts and piers; a home is built of loving deeds that stand a thousand years.
I often imagine what it would be like if my father were still here to mark his 100th birthday, if Alzheimer's hadn't clawed away years, possibilities, hopes. What would he think of all the commemorations and celebrations?
I barely saw my mother, and the mom I saw was often angry and unhappy. The mother I grew up with is not the mother I know now. It's not the mother she became after my father died, and that's been the greatest prize of my life.
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