I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children, they just about throw up.
Barbara BushRead
Your success as a family... our success as a nation... depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.
Interpretation
Family values and actions are fundamental to the success of a nation.
This quote by Barbara Bush emphasizes that the welfare and achievements of a family unit are crucial to the overall success of a nation. It suggests that the foundation of a strong society lies not in political leadership or governmental decisions, but in the relationships, values, and actions that take place within each household.
In practice
In a speech about family values, one might reference this quote to underscore the importance of home life.
I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children, they just about throw up.
Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others.
You don't just luck into things as much as you would like to think you do. You build step by step, whether it is friendships or opportunities.
You have to love your children unselfishly. That's hard. But it's the only way.
The personal things should be left out of platforms at conventions. You can argue yourself blue in the face, and you're not going to change each other's minds. It's a waste of your time and my time.
To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.
I urge you to pursue preserving your personal history to allow your children and grandchildren to know who you were as a child and what your hopes and dreams were.
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.
The family is the basic cell of government: it is where we are trained to believe that we are human beings or that we are chattel, it is where we are trained to see the sex and race divisions and become callous to injustice even if it is done to ourselves, to accept as biological a full system of authoritarian government.
The word dysfunction has, I think, served its purpose and now has lost its meaning. Every family, like every person, is imperfect, after all. The idea that there is a family somewhere who functions, is an odd concept. In my youth I was running from my family to try to find out who I was-their influence distracted me. Now I see what a powerful hold they have, no matter what.
It's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance.
I finally made friends with my father when I entered my twenties. We had so little in common when I was a boy, and I am certain I had been a disappointment to him. He did not ask for a child with a book, off in its own world. He wanted a son who did what he had done; swam and boxed and played rugby, and drove cars at speed with abandon and joy, but that was not what he wound up with.
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