There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you.
Interpretation
Parenthood can be frustrating and unappreciated, despite the love for children.
In this quote, Peter De Vries expresses the paradox of parenthood, where caretakers often feel they are met with ingratitude and challenge, as if they are nurturing someone who also bites back. It highlights the struggles and sacrifices of parenting, recognizing that while love drives the relationship, the difficulties can make it feel one-sided at times.
In practice
In a speech about the challenges of parenting, one might quote this to emphasize the difficulties.
We must love one another, yes, yes, that's all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other. It may be the very recognition of all men as our brothers that accounts for the sibling rivalry, and even enmity, we have toward so many of them.
I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best -- it's all they'll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money -- provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don't need it.
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.
Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff - it is a palliative rather than a remedy.
The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Be at your motherβs feet and there is the Paradise.
Although my family attended the same church as everyone in our town, our religion was not the same. I could stand with my family or with the gentiles... but there was no foothold in between.
My dad wasn't a power hitter, and I didn't think I'd be a power hitter because the person I wanted to be like was him, and he was the one that taught me to play the game.
Mom sobbed something into Dad's chest that I wish I hadn't heard, and that I hope she never finds out that I did hear. She said, "I won't be a mom anymore." It gutted me pretty badly.
Each member of the family in his own cell of consciousness, each making his own patchwork quilt of reality - collecting fragments of experience here, pieces of information there. From the tiny impressions gleaned from one another, they created a sense of belonging and tried to make do with the way they found each other.
Motherhood isn't just a series of contractions; it's a state of mind. From the moment we know life is inside us, we feel a responsibility to protect and defend that human being.
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