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.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the idea that parenting promotes maturity in adults rather than just being a means to create children.
Peter De Vries suggests that the true essence of marriage is not just to bear children, but rather that the experience of raising children is what fosters growth and maturity in adults. It implies that the responsibilities associated with parenthood shape individuals, helping them evolve into more responsible and mature beings, thereby emphasizing the transformative nature of raising offspring.
In practice
During a parenting seminar, I shared this quote to illustrate the impact of raising children on personal growth.
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.
There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you.
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.
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.
Tell me, do you spend time with your family? Good. Because a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.
I came back to work when my children were two months old. At that early age, they seem to have little awareness of anybody but their Raggedy Ann dolls, so it wasn't a matter of them missing me. I was missing them.
As a parent, it's my responsibility to equip my child to do this - to grieve when grief is necessary and to realize that life is still profoundly beautiful and worth living despite the fact that we inevitably lose one another and that life ends, and we don't know what happens after death.
The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.
I want to give a child a life who wouldn't be given a life. I want a child that nobody else wants.
The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career.
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