Quotes on Parenthood

Sleep when your baby sleeps. Everyone knows this classic tip, but I say why stop there? Scream when your baby screams. Take Benadryl when your baby takes Benadryl. And walk around pantless when your baby walks around pantless.

What lingers from the parent's individual past, unresolved or incomplete, often becomes part of her or his irrational parenting.

Perhaps the best function of parenthood is to teach the young creature to love with safety, so that it may be able to venture unafraid when later emotion comes; the thwarting of the instinct to love is the root of all sorrow and not sex only but divinity itself is insulted when it is repressed. To disapprove, to condemn the human soul shrivels under barren righteousness.

parenting isn't a noun but a verb--an ongoing process instead of an accomplishment. And that no matter how many years you put into the job, the learning curve is, well, fairly flat.

I have learned that a woman can be a fighter, a freedom fighter, a political activist, and that she can fall in love, and be loved, she can be married, have children, be a mother... Revolution must mean life also; every aspect of life.

There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you.

The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.

Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child's life and it's like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities.

In response to our fast-food culture, a 'slow food' movement appeared. Out of hurried parenthood, a move toward slow parenting could be growing. With vital government supports for state-of-the-art public child care and paid parental leave, maybe we would be ready to try slow love and marriage.

Our greatest hope is to bring up children inspired by their opportunities for being helpful and loving.

No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child without a permit for parenthood.

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.

To you who are parents, I say, show love to your children. You know you love them, but make certain they know it as well. They are so precious. Let them know. Call upon our Heavenly Father for help as you care for their needs each day and as you deal with the challenges which inevitably come with parenthood. You need more than your own wisdom in rearing them.

Tell me about a person's family, friends, and community, and I'll tell you what his opinions are.

You didn't have a choice about the parents you inherited, but you do have a choice about the kind of parent you will be.

I don't think children's inner feelings have changed. They still want a mother and father in the very same house; they want places to play.

Kids don't make up 100 percent of our population, but they do make up 100 percent of our future.

I know how sobering and exhausting parenthood is. But the reality is that our children's future depends on us as parents. Because we know that the first years truly last forever.

Parents remain our touchstones, fellow travelers, even after death. They are both missing and present.

A Message to Children Who Have Read This Book - When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: a stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY.

I believe every person has a guardian spirit or angel. They assist us in the transition between life and death and they also help us pick our parents before we are born.