Quotes on Parenting

One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.

We're [parents]) always bluffing, pretending we know best, when most of the time we're just praying we won't screw up too badly.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

Women without children are also the best of mothers,often, with the patience,interest, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot always sustain. I come to crave our talk and our daughters gain precious aunts. Women who are not mothering their own children have the clarity and focus to see deeply into the character of children webbed by family. A child is fortuante who feels witnessed as a peron,outside relationships with parents by another adult.

I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names.

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his own resources, would be able to bring up a child.

Of course, everyone's parents are embarrassing. It goes with the territory. The nature of parents is to embarrass merely by existing, just as it is the nature of children of a certain age to cringe with embarrassment, shame, and mortification should their parents so much as speak to them on the street.

Love is staying up all night with a sick child - or a healthy adult.

Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.