53 Quotes Tagged: parenthood

There are only three ways to teach a child. The first is by example, the second is by example, the third is by example.

Telling a child that something that matters to them isn't important doesn't convince them it doesn't matter. It just convinces them that it doesn't matter to you and often makes them feel like they don't matter, either. Remember, caring about the little things that matter to little people creates big connections.

The struggle of today, is not altogether for today - it is for a vast future also.

They (teenage boys)don’t really listen to speeches or talks. They absorb incrementally, through hours and hours of observation.

The parent is protector and trainer, but never the ultimate teacher. Every parent is responsible for teaching their kid basic moral conduct, manners, the difference between love and hate, and right from wrong. However, after maturity, the child must set off to seek knowledge on their own. Religion is never to be forced. And you cannot threaten your child with hell and tell them your religion is the only right way. There is no one right way. The many ways to the Creator are as varied as the colors of a rainbow.

When (The World According To) Garp was published, people who’d lost children wrote to me. ‘’I lost one, too,’’ they told me. I confessed to them that I hadn’t lost any children. I’m just a father with a good imagination. In my imagination, I lose my children every day. (afterword)

Let love always lead you to listen more deeply, understand more fully, connect more securely, forgive more freely, communicate more clearly, and respond more gently.

"Why do men like me want sons?" he wondered. "It must be because they hope in their poor beaten souls that these new men, who are their blood, will do the things they were not strong enough nor wise enough nor brave enough to do. It is rather like another chance at life; like a new bag of coins at a table of luck after your fortune is gone."

The doc swore she came out screamin' in the key of E.

Because

Everybody has it wrong way round. Parents don't make children — children make parents. They shape our behavior from the first wail. Mold us into what they need. It can be a pretty rough process, too

Daydreamer, dream on. Never forget that you are a one-of-a-kind, never-before-seen, gift-to-the-world, and you've got a special purpose for being here. Raising children is beautiful and chaotic and wonder-filled, but you'll have a lot of life to live once your children are out of the early stages of intense need for your time and attention. So dream your dreams, and journal your thoughts and ideas, and don't be afraid to embrace the present, secure in the knowledge that your time will come.

Why Smoky liked about his girls' growing up was that, though they moved away from him, they did so (it seemed to him) less from any distaste or boredom than simply to accommodate a growth in their own lives: when they were kids, their lives and concerns - Tacey's rabbits and music, Lily's bird's nests and boy-friends, Lucy's bewilderments - could all fit within the compass of his life, which was then replete; and then as they grew up and out, they no longer fit, they needed room, their concerns multiplied, lovers and then children had to be fitted in, he could no longer contain them unless he expanded too, and so he did, and so his own life got larger as theirs did, and he felt them to be no further from him than ever, and he liked that. What he didn't like about their growing up was the same thing: that it forced him to grow, to enlarge, sometimes beyond what he felt the character he had come over the years to be encased in could stand.

My mother delayed my enrollment in the Fascist scouts, the Balilla, as long as possible, firstly because she did not want me to learn how to handle weapons, but also because the meetings that were then held on Sunday mornings (before the Fascist Saturday was instituted) consisted mostly of a Mass in the scouts' chapel. When I had to be enrolled as part of my school duties, she asked that I be excused from the Mass; this was impossible for disciplinary reasons, but my mother saw to it that the chaplain and the commander were aware that I was not a Catholic and that I should not be asked to perform any external acts of devotion in church.

In short, I often found myself in situations different from others, looked on as if I were some strange animal. I do not think this harmed me: one gets used to persisting in one's habits, to finding oneself isolated for good reasons, to putting up with the discomfort that this causes, to finding the right way to hold on to positions which are not shared by the majority.

But above all I grew up tolerant of others' opinions, particularly in the field of religion, remembering how irksome it was to hear myself mocked because I did not follow the majority's beliefs. And at the same time I have remained totally devoid of that taste for anticlericalism which is so common in those who are educated surrounded by religion.

I have insisted on setting down these memories because I see that many non-believing friends let their children have a religious education 'so as not to give them complexes', 'so that they don't feel different from the others.' I believe that this behavior displays a lack of courage which is totally damaging pedagogically. Why should a young child not begin to understand that you can face a small amount of discomfort in order to stay faithful to an idea?

And in any case, who said that young people should not have complexes? Complexes arise through a natural attrition with the reality that surrounds us, and when

It’s a . . . transcendental act. Making life. . . . ‘By this act, I bring one death into the world.’ One birth, one death, and all the pain and acts of will between. . . . Our children change us . . . whether they live or not.