Parenting

Sourced

• Parenting is among the most personal choices anyone ever makes. At the same time, no other individual decision has as significant a societal impact. Finding a careful balance between personal autonomy and the public welfare is often a considerable challenge.
  • Jacob M. Appel, bioethicist and medical historian, Motherhood: Is It Ever Too Late?, July 15, 2009.

• Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage through their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humourously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake up in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
  • J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan (1904)

• Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 441.

• I suppose that every parent loves his child; but I know, without any supposing, that in a large number of homes the love is hidden behind authority, or its expression is crowded out by daily duties and cares.
  • Abbott Eliot Kittredge, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 442.

• Parenting is the science of art of upbringing children.
  • Simon Soloveychik in Parenting for Everyone, (1996)

• You that are parents, discharge your duty; though you cannot impart grace to your children, yet you may impart knowledge. Let your children know the commandments of God. "Ye shall teach them your children." You are careful to leave your children a portion; leave the oracles of heaven with them; instruct them in the law of God. If God spake all these words, you may well speak them over again to your children.
  • Thomas Watson, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 441.

• The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents-- because they have a tame child-creature in their house.
  • Frank Zappa in Mojo Magazine (1993)

Unsourced

• I don't know, maybe I shouldn't have done this. First thing, I took him home and dangled him over the balcony.
  • David Letterman, announcing to the public that he was the proud father of Harry Letterman, in reference to an incident by Michael Jackson, CBSNews.com

• Everybody was a baby once, Arthur. Oh, sure, maybe not today, or even yesterday. But once. Babies, chum: tiny, dimpled, fleshy mirrors of our us-ness, that we parents hurl into the future, like leathery footballs of hope. And you've got to get a good spiral on that baby, or evil will make an interception.
  • The Tick

• Children behave as well as they are treated.
  • Jan Hunt

• A Child is no more than a puppet. You can only pull its strings.
  • Blair Curcie

• Parenting is the science about the art of childrearing.
  • Simon Soloveychik

• Each morning I call for the best in me: “I am sent a child. He is a dear guest. I thank him for his existence. He is called to this life as am I, and this unites us – we are people; we are living. He is the same as I am. He is a man, not a future man, but a man today, and therefore he is different from any other people. I accept him as I accept another man. I accept my child… I accept him and protect his childhood. And I understand, tolerate, accept and forgive him. I don’t force him. I don’t humiliate him by my strength because I love him. I love him and thank him for who he is and for that I can love him, and thus, I elevate in my own spirit.
  • Simon Soloveychik

• Any child can tell you that the sole purpose of a middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble.
  • Dennis Fakes