CHILDREN/CHILDHOOD;PARENTS/PARENTING
1. A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. ~Carl Sandburg
2. A child enters your home and for the next twenty years makes so much noise you can hardly stand it. The child departs, leaving the house so silent you think you are going mad. ~John Andrew Holmes
3. A child, like your stomach, doesn't need all you can afford to give it. ~Frank A. Clark
4. A child reminds us that playtime is an essential part of our daily routine. ~Anonymous
5. A father's words are like a thermostat that sets the temperature in the house. ~Paul Lewis
6. A man never stands as tall as when he kneels to help a child. ~Unknown
7. A mother's love is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, it never fails or falters, even though the heart is breaking. ~Helen Rice
8. A parent's love is whole no matter how many times divided. ~Robert Brault
9. A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful. ~Judith Martin
10. Adults are obsolete children. ~Dr. Seuss
11. All kids need is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them. ~Earvin "Magic" Johnson
12. Although there are many trial marriages... there is no such thing as a trial child. ~Gail Sheehy
13. Always kiss your children goodnight - even if they're already asleep. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
14. An infallible way to make your child miserable is to satisfy all his demands. ~Henry Home
15. As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it, or leave it. ~Buddy Hackett
16. Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying. ~Fran Lebowitz, Social Studies
17. Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories. ~John Wilmot
18. Before you were born I loved you
Before you were conceived I wanted you
Before you were here an hour I would die for you
This is the miracle of life. ~Maureen Hawkins
19. Books are easy to find and easy to buy. A paperback these days only costs six or seven dollars. You can borrow that from your kids! ~Jim Rohn
20. By profession I am a Soldier and take pride in that fact, but I am prouder to be a father. ~General Douglas MacArthur
21. By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong. ~Charles Wadsworth
22. Character is largely caught, and the father and the home should be the great sources of character infection. ~Frank H. Cheley
23. Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements. ~Napoleon Hill
24. Child rearing myth #1: Labor ends when the baby is born. ~Unknown
25. Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception. ~Alan Bennett
26. Children are a great comfort in your old age - and they help you reach it faster, too. ~Lionel Kauffman
27. Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. ~Unknown
28. Children are the sum of what mothers contribute to their lives. ~Unknown
29. Children desperately need to know - and to hear in ways they understand and remember - that they're loved and valued by mom and dad. ~Paul Smally
30. Children have more need of models, than of critics. ~Joseph Joubert
31. Children have never been very good at listening to adults but they have never failed to imitate them. ~James Baldwyn
32. Children learn to smile from their parents. ~Shinichi Suzuki
33. Conscience is less an inner voice than the memory of a mother's glance. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
34. Children Learn What they Live
If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn what envy is.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to find love in the world.
If children live with approval, they learn self-worth.
If children live with recognition, they learn to aspire.
If children live with fairness, they learn to be just.
If children live with honesty, they learn to be truthful.
If children live with security, they learn to trust.
If children live with sharing, they learn to give of themselves.
35. Children need your presence more than your presents. ~Jesse Jackson
36. Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. ~Unknown
37. Daddies do matter:
In 1999, 60 Minutes featured a show about elephants.
Several decades ago there was a problem with overpopulation on an African game preserve - too many elephants. Limited by the technology available at the time, the solution arrived at was to move the babies to new preserves.
Everyone watched, gravely concerned, but the babies thrived.
However, unintended consequences emerged. At the new locations, a decade or so after the transfer, someone was killing off rhinoceros which are an endangered species.
It turned out the killers were young male elephants. At first the game wardens couldn't believe it, this was uncharacteristic behavior never before seen in elephants.
They deduced that the young males had grown up without fathers - without male role models.
New technology had made it possible to transport into these locations some large mature bull elephants. There was concern that it would be too late, that
the adolescent males had to have grown up with their elders, that bringing "daddies" in now would do no good. But they tried it anyway.
It worked like a charm. The mature bulls arrived and set things straight. The young males immediately stopped their precocious, rampant sexuality, killing and violence.
The conclusion drawn on 60 Minutes was that we had no idea that the social system of the elephants was so complex, interconnected, and so elegant.
And so it goes. Daddies do matter, even in elephants. ~Diane Sollee, www.smartmarriages.com
38. Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy. ~Robert A. Heinlein
39. Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time. ~Rabbinical Saying
40. Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. ~Robert Fulghum
41. Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children. ~Charles R. Swindoll
42. Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life. ~Henry Doherty
43. Give me the life of the boy whose mother is nurse, seamstress, washerwoman, cook, teacher, angel, and saint, all in one, and whose father is guide, exemplar, and friend. No servants to come between. These are the boys who are born to the best fortune. ~Andrew Carnegie
44. Good, honest, hardheaded character is a function of the home. If the proper seed is sown there and properly nourished for a few years, it will not be easy for that plant to be uprooted. ~George A. Dorsey
45. Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what's been taught them. ~Jonas Salk
46. Great Truths About Life That Little Children Have Learned
No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
When your Mom is mad at your dad, don't let her brush your hair.
If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.
Never ask your 3-year-old brother to hold a tomato.
You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
Reading what people write on desks can teach you a lot.
Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a tic tac.
Never hold a dustbuster and a cat at the same time.
School lunches stick to the wall.
You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts. ~No matter how cute the underwear is. ~Unknown
47. Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist. ~Michael Levine
48. Having one child makes you a parent; having two you are a referee. ~David Frost
49. Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home. ~Bill Cosby, Fatherhood, 1986
50. I am my kid's mom. ~Dr. Laura Schlessinger
51. I don't believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models.... It's not like it was when I was growing up. My mom and my grandmother told me how it was going to be. If I didn't like it, they said, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out." Parents have to take better control. ~Charles Barkley
52. I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. ~Harry S Truman
53. If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm. ~Bruce Barton
54. If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. ~C.G. Jung, Integration of the Personality, 1939
55. If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
56. If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.~Brian Tracy
57. If you talk to your children, you can help them to keep their lives together. If you talk to them skillfully, you can help them to build future dreams. ~Jim Rohn
58. If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. ~Abigail Van Buren
59. If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others. ~Haim Ginott
60. If your children spend most of their time in other people's houses, you're lucky; if they all congregate at your house, you're blessed. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
61. If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either. ~Dick Cavett
62. In bringing up children, spend on them half as much money and twice as much time. ~Unknown
63. In raising my children, I have lost my mind but found my soul. ~Lisa T. Shepherd
64. In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck - and, of course, courage. ~Bill Cosby, Fatherhood, 1986
65. Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids. ~Sam Levenson
66. Instant availability without continuous presence is probably the best role a mother can play. ~Lotte Bailyn
67. It behooves a father to be blameless if he expects his child to be. ~Homer
68. It is a wise father that knows his own child. ~William Shakespeare
69. It is instructive that 87 percent of those incarcerated in American prisons either don't know who their father is or have not had any contact with their fathers in years. ~Herbert London, Hudson Institute
70. It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them. ~Leo F. Buscaglia
71. It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. ~Maya Angelou
72. It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't. ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
73. It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself. ~Joyce Maynard
74. It is not giving children more that spoils them; it is giving them more to avoid confrontation. ~John Gray, "Children Are From Heaven"
75. Kids spell love T-I-M-E. ~John Crudele
76. Labor Day is a glorious holiday because your child will be going back to school the next day. It would have been called Independence Day, but that name was already taken. ~Bill Dodds
77. Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence. ~Plato
78. Likely as not, the child you can do the least with will do the most to make you proud. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
79. Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone
80. Ma-ma does everything for the baby, who responds by saying Da-da first. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
81. Most American children suffer too much mother and too little father. ~Gloria Steinem, New York Times, 26 August 1971
82. Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
83. Mother Nature is wonderful. Children get too old for piggy-back rides just about the same time they get too heavy for them. ~Author Unknown
84. Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, has instilled within each of us a powerful biological instinct to reproduce; this is her way of assuring that the human race, come what may, will never have any disposable income. ~Dave Barry
85. My mom used to say it doesn't matter how many kids you have... because one kid'll take up 100% of your time so more kids can't possibly take up more than 100% of your time. ~Karen Brown
86. My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it. ~Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant, 1968
87. MY SON
My son you make your footsteps, don't follow in my own
My way is not your way, my seeds of life are sown
Leave evil deeds to others, just free your mind of these
The joy of life will take you where you please.
Rise like a bird, like an eagle in the sky
Shine like the bright sun at noon
Burning with hope, with a fire in your soul
Stretch out your arms to the blue skies of life, they're for you.
You'll always be a part of me, my son
You'll always be a part of me, here I am, you are my son
Set out on your adventures, and seek a kindly heart
Forgive when others hurt you, for that's where hatreds start
And should you ever need me, I won't be hard to find
Just look into the corners of your mind.
Rise like a bird, like an eagle in the sky
Shine like the bright sun at noon
Burning with hope, with a fire in your soul
Stretch out your arms to the blue skies of life, they're for you.
You'll always be a part of me, my son
You'll always be a part of me, here I am, you are my son. ~composer unknown; recorded by Roger Whittaker
88. Never raise your hands to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected. ~Red Buttons
89. No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids. ~Bill Cosby, Fatherhood, 1986
90. Now the thing about having a baby - and I can't be the first person to have noticed this - is that thereafter you have it. ~Jean Kerr
91. One of the greatest titles in the world is parent, and one of the biggest blessings in the world is to have parents to call mom and dad. ~Jim DeMint
92. Our children are watching us live, and what we ARE shouts louder than anything we can say. ~Wilfred A. Peterson
93. Our children teach us what life is all about. ~Angela Schwindt
94. Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; and the end of the world is evidently approaching. ~Assyrian clay tablet 2800 B.C.
95. Parenthood is a lot easier to get into than out of. ~Bruce Lansky
96. Parenthood: That state of being better chaperoned than you were before marriage. ~Marcelene Cox
97. Parents are not interested in justice; they are interested in quiet. ~Bill Cosby
98. Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves. ~Marcelene Cox
99. 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. ~Anne Frank
100. Parents learn a lot from their children about coping with life. ~Muriel Spark
101. Parents must get across the idea that "I love you always, but sometimes I do not love your behavior." ~Amy Vanderbilt
102. Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have anything to do with it. ~Haim Ginott
103. Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have anything to do with it. ~Dr. Haim Ginott
104. Parents who are afraid to put their foot down usually have children who step on their toes. ~Chinese Proverb
105. Parents who are always giving their children nothing but the best usually wind up with nothing but the worst. ~Unknown
106. Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain. ~John Locke
107. Setting a good example for your children takes all the fun out of middle age. ~William Feather, The Business of Life, 1949
108. Simply having children does not make mothers. ~John A. Shedd
109. Sing out loud in the car even, or especially, if it embarrasses your children. ~Marilyn Penland
110. Some parents could do more for their children by not doing so much for them. ~Unknown
111. Sometimes I wish I were a kid again; skinned knees are a lot easier to fix than a broken heart. ~Unknown
112. SOMEWHERE THE CHILD
Among the thousands of tiny things growing up all over the land, some of them under my very wing – watched and tended, unwatched and untended, loved, unloved, protected from danger, thrust into temptation – among them somewhere is the child who will write the novel that will stir men’s hearts to nobler issues and incite them to better deeds.
There is the child who will paint the greatest picture or carve the greatest statue of the age; another who will deliver his country in an hour of peril; another who will give his life for a great principle; and another, born more of the spirit than of the flesh, who will live continually on the heights of moral being, and dying, draw men after him.
It may be that I shall preserve one of these children to the race. It is a peg big enough on which to hang a hope, for every child born into the world is a new incarnate thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility. ~Kate Douglas Wiggin
113. The beauty of "spacing" children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones - which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones. ~Sydney J. Harris
114. The best academy.~ a mother's knee. ~James Lowell
115. The best inheritance a person can give to his children is a few minutes of time each day ~O. A. Battista
116. The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering. ~Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care
117. The child that never learns to obey his parents in the home will not obey God or man out of the home. ~Susanne Wesley
118. The guys who fear becoming fathers don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. The end product of child raising is not the child but the parent. ~Frank Pittman, Man Enough
119. The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard. ~Sloan Wilson
120. The ideal home: big enough for you to hear the children, but not very well. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
121. The one thing children wear out faster than shoes is parents. ~John J. Plomp
122. The problem with children is that you have to put up with their parents. ~Charles DeLint
123. The quickest way for a parent to get a child's attention is to sit down and look comfortable. ~Lane Olinghouse
124. The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived. ~Howard Pyle
125. The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children. ~Edward, Duke of Windsor, Look, 5 March 1957
126. The trouble with being a parent is that by the time you are experienced, you are unemployed. ~Unknown
127. There are no illegitimate children - only illegitimate parents. ~Leon R. Yankwich
128. There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings. ~Hodding Carter, Jr.
129. There comes a time when a woman needs to stop thinking about her looks and focus her energies on raising her children. This time comes at the moment of conception. A child needs a role model, not a supermodel. ~Astrid Alauda, on the "hot mom" trend
130. There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child. ~Henry Ward Beecher
131. There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. ~Chinese Proverb
132. These are my daughters, I suppose. But where in the world did the children vanish? ~Phyllis McGinley, "Ballad of Lost Objects," 1954
133. To a father, when a child dies, the future dies; to a child when a parent dies, the past dies. ~Red Auerbach
134. To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while. ~Josh Billings
135. To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others. ~Pope John Paul II
136. There's really no point in having children if you're not going to be home enough to be a parent to them. ~Anthony Edwards
137. To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education. ~John Ruskin
138. To understand your parents' love you must raise children yourself. ~Chinese Proverb
139. Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. ~Roger Lewin
140. Was there ever a grandparent, bushed after a day of minding noisy youngsters, who hasn't felt the Lord knew what He was doing when He gave little children to young people? ~Joe E. Wells
141. What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give. ~P.D. James, Time to Be in Earnest
142. What's done to children, they will do to society. ~Karl Menninger
143. When God Made Moms
By the time the Lord made mothers, he was into his sixth day of working overtime. An Angel appeared and said "Why are you spending so much time on this one"? And the Lord answered and said, "Have you seen the spec sheet on her?
She has to be completely washable, but not plastic, have 200 movable parts, all replaceable, run on black coffee and leftovers, have a lap that can hold three children at one time and that disappears when she stands up, have a kiss that can cure anything from a scraped knee to a broken heart, and have six pairs of hands."
The Angel was astounded at the requirements for this one. "Six pairs of hands! No Way!" said the Angel.
The Lord replied, "Oh, it's not the hands that are the problem. It's the three pairs of eyes that mothers must have!"
"And that's just on the standard model?" the Angel asked.
The Lord nodded in agreement, "Yep, one pair of eyes are to see through the closed door as she asks her children what they are doing even though she already knows. Another pair in the back of her head, are to see what she needs to know even though no one thinks she can. And the third pair are here in the front of her head. They are for looking at an errant child and saying that she understands and loves him or her without even a single word."
The Angel tried to stop the Lord. "This is too much work for one day. Wait until tomorrow to finish."
" But I can't!" The Lord protested, "I am so close to finishing this creation that is so close to my own heart. She already heals herself when she is sick AND can feed a family of six on a pound of hamburger and can get a nine year old to stand in the shower."
The Angel moved closer and touched the woman, "But you have made her so soft, Lord."
"She is soft," the Lord agreed "but I have also made her tough. You have no idea what she can endure or accomplish."
"Will she be able to think?" asked the Angel.
The Lord replied, "Not only will she be able to think, she will be able to reason, and negotiate."
The Angel then noticed something and reached out and touched the woman's cheek. "Oops, it looks like you have a leak with this model. I told you that you were trying to put too much into this one."
"That's not a leak," the Lord objected. "That's a tear! "
"What's the tear for?" the Angel asked.
The Lord said, "The tear is her way of expressing her joy, her sorrow, her disappointment, her pain, her loneliness, her grief, and her pride."
The Angel was impressed. "You are a genius, Lord. You thought of everything, for WOMEN are truly amazing."
144. When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out. ~Erma Bombeck
145. When you become a parent, or a teacher, you turn into a manager of this whole system. You become the person controlling the bubble of innocence around a child, regulating it. ~Kazuo Ishiguro
146. When you teach your son, you teach your son's son. ~The Talmud
147. Whenever I held my newborn baby in my arms, I used to think that what I said and did to him could have an influence not only on him but on all whom he met, not only for a day or a month or a year, but for all eternity - a very challenging and exciting thought for a mother. ~Rose Kennedy
148. Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves. ~Elbert Hubbard
149. While we try to teach our children all about life,
150. You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around - and why his parents will always wave back. ~William D. Tammeus
151. You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. ~Franklin P. Adams
152. You have a lifetime to work, but children are only young once. ~Polish Proverb
153. You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going. ~P. J. O'Rourke
154. You see much more of your children once they leave home. ~Lucille Ball
155. Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but are not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the finite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
So He loves also the bow that is stable. ~ Kahil Gibran
156. Your children need your presence more than your presents. ~Jesse Jackson
157. Your children tell you casually years later what it would have killed you with worry to know at the time. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966