I remember thinking quite logically that I didn’t want to spoil my children with wealth and so that I would create a foundation, but not knowing exactly what it would focus on.

The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.

My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.

Any teammate of mine that had a kid and a boy that was capable of playing baseball, I think I set a terrific example of ‚Don’t do this‘ and ‚Don’t do that.‘ And that’s one of the things that I’m most proud of.

What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.

I have spent the greater part of my life in a hotel room with seven or eight kids, looking after everyone, sorting out fights, wiping noses, handing out towels, not having a clean towel left for me.

Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.

I’m sure most parents read to their children to explain what certain things mean. So books are a good way to convey a message to anybody. Everybody reads.

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

Don’t judge other people. For example, if you want God’s anointing to be on you for parenting, you need to be careful not to criticize other parents.

Kids end up seeing my movies anyway but some of the mothers get mad at me so I figured I’d make one that I can’t get yelled at for.

I take my kids to school. And if I go to work, I go to work, and they visit me on set. I come home. I have dinner with my family. I have breakfast with my family. I have a very solid, very warm home.

One has children in the expectation of dying before them. In fact, you want to make damn sure you die before them, just as you plant a tree or build a house knowing, hoping that it will outlive you. That’s how the human species has done as well as it has.

Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.

I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.

I’m not great at bedtime stories. Bedtime stories are supposed to put the kid to sleep. My kid gets riled up and then my wife has to come in and go, ‚All right! Get out of the room.‘

When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he’s doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911.

I think a father is important for everyone. If you don’t have, then maybe not so much. In the world today, it’s possible that you grow up with only one parent in the family.

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud.

I understand the importance of bondage between parent and child.

I love to dance, but my children tell me I shouldn’t. Can’t see why.

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

The influence of a mother upon the lives of her children cannot be measured. They know and absorb her example and attitudes when it comes to questions of honesty, temperance, kindness, and industry.

My parents pretty much realized that I would do whatever I wanted, and that was it, really.

With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models.

If all you’re doing is grinding for the man, it’s going to burden you. Once you say, ‚Hey, I’m grinding for the man, but I’m putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,‘ you’re working for you.

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.

Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, red children, brown children, that is the black woman’s normal, day-to-day relationship. In my family alone, we are about four different colors.

What I tell my kids is, ‚I’m preparing you for college and for life. So, having independence, knowing how to set your own boundaries, figuring out how to make that balance. We still have screen-time rules.‘

I love our daughters more than anything in the world – more than life itself. And while that may not be the first thing that some folks want to hear from an Ivy-league-educated lawyer, it is truly who I am. So for me, being Mom-in-Chief is, and always will be, job number one.

It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends.

Once you have six children, you’re committed.

To rule children by force is the technique of Satan, not of the Savior.

Kids will remind you that, even though you’ve gone down a road 100 times, it’s brand new for them – and that’s healthy.

We’ve got to put a lot of money into changing behavior.

Plumbers can be masters, the guy who did my patio is a master, some people are masters at raising really great children.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

If a woman can, by careful selection of a father and nourishment of herself, produce a citizen with efficient senses, sound organs and a good digestion, she should clearly be secured a sufficient reward for that natural service to make her willing to undertake and repeat it.

Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

The best thing about being a dad? Well, I think it’s just the thing that every man wants – to have a son and heir.

For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.

If you are a parent, you have probably already realized that your children are always watching what you do. And just as children watch their parents and emulate their behavior, so do employees who are watching their bosses.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

I’m sorry, it’s true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much – if at all.

Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.

Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends.

He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

My whole family have all been through a difficult time. My focus is my children, our children.

When I’m around the kids I feel like I act the most grown-up just because you’re supposed to. And I say things, like every other day, that remind me of my own parents.

If you’re working 50 hours a week to try to maintain family income, and your children have the kinds of aspirations that come from being flooded with television from age one, and associations have declined, people end up hopeless, even though they have every option.

Social Security’s not the hard one to solve. Medicare, that is the gorilla in the room, and you’ve got to put all of it on the table.

K to 12 is partly about babysitting the kids so the parents can do other things.

Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

If you want someone to say, ‚She’s so sweet, and she’s so cute, and, honey, point your foot,‘ that’s not my school. You can go to the YMCA and have a nobody teach your kid if that’s what you want to hear.

As the father of eight children, I’m quite convinced that each individual arrives here with their own unique personality. We are intended here from an invisible held of infinite potentiality. That which has no form, has no boundaries – it’s the I that’s in the ever-changing body.

We believed in our idea – a family park where parents and children could have fun- together.

In my divorce, I stood up and said to my ex-wife, ‚Hey, I messed up. This had nothing to do with you. I didn’t understand what marriage was. I cheated. I was wrong. We couldn’t fix it; it got worse. I stepped away because I didn’t want it to get any worse. You’re the mother of my kids – I don’t want to hate you.‘