According to Ethiopian custom, parents wait to name a baby because children often die in the first weeks of life.

I actually feel like women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain when we consider all of the people who are really struggling and don’t have the means or support. Many people are single, raising children. That’s hard.

My son complains about headaches. I tell him all the time, when you get out of bed, it’s feet first!

Mum had done everything you need to educate a kid. She made me a kid who likes books and she told me about ‚Wind in the Willows‘ and read it and I thought this is weird, Rat, Mole, Toad and my first ever Bolshie thought – you know about ‚The Wind in the Willows.‘

I still learn, but I think it’s the best thing in life to have a kid.

I was kind of secretly hoping one of my kids would go out and make a million bucks. So when they put me in a home, at least I’ll have a window with a view.

I didn’t start sweating until I had children. That was one of the first things I realized when my daughter Violet was born – I started getting wicked BO. You know there’s a difference between basketball BO and stress BO? This was definitely stress BO. Like, new dad BO.

I’ve said this time and again: My greatest concern coming into the White House was making sure my girls came out whole and normal, and decent and kind, just like I would expect them to if we were living on the South Side of Chicago. And it takes work to keep White House life normal for the kids.

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

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 can encourage my daughter to love her body, but what really matters are the observations she makes about my relationship with my own body.

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.

Even if we give parents all the information they need and we improve school meals and build brand new supermarkets on every corner, none of that matters if when families step into a restaurant, they can’t make a healthy choice.

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature’s gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.

Actually, I didn’t start sweating until I had children.

Do I worry about being in the public eye and raising kids? Yeah. Any situation you’re in, you’re gonna worry about raising kids. But it’s champagne problems, too. There are people who can’t feed their kids.

I think about my own sons and my own daughters, and I’m sure that many parents are concerned about what their children are exposed to.

Historically, the family has played the primary role in educating children for life, with the school providing supplemental scaffolding to the family.

The kids never listen to you, especially the youngest ones.

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.

It takes three to make a child.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

As a father and now a grandfather to three wonderful grandchildren, I know how magical the first year of a child’s life is but also how much hard work it takes. Being able to spend as much time as possible with your loved ones is absolutely vital, especially early on.

I’ve told Billy if I ever caught him cheating, I wouldn’t kill him because I love his children and they need a dad. But I would beat him up. I know where all of his sports injuries are.

Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people’s children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.

I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: ‚Checkout Time is 18 years.‘

You learn that there’s no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. It’s just what you feel comfortable with, to trust that, and don’t let anybody box you in to a certain style of parenting or make you feel a certain way about what your kids do.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

I’ve always put everybody else’s child first before my own health, before my own outfit, before my own time frame.

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.

First and foremost, we need to be the adults we want our children to be. We should watch our own gossiping and anger. We should model the kindness we want to see.

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

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.

When I take my kid to school, all the parents stop and stare.

When you have two busy kids running around the house, returning e-mails is a task, let alone surfing the web.

Everything I do, I hope, is that I represent something, and I represent the right things to my children and give them the right sense of what they’re capable of and the world as it should be seen.

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

There’s nothing better than having a baby. I’ve always loved children. I used to work summers at the YMCA and be in charge of, like, 30 preschool kids. I knew that when I had a child, I’d be overwhelmed, and it’s true… I can’t tell you how much my attitude has changed since we’ve got Frances. Holding my baby is the best drug in the world.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

As a father, safety is always a top of mind issue for me.

My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

My children came out as individuals in their own right. They were not my products. They had their own characters and were very strong-minded. I gave them a lot of freedom when they were still very young. The one thing they got from me is morals. They would never betray anyone. They are really good people.

I have ‚Parents‘ magazine in my home.

It’s true that I’ve never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents.

The kids are old enough now – I just want to let them be kids. I don’t want to comment on them too much. They’re at an age where I just want to let them be kids.

I had to make a choice at one point in my life, of missing films or missing my children. It was a very easy decision to make because I missed my children so very much.

When you have kids, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It’s inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting.

I became the kind of parent my mother was to me.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

I have a lot of other stuff to accomplish before I get to kids. Whenever the time is right, I’ll just know. If I had a girl, she’d probably be really rebellious. She would be like a bundle of karma. I would love to bring them up in Barbados.

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

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I’m not downplaying that.

Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

I just want to make sure when I have kids, I can spend time with them. That’s the whole point.

Giving responsibility is the key to success with boys, especially with the rowdiest and most difficult boys.

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

My own eight children all march to the beat of their inner music, and in some cases, it is definitely far away from what I hear. I’ve had to honor their instincts and their choices, and merely guided them out of harm’s way until they could be their own guides.