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

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’ve always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks – you learn craft, you learn structure, all that – as you go.

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.

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.

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

As a mom, I know it is my responsibility, and no one else’s, to raise my kids. But we have to ask ourselves, what does it mean when so many parents are finding their best efforts undermined by an avalanche of advertisements aimed at our kids.

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.

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.

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.

All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.

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

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.

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

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

The great thing about having a bunch of kids is they just remind you that you’re the person who takes them to go poop!

As a country, we can’t teach kids how to read and write when we got 18 years to do it. And that’s – that’s a disgrace.

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.

I want my kids to see me as Dad, for God’s sake, not a television personality.

Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family 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.

There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid.

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.

My husband and I had to raise five of my younger brothers and sisters. They lived with us. We sent them to school.

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

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

Surely wisdom will come as we listen to learn from children, parents, partners, neighbors, Church leaders, and the Lord.

I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.

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.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

Teaching’s hard! You need different skills: positive reinforcement, keeping students from getting bored, commanding their attention in a certain way.

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.

Like every parent, when you start your family, your life completely changes. And you completely live for someone else. I find that the most extraordinary thing. Your life is handed over to someone else. From that moment on, they come first in every choice you make. It’s the most wonderful thing.

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

If you’re the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I’m a parent. I have daughters.

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.

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

My three children have brought me great joy.

As a father, I always want my son to be perfect. When he was young, I tried to train him in martial arts, but he said, ‚I don’t want to become like Bruce Lee’s son, with everybody telling me how good my father was.‘ I just think my son is too lazy.

To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.

I’m just wanting to make the proper breakfast and keep the house. That’s my passion. At the request of my kids, I’m taking cooking classes. As I go to sleep at night, I think, ‚Did I do a great job as a mom, or was that an average day?‘

I think about the milestones from my childhood and what it will be like to watch our kids go through them. Taking Riley to her first day of school was a whirlwind. I can’t imagine what middle school is going to be like, and high school, and graduation.

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, old folks, sick folks.

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

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

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.

My son is becoming me – just a silly, silly prankster guy.

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.

I don’t take pictures when I’m with my kids, for the sake of my kids. It’s important when you’re as busy as I am that you give your kids your time when you’re with them, and nothing compromises that. I’ve been lucky enough to have fans that understand that.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

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.

What gift has providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children?

To bring a healthy child into this world, raise them right and watch them grow is the biggest miracle there is.

It wasn’t so long ago that I was a working mom myself. And I know that sometimes, much as we all hate to admit it, it’s just easier to park the kids in front of the TV for a few hours, so we can pay the bills or do the laundry or just have some peace and quiet for a change.

My friends ask me if I want more kids, and I always say yes, I want more; it’s the best thing you can have in your life.

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.