parenting quotes

I look at how my kids view exercise. They have a complete understanding that nutrition and exercise go hand in hand. I didn’t think like that when I was a kid. But they have a real consciousness about it that I’d like to think comes from the years of attention we’ve put into this.

For an Ethiopian mother, if you have a chubby kid, it means you’re doing something good.

Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.

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

Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, ‚A house guest,‘ you’re wrong because I have just described my kids.

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 is a ‚sanctity‘ involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it.

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.

Homework’s hard. Especially math. My kids joke with me. They tell me they have homework. I say, ‚Okay.‘ And then I sit down and they say, ‚It’s math.‘ ‚No! Not math! English, history, anything!‘

When I was a kid, I had a tendency to criticize. But when I did, my mum would whisk me off to the bathroom to stand in front of a mirror. Ten minutes, never less. To think about how criticism is a poor reflection on the one who criticizes.

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.

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

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

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is.

I do not think that I am a natural born mother… If I ever wanted to mother anyone, it was my father.

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.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

My mother was a full-time mother. She didn’t have much of her own career, her own life, her own experiences… everything was for her children. I will never be as good a mother as she was. She was just grace incarnate. She was the most generous, loving – she’s better than me.

I don’t think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib.

The side of fairytales I don’t like is that they always have happy endings, that there’s just good and evil, and things are perfect. But life is a little more complicated, and that’s what I try to teach my kids.

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.

Children are our most valuable natural resource.

I’m dying to be a great dad one day, whenever that day comes.

It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.

I’ve never lived my life in the opinion of others. I believe I’m a good person. I believe I’m a good mom. But that’s for my kids to decide, not for the world.

Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.

I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

Once you have six children, you’re committed.

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

When I was growing up, I wanted to adopt, because I was aware there were kids that didn’t have parents.

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.

I do not raise brats!

People wonder aloud about whether I am an okay mother. That is obviously painful because it’s so important to me. It’s hard to hear that people think I’m not a capable mother and a good person, that they just think I’m nuts.

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.

Train up a child in the way that he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

The loss of a child is my greatest nightmare.

Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors, but we also want them to be around film and be a part of Mommy and Daddy’s life and for it not to be kept from them, either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it.

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

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.

I want to work; then, as my kids get older, I want to have adventures. I want to visit all their countries: learn and live inside all their cultures.

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!

All parents are concerned about their children’s well-being. As a parent of three kids, I’m very concerned about their well-being.

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.

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.

Our lifestyle was not in any way a negative. That was not the problem. That is and will remain one of the wonderful opportunities we are able to give our children.

I always tried to do things by example, even though I was not a very good mother regarding routines and family life.

I understand the importance of bondage between parent and child.

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.

We think it’s fun for our kids to have cameos and join us on set, but not to be actors. That’s not our goal for Brad and me at all. I think we would both prefer that they didn’t become actors.

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.

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

Treat your children like the blessings they are or don’t have them at all.

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.

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

My parents were just constantly affirming me in everything that I did. Late at night, I’d wake up and hear my mother talking over my bed, saying, ‚You’re going to do great on this test. You can do anything you want.‘