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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #chi
N'en déplaise aux bêtifications des nouveaux adultes occidentaux, n'en déplaise à cette nouvelle religion - la seule, au fond, qui tienne et fasse même l'unanimité - selon laquelle l'enfance, en tant que telle, serait pure, sainte, source de vérité, de beauté, de morale, on peut être un enfant et être un monstre. Alors, d'accord pour la cause des enfants suppliciés. D'accord pour, à l'Onu et ailleurs, lancer des actions en vue de tirer le maximum d'enfants de cet enfer que sont les guerres. Mais pas d'accord pour alimenter à travers ces actions le vieux préjugé de l'enfance innocente et sacrés. (ch. 19 La nuit des enfants-soldats ↗
Why isn't there a commandment to "honor thy children" or at least one to "not abuse thy children"? The notion that we must honor our parents causes many people to bury their real feelings and set aside their own needs in order to have a relationship with people they would otherwise not associate with. Parents, like anyone else, need to earn respect and honor, and honoring parents who are negative and abusive is not only impossible but extremely self-abusive. Perhaps, as with anything else, honoring our parents starts with honoring ourselves. For many adult children, honoring themselves means not having anything to do with one or both of their parents. ↗
Why are you being so nice to me?' I asked her. 'You know,' she said, 'when you say stuff like that I just want to slap you.' 'What?' 'You heard me.' She picked up her beer and took a swallow, still watching me. Then she said, 'Colie, you should never be surprised when people treat you with respect. You should expect it.' I shook my head. 'You don’t know-' I began. But, as usual, she didn’t let me finish. 'Yes,' she said simply. 'I do know. I’ve watched you, Colie. You walk around like a dog waiting to be kicked, and when someone does, you pout and cry like you didn’t deserve it.' 'No one deserves to be kicked,' I said. 'I disagree,' she said flatly. 'You do if you don’t think you’re worth any better. ↗
Leadership isn't about power for the sake of power - not true leadership. Instead it deals with modeling behavior you want others to have, and with responsibility for being certain the people you lead are treated equitably, and with respect. Not an easy task. You can't make other people feel anything, or think anything; you can only try to teach them what you want them to feel and think and why you think they should act accordingly. ↗
#modeling-behavior #teaching-as-leadership #teachings #leadership
In the spring of 2009, I was the 217th person ever to be diagnosed with anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis. Just a year later, that figure had doubled. Now the number is in the thousands. Yet Dr. Bailey, considered one of the best neurologists in the country, had never heard of it. When we live in a time when the rate of misdiagnoses has shown no improvement since the 1930s, the lesson here is that it’s important to always get a second opinion. While he may be an excellent doctor in many respects, Dr. Bailey is also, in some ways, a perfect example of what is wrong with medicine. I was just a number to him (and if he saw thirty-five patients a day, as he told me, that means I was one of a very large number). He is a by-product of a defective system that forces neurologists to spend five minutes with X number of patients a day to maintain their bottom line. It’s a bad system. Dr. Bailey is not the exception to the rule. He is the rule. ↗
Had I catalogued the downsides of parenthood, "son might turn out to be a killer" would never have turned up on the list. Rather, it might have looked something like this: 1. Hassle. 2. Less time just the two of us. (Try no time just the two of us.) 3. Other people. (PTA meetings. Ballet teachers. The kid's insufferable friends and their insufferable parents.) 4. Turing into a cow. (I was slight, and preferred to stay that way. My sister-in-law had developed bulging varicose veins in her legs during pregnancy that never retreated, and the prospect of calves branched in blue tree roots mortified me more than I could say. So I didn't say. I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not.) 5. Unnatural altruism: being forced to make decisions in accordance with what was best for someone else. (I'm a pig.) 6. Curtailment of my traveling. (Note curtailment. Not conclusion.) 7. Dementing boredom. (I found small children brutally dull. I did, even at the outset, admit this to myself.) 8. Worthless social life. (I had never had a decent conversation with a friend's five-year-old in the room.) 9. Social demotion. (I was a respected entrepreneur. Once I had a toddler in tow, every man I knew--every woman, too, which is depressing--would take me less seriously.) 10. Paying the piper. (Parenthood repays a debt. But who wants to pay a debt she can escape? Apparently, the childless get away with something sneaky. Besides, what good is repaying a debt to the wrong party? Only the most warped mother would feel rewarded for her trouble by the fact that at last her daughter's life is hideous, too.) ↗
#kids #motherhood #parenting #life
