#pare

I couldn't make myself imagine Dad holding some creamy-faced baby, cooing at it, telling it he loved it. Taking it to baseball games. Living some life he'd probably consider his 'real life,' the one he deserved rather than the one he got. ↗

— Jennifer Brown

#fathers-and-daughters #parents #imagination

People who have babies tell me I will know a love that is beyond anything I can imagine, and a joy that is indescribable. Love and joy? That sounds horrifying. I have no way of knowing whether I can handle either of those. I'm much better with need and fear. They are what ground me. ↗

— Marc Maron

#fear #humor #parenting #imagination

People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wasn't getting ready for them. It didn't even know they were there. ↗

— Cormac McCarthy

#life #preparedness #life

The sound of her breathing reminded me, as it so often did, of how vulnerable she was. And how vulnerable we were because of how much we loved her. The fear - that something could happen to her at any moment, something I'd be helpless to stop - had become so omnipresent in my life that I sometimes pictured it growing, like a third arm, out of the center of my chest. ↗

— Dennis Lehane

#life

I didn’t know how I could live with that knowledge, without it eating me up, without it poisoning every happy memory I had of growing up. Without it ruining everything Beck and I had. I didn’t understand how someone could be both God and the devil. How the same person could destroy you and save you. When everything I was, good and bad, was knotted with threads of his making, how was I supposed to know whether to love or hate him? ↗

— Maggie Stiefvater

#love #parenting #sam-roth #love

You can't make your kids do anything. All you can do is make them wish they had. And then, they will make you wish you hadn't made them wish they had. ↗

— Marshall B. Rosenberg

#compassion #discipline #love #parenting #love

Pure, unadulterated, consistent love for God and pure, unadulterated, consistent love for others is the summation of all the law God has given us in both the Old and New Testaments. Of course, the problem is that we never obey these simple commands. We always love ourselves more than we love God or others. We are always erecting idols in our hearts and worshipping and serving them. We are always more focused on what we want and how we might get it than we are on loving Him and laying down our life for others. The law does show us the right way to live, but none of us obeys it. Not for one millisecond. Even though our children cannot and will not obey God's law, we need to teach it to them again and again. And when they tell us that they can't love God or others in this way, we are not to argue with them. We are to agree with them and tell them of their need for a Savior. ↗

— Elyse Fitzpatrick

#parenting #life

Daddy, are you going to yell at us some more today?' Neary gazed down into her clear, guileless eyes. That was how he looked to her---a yelling machine. And she was prepared to accept more yelling because she loved him. ↗

— Steven Spielberg

#love

It's quite sad that so many children go through life unsure whether their parents love them or not. ↗

— Wayne Gerard Trotman

#insecurity #love #parenthood #parents #life

It's the curse of motherhood. You're required to love us even when we vex you. ↗

— Julia Quinn

#motherhood #parenting-children #love