#pare

We came around the corner and stood in the doorway of what looked like a paint-testing ground. This was where we proved once and for all that we were good loving parents. We decided to let him live. "What is painting doing in my best Tupperware bowl?" I yelled. "Well, I needed something lightweight I could carry around with me," he began. "You've been carrying around a brain for year," the boy's father said. ↗

— Sylvia Harney

#home-disasters #humor #parents #sarcasm #home

It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech. ↗

— Mark Twain

#preparedness #humor

I hope someday she meets just the right man and has babies - a whole passel of babies, more than I could have - so she understands how it kills me now that she won't let me hug her when she's in obvious distress. (The Life You've Imagined) ↗

— Kristina Riggle

#daughters #denial #love #motherhood #mothers

Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness. For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable. ↗

— Kahlil Gibran

#dreams

Little tree filled his lungs with the white airness of the night, as if he were going to fly. The living voice of his parents. Elisha's eyes. These were reasons enough to set off on another adventure. Reasons to be Toby Lolness again. ↗

— Timothée de Fombelle

#elisha #little #living #parents #reasons

In the mystifying world that was Victorian parenthood, obedience took precedence over all considerations of affection and happiness, and that odd, painful conviction remained the case in most well-heeled homes up until at least the time of the First World War. ↗

— Bill Bryson

#parenthood #victorian-era #home

Aw, man. I’d just shot an angel in the face.I made my way into the foyer and sat down on the stairs. I glanced up at the big old grandfather clock. It was going on ten. My folks would be home soon. “How was your evening, honey?” “Killed an angel.” “Well, isn’t that nice.” That wasn’t happening. Daddy never liked guns in the first place, Mother just pretended to. I was so grounded. ↗

— Adrienne Kress

#parents #riley #shotgun #home

It would be autumn, and our fathers would be out threshing in the fields. We would walk through the mulberry groves, past the big loquat tree and the old lotus pond, where we used to catch tadpoles in the spring. Our dogs would come running up to us. Our neighbours would wave. Our mothers would be sitting by the well with their sleeves tied up, washing the evening's rice. And when they saw us they would just stand up and stare. "Little girl," they would say to us, "where in the world have you been? ↗

— Julie Otsuka

#parents #return #home

I mean, when the world comes for your children, with the knives out, it's your job to stand in the way. ↗

— Joe Hill

#parental-love #parenting #love

Jumping, waving arms, cheering, laughing, head-butting him in the groin, an unfortunate ritual in the Tanner home, very much unappreciated by Jim, but tolerated for the sake of the children, Grace, Bobby and Steven joined Jason next to their father. ↗

— Mike Jackson

#parenting #home