#parenting

Don't try to make children grow up to be like you, or they may do it. ↗

— Russell Baker

#children #grow #grow up #like #make

Loving a child doesn't mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult. ↗

— Nadia Boulanger

#best #bring #child #difficult #giving

We're living in a time when parenting is not at all mirroring the way I was parented. For me, I just followed my parents around on their errands; when they were busy on the phone, I was quiet. It's a different kettle of fish these days: They run the house, and you listen to their music, and you go to their appointments. ↗

— Edie Falco

#around #busy #days #different #fish

They visited him in saris, clumping gracelessly through red mud and long grass ... and introduced themselves as Mrs. Pillai, Mrs. Eapen and Mrs. Rajagopalan. Velutha introduced himself and his paralyzed brother Kuttappen (although he was fast asleep). He greeted them with the utmost courtesy. He addressed them all as Kochamma [an honorific title for a woman] and gave them fresh coconut water to drink. He chatted to them about the weather. The river. The fact that in his opinion coconut trees were getting shorter by the year. As were the ladies in Ayemenem. He introduced them to his surly hen. He showed them his carpentry tools, and whittled them each a little wooden spoon. It is only now, these years later, that Rahel with adult hindsight recognized the sweetness of that gesture. A grown man entertaining three raccoons, treating them like real ladies. Instinctively colluding in the conspiracy of their fiction, taking care not to decimate it with adult carelessness. Or affection. [emphasis mine] It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain. To let it be, to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do. ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#imagination #love #make-believe #parenting #dreams

I wasn't very good about juggling family and my career. I was interested in who was coming to the children's birthday party, what my son was writing. I was thinking about Legos. ↗

— Jill Clayburgh

#about #birthday #birthday party #career #children

My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own fatherhood, but it didn't because parenting can only be learned by people who have no children. ↗

— Bill Cosby

#childhood #children #fatherhood #learned #lessons

It's a huge change for your body. You don't even want to look in the mirror after you've had a baby, because your stomach is just hanging there like a Shar-Pei. ↗

— Cindy Crawford

#after #baby #because #body #change

Got any mood music?” “If you press Play on the stereo you’re going to hear Miley Cyrus.” “I don’t know who that is.” “Count your blessings. ↗

— Tere Michaels

#parenting-humor #faith

Women without children are also the best of mothers,often, with the patience,interest, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot always sustain. I come to crave our talk and our daughters gain precious aunts. Women who are not mothering their own children have the clarity and focus to see deeply into the character of children webbed by family. A child is fortuante who feels witnessed as a peron,outside relationships with parents by another adult. ↗

— Louise Erdrich

#family #parenting #family

Oh, Zoeybird, did I call your mother's husband a damn turd monkey outloud?' 'Yes, Grandma, you did.' She looked at me, her dark eyes sparkling. 'Good. ↗

— P.C. Cast

#chosen #funny-things-grandparents-say #house-of-night #turd-monkey #funny