Parents



1. “Because of my lack of life experience, I will always cherish and follow your advice”, said no teenager to a parent ever.
– Unknown


2. The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.
– Denis Waitley


3. Welcome to being the parent of a teenager.  Prepare for a large amount of eye rolling, emotional outbursts, and thoughts of running away.  And that’s just the parents.
– Unknown


4. The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.
– Unknown


5. Parenting isn’t a practice.  It’s a daily learning experience.
– Unknown


6. Parenting without a sense of humor is like being an accountant who sucks at math.
– Unknown


7. Before I got married I had six theories about raising children; now, I have six children and no theories.
– John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647-1680)


8. To bring up a child in the way he should go – travel that way yourself.
– Josh Billings


9. Making the  decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body.
– Elizabeth Stone


10. When your parents say ‘Because I said so,’ you know you made a good argument.
– Unknown


11. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.
– J.K. Rowling


12. Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.
– Anne Frank


13. There are times as a parent when you realize that your job is not to be the parent you always imagined you’d be, the parent you always wished you had. Your job is to be the parent your child needs, given the particulars of his or her own life and nature.
– Ayelet Waldman


14. Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.
– Robert Fulghum


15. When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.
– Mark Twain


16. When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you feed a stray cat, and I thought it was good to be kind to animals.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you make my favorite cake for me, and I knew that little things are special things.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I heard you say a prayer, and I believed there is a God I could always talk to.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I felt you kiss me goodnight, and I felt loved.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw that you cared, and I wanted to be everything that I could be.
When you thought I wasn’t looking, I LOOKED… and wanted to say thanks for all the things I saw when you thought I wasn’t looking.
– Unknown


17. The dumbest thing is when parents say, “This isn’t how I raised you”  Like ????????????.  Yes, it really is how you literally raised me and here I am.
– Teenager Post #14850, teenager posts.tu,bler.com

18. The long discussions and painful arguments of adolescence and the fierce loyalties to teachers, heroes, and gurus during the teenage years are simply our children’s struggles to ensure that the lifestyles and values they adopt are worthy of their allegiance.
– Neil Kurshan (20th century), Rabbi. Raising Your Child to Be a Mensch

19. Negotiating the adolescent stage is neither quick nor easy. . . . I have often said to parents, “If it isn’t illegal, immoral, or fattening, give it your blessing.” We do much better . . . if we find and support all the places we can appropriately say yes, and say only the no’s that really matter
– Virginia Satir (20th century), family therapist and author. The New Peoplemaking,

20. By the time I realized my parents were right, I had kids that didn’t believe me.
– Hussein Nishah

21. Youth is a time of rapid change.  Between the ages of twelve and seventeen, a parent can age thirty years.
– Unknown

22. The first thing I think every time my kid hits a new age is, “Oh look, it didn’t get easier.”
– Unknown

23. If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.  That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise.  They will have a life-long way to build and repair their own confidence.
– Carol Dweck

24. When you talk to your child, mostly listen
– Cindy Cashman, Wisdom for Mothers

25. Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.
– Alvin Toffler

26. Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own.
– Doug Larson

27. Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.
– Ogden Nash

28. Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.
– Garrison Keillor

29. Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
– James Baldwin

30. Perhaps it takes courage to raise children
– John Steinbeck, East of Eden

31. We never know the love of a parent until we become parents ourselves.
– Ward Beecher

32. Mother Nature is providential. She gives us twelve years to develop a love for our children before turning them into teenagers.
– William Galvin

33. Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
– Unknown

34. Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going.
– Phyllis Diller

35. Telling a teenager the facts of life is like giving a fish a bath.
– Arnold H. Glasgow

36. If you think I’m being mean, it means I’m doing my job.  If I was nice, you’d call me Grandma.
– Unknown

37. Parenting is hard.  That’s it.  That’s all I’ve got.
– Unknown

38. Not to brag, but I can make my teen crabby just by saying “hello.”
– Unknown

39. The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic.  It requires the most intense love on the mother’s side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.
– Eric Fromm