Parenting Quotes

A father's goodness is higher than the mountain, a mother's goodness deeper than the sea.
-- Japanese Proverb



A person soon learns how little he knows when a child begins to ask questions.
-- Richard L. Evans



Affection without sentiment, authority without cruelty, discipline without aggression, humor without ridicule, sacrifice without obligation, companionship without possessiveness.
-- William E. Blatz



Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child's life and it's like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities.
-- Gary Smalley



Always kiss your children goodnight - even if they're already asleep.
-- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.



Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.
-- John Wilmot



Children are the proof we've been here... they are the best thing and the most impossible thing.
-- Allison Pearson, I Don't Know How she Does It

Children keep us in check. Their laughter prevents our hearts from hardening. Their dreams ensure we never lose our drive to make ours a better world. They are the greatest disciplinarians known to mankind.
-- Queen Rania of Jordan, Hello Magazine



Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.
-- Charles R. Swindoll



Don't demand respect as a parent. Demand civility and insist on honesty. But respect is something you must earn -- with kids as well as with adults.
-- William Attwood



God sends children to enlarge our hearts, and make us unselfish and full of kindly sympathies and affections.
-- Mary Howitt



I just want my kids to love who they are, have happy lives and find something they want to do and make peace with that. Your job as a parent is to give your kids not only the instincts and talents to survive, but help them enjoy their lives.
-- Susan Sarandon, Readers' Digest, May 2002

I looked on childrearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully interesting and challenging as any honourable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it.
-- Rose Kennedy



If I had my child to raise all over again,
I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I'd finger-paint more, and point the finger less.
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.
I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.
I'd do more hugging and less tugging.
-- Diane Loomans, from "If I Had My Child To Raise Over Again"



If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers.
-- Edgar W. Howe



If you have never been hated by your child you have never been a parent.
-- Bette Davis



If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.
-- Abigail Van Buren



I'm moved by contraries, by opposites, the strength that was my mother's eyes, the beauty of my father's hands.
-- Judith Jamison



In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck - and, of course, courage.
-- Bill Cosby



It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't.
-- Barbara Kingsolver



It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.
-- Joyce Maynard



Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation.
-- C. Everet Koop, M.D.



Love is giving someone your undivided attention.
-- Author Unknown



Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents.
-- Abraham Lincoln



Lucky parents who have fine children usually have lucky children who have fine parents.
-- James A. Brewer



Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
-- Elizabeth Stone



Many have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You remain responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
-- Antoine De Saint-Exupery



No one knows how children will turn out; a great tree often springs from a tender plant.
-- Norwegian proverb



One who walks the road with love will never walk the road alone.
-- C. T. Davis



Parents who are afraid to put their foot down usually have children who tread on their toes.
-- Chinese Proverb



Parenthood is a lot easier to get into than out of.
-- Bruce Lansky



Parenthood, its not a job. It's an adventure!
-- Author Unknown



Parenthood: The state of being better chaperoned than you were before marriage.
-- Marcelene Cox



Parents can tell but never teach, unless they practice what they preach.
-- Arnold Glasow



Parents: People who spend half their time wondering how their children will turn out, and the rest of the time when they will turn in.
-- Eleanor Graham Vance



Praise your children and they will blossom!
-- Author Unknown



Presence is more than just being there.
-- Malcolm Forbes



Raising children is like making biscuits: it is as easy to raise a big batch as one, while you have your hands in the dough.
-- E.W. Howe



Taking time and sharing is the essence of teaching. The future of those we cherish, will be a reflection of what we model today.
-- Author Unknown



The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day.
-- O. A. Battista



The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.
-- Benjamin Spock



The first art of being a parent consists in sleeping when the baby isn't looking.
-- Author Unknown



The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard.
-- Sloan Wilson



The Hebrew word for parents is horim, and it comes from the same root as moreh, teacher. The parent is, and remains, the first and most important teacher that the child will have.
-- Rabbi Kassel Abelson



The problem with being a parent is that by the time you are experienced, you are usually unemployed.
-- Author Unknown



The real menance about dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old.
-- Jean Kerr



The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children they are heaven's lieutenants.
-- Shakespeare



The world talks to the mind. Parents speak more intimately -- they talk to the heart.
-- Hain Ginott



There are times when parenthood seems nothing but feeding the mouth that bites you.
-- Peter de Vries



There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings.
-- Hodding Carter, Jr.



There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.
-- Henry Ward Beecher



The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them.
-- Frank A. Clark



To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.
-- Josh Billings



To nourish children and raise them against the odds is, in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.
-- Marilyn French



We may be blinded by our own perceived flaws, but those who love us have clearer vision.
-- Sarah Ban Breathnach



We never know the love of our parents for us until we have become parents.
-- Henry Ward Beecher



When we choose to be parents, we accept another human being as part of ourselves, and a large part of our emotional selves will stay with that person as long as we live. From that time on, there will be another person on this earth whose orbit around us will affect us as surely as the moon affects the tides, and affect us in some ways more deeply than anyone else can. Our children are extensions of ourselves.
-- Fred Rogers



When you have children yourself, you begin to understand what you owe your parents.
-- Japanese Proverb



You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
-- Kahlil Gibran



You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around - and why his parents will always wave back.
-- William D. Tammeus



You have a lifetime to work, but children are only young once.
-- Polish Proverb