Top 250 Parenting Quotes

If two very different people pool their DNA, they’ll create more genetic variety, and their young will come to the job of parenting with a wider array of skills.

Sociologists well understand that chaos at home causes violent behavior, educational failure and social alienation among children. Yet, many of us in America stay far, far away from this topic. That in itself is a national scandal. Bad parenting is gravely harming this nation.

I think a generation ago, dads went to work, they came home, and they had their dinner, had a drink, and then went to bed. I don’t know what it was like in your house, but that is how it was in mine. I think it is cool to have the dads in the trenches and doing the real parenting work.

I’m tired but grateful: choosing to blend parenting and public service has made me a more confident mother and a better legislator.

It’s hard enough to work and raise a family when your kids are all healthy and relatively normal, but when you add on some kind of disability or disease, it can just be such a burden.

People who choose not to have kids do so because they respect the job of parenting so much that they know not to take it on if they know it’s not something that they’re up for, and I don’t know what to be a bigger tribute to parenting than that.

If I meet a wise person, I think, ‘Yes, tell me more about parenting, about marriage, about how to stay in love. Tell me more about how to be a decent person living in a world that’s filled with chaos.’

We all, as parents, are laughing at ourselves and helicopter parenting and saying, ‘This isn’t the way we were parented; we were allowed to run free.’ When I talk to my friends, we are all fascinated by what we are doing, but we can’t seem to stop ourselves.

Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.

The family teaches us about the importance of knowledge, education, hard work and effort. It teaches us about enjoying ourselves, having fun, keeping fit and healthy.

As a father you’re guilty until proven innocent. You’re a second class citizen in terms of parenting. As a father you have to prove your ability to be a father whilst residence, power and control is left solely with the mother.

My mother was the influence in my life. She was strong; she had great faith in the ultimate triumph of justice and hard work. She believed passionately in education.

The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving.

We’ve had bad luck with our kids – they’ve all grown up.

If there is any truth to my parenting the dreamwork movement, it comes from the power of the press.

With respect to parenting, biological age is not, for men, the concern it is for women.

Some have said that ‘Frankenstein‘ is a story of a bad parenting giving rise to a troubled child.

It’s really hard to figure out what they need to know. And that’s parenting, in general. It’s hard to figure out what would benefit your kids and what would just make them needlessly frightened.

Parenting is no sport for perfectionists.

I can only speak for my husband and myself, but we don’t feel like we could do any of this parenting without our faith.

Certainly, workers in many industries do not have the privilege of being able to balance parenting at the workplace, and we must fight especially hard to support working parents in low-wage jobs.

All children will do things that you may not want them to. That’s part of parenting.

It’s interesting as a mom to reflect on your own parenting skills. The core of our beliefs may stay the same, but our perspective changes over the years and evolves with each child that comes through us.

I have a neuroscience background – that’s what my doctorate is in – and I was trained to study hormones of attachment, so I definitely feel my parenting is informed by that.

For decades, parents were told by so-called parenting ‘experts‘ that offspring would be best raised on the belief each is special and entitled to all life has to offer.

There’s really no point in having children if you’re not going to be home enough to father them.

Every word, facial expression, gesture, or action on the part of a parent gives the child some message about self-worth. It is sad that so many parents don’t realize what messages they are sending.

That’s my parenting style – ‘Go watch the TV.’ I’m one of 11 children, and my mother’s parenting style was, ‘There’s the TV. Go watch it. Mommy‘s got 10 other people to take care of.’

If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency.

In many ways, I don’t think journalism is any different from banking. And I don’t think that banking is any different from parenting.

Being a father of three children and grandfather to nine, I do think that this thing called ‘parenting’ is becoming increasingly difficult.

America’s parenting customs can shock foreigners.

Mom and Dad would stay in bed on Sunday morning, but the kids would have to go to church.

Parenting is an impossible job at any age.

In Los Angeles, parenting is a competitive sport. From Beverly Hills baby boutiques to kids’ yoga classes, L.A. fuses high style, industrial-strength materialism, and parental outsourcing into our own unique version of child-rearing.

Happiness is not always through success. Equally, the constant pursuit of success is sure unhappiness. But we have to find the balance. My own thoughts are that parenting is very personal. And we all feel enormous insecurity about parenting. What are they going to think of us 20 years down the line?

There is a lot of parenting that’s completely out of your control, but I think we live in an era right now where we think if, God forbid, you couldn’t talk to someone, you would flip out – you know what I mean?

I think there’s been a big psychological shift in people my age raising children. The world that they are growing into requires a different style of parenting.

As a rule, I try to steer clear of opinions pertaining to your parenting. I assume you’re doing the best you can, and God bless.

Edith Vonnegut behaved like a guest in her children’s lives. To her way of thinking, parenting came under the general heading of household tasks, which, as a wealthy woman, she could pay others to do.

You know, parenting is so personal. And we’re all afraid that we didn’t quite get it right. And it feels like the stakes are so high. By we – what if we made a mistake?

I’m torn about late parenting. I believe people should spend their twenties living and having fun and not having any regrets later. I also think people in their thirties generally make better parents but so many of my friends are having trouble – myself included – as fathers get older.

Family life was wonderful. The streets were bleak. The playgrounds were bleak. But home was always warm. My mother and father had a great relationship. I always felt ‘safe‘ there.

Parenting put music in the right place for me. Touring was always the first priority before, but it isn’t any more. And, paradoxically, that has made my ability to make music much easier.

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

Listen to the desires of your children. Encourage them and then give them the autonomy to make their own decision.

My best parenting advice would be not to take the job too seriously. Teach your kids to be nice, and everything else falls into place.

Whether I’m running, working, relating, parenting, learning – whatever I’m doing, I want to surround myself with people who push me.

I hate the idea of parenting being this false perfect picture. It’s challenging and difficult at times. I like the fact I can be honest about that and people seem to respect that.

With parenting, like any other skill in life, practice makes perfect.

I realize that of all people, I am no expert on parenting or marriage.

The best parenting advice I actually got was from Shane McMahon. He was great with me when Brie was pregnant and all that. He said, ‘When you have that baby, make sure you take care of Brie first.’

I suppose it’s amazing how quick life goes by when you have children.

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.

Screaming at children over their grades, especially to the point of the child’s tears, is child abuse, pure and simple. It’s not funny and it’s not good parenting. It is a crushing, scarring, disastrous experience for the child. It isn’t the least bit funny.

My parents were definitely on the incentive side of parenting. Like, they told me that my father had learned to read when he was three. So, of course, I thought I had to, too.

The secret to success, to parenting, to life, is to not count up the cost. Don’t focus on all the steps it will take. Don’t stare into the abyss at the giant leap it will take. That view will keep you from taking the next small step.

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.

Perfectionism is really a challenge for me, and it causes me to be super-critical of myself in so many ways: about body image constantly; about parenting; about being a mother.

I had a pretty well-adjusted style of parenting. I think my parents were very young, very open. I think I learned many things from them: etiquette and grace, compassion and charity. And who I am today is due to a lot of attributes of my parents.

Attachment parenting demands not just certain actions you take with your baby but also certain emotional states to accompany those actions.

Any parent who says parenting came easily to them is not being honest with themselves. Parenting is hard.

In response to our fast-food culture, a ‘slow food’ movement appeared. Out of hurried parenthood, a move toward slow parenting could be growing. With vital government supports for state-of-the-art public child care and paid parental leave, maybe we would be ready to try slow love and marriage.

In her second career as a minister, my mother defied a legacy of chauvinism to become a leader of our community, overseeing a church that served as a hub, offering parenting classes, a food pantry, after-school programming, and – in the wake of Hurricane Katrina – a lifeline to those ravaged by loss.

Parenting makes us better in so many regards.

Parents should not smoke in order to discourage their kids from smoking. A child is more likely to smoke when they have been raised in the environment of a smoker.

There have been a lot of times when work and parenting conflicted for me. Every day.

When I first learned I was pregnant with my son, I had only two firm convictions about parenting: I knew it was important, and I knew that I wanted to get it right. I was 29 at the time.

Too many people treat parenting like it’s the 20th item on their to-do list.

Parenting is not just about you and your kid; it’s also about whomever you’re parenting your child with. So there is a kind of ‘awareness‘ involved for everybody. It’s all about the way you interact with your child and participate in your child’s life.

To me luxury is to be at home with my daughter, and the occasional massage doesn’t hurt.

I’m not a parent, but it seems to me the nature of parenting is contingent, full of unexpected challenges – which is one of the wonderful and amazing things about it.

As a mother living in poverty, I don’t expect my parenting choices to be respected by default.

In parenthood, there’s so much fear around parenting in this day and age, and there’s so much fear around technology.

I believe that at least 70 percent of parenting goes to the mother. In our house, I’m the one who knows about all the school stuff, helps with the homework, organizes the play dates, and remembers the birthday parties.

Whatever needed to be done, I need to know how to do it just as well as my wife. You know, for us to be able to really balance the parenting. It was very humbling, and it was also, um – terrifying. Because, you know, giving a baby a bath for the first time is one of the scariest things you can do on this whole earth.

Parenting is a learning process.

So, you know, parenting is a very intimate and amazing experience and one of the best experiences of my life.

I would love to have kids one day. In fact, I’m pretty good with them. I grew up with five half-siblings, the youngest of whom is 11 years younger than me, so I think I learned some pretty cool parenting skills quite early on in life.

Children are our second chance to have a great parent-child relationship.

Too often, our societal norms still set up a false choice between parenting and professionalism.

Of course, the ideal scenario for parenting is obviously two parents of a mature age.

Dad needs to show an incredible amount of respect and humor and friendship toward his mate so the kids understand their parents are sexy, they’re fun, they do things together, they’re best friends. Kids learn by example. If I respect Mom, they’re going to respect Mom.

Nobody ever becomes an expert parent. But I think good parenting is about consistency. It’s about being there at big moments, but it’s also just the consistency of decision making. And it’s routine.

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.

The Golden Rule of Parenting is; do unto your children as you wish your parents had done unto you!

So much of my work is about children and/or parenting; it’s something I’m drawn to without being able to completely articulate why.

There’s nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, in trying to bend every child to match a one-size-fits-all notion of what it means to be a boy or girl of a specific age. Better to set a few parameters and then go with the flow. Call it ‘jazz parenting.’

Parenting is love, sure, but it’s as much about receiving love as it is giving it. Parenthood is a kind of vanity.

I’m worried about parents who aren’t parenting.

Parenting is not for sissies. You have to sacrifice and grow up.

We expect teachers to handle teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, and the failings of the family. Then we expect them to educate our children.

I think Lincoln had a unique parenting style. He let his kids run free and wild.

What lingers from the parent’s individual past, unresolved or incomplete, often becomes part of her or his irrational parenting.

A baby is born with a need to be loved – and never outgrows it.

You can make sure your kids make their beds and hang up their clothes and put their dishes in the dishwasher when you’re the one calling the shots. So, parenting alone, for me anyway, I think is almost easier, being single.

Parenting now is a two-way relationship where you learn from each other.

Mum and Dad had high expectations of us as human beings – it wasn’t just about education. It’s a fantastic way to go about parenting, and I aspire to that.

I think that good parenting should allow children to be children. That naivety and slightly open way of looking at the world is very valuable.

From politics to parenting, Christians have something to say.

We learn much of parenting from our own parents. My love for my father deepened profoundly when he was kind, patient, and understanding.

Leave part of the yard rough. Don’t manicure everything. Small children in particular love to turn over rocks and find bugs, and give them some space to do that. Take your child fishing. Take your child on hikes.

In my experience (I am the lone father of an eight-year-old boy who lost his mother when he was one year old), parenting is the most difficult of all jobs: forget your chief executives, editors, prime ministers and the like – parenting is far more challenging.

We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?

Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.

Becoming a father, I think it inevitably changes your perspective of life. I don’t get nearly enough sleep. And the simplest things in life are completely satisfying. I find you don’t have to do as much, like you don’t go on as many outings.

At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child’s success is the positive involvement of parents.

To be a good father and mother requires that the parents defer many of their own needs and desires in favor of the needs of their children. As a consequence of this sacrifice, conscientious parents develop a nobility of character and learn to put into practice the selfless truths taught by the Savior Himself.

I think the main parenting or education you do for your children is by way of being, and not by way of having guidelines or some agenda. I think that life itself is constantly bringing learning opportunities.

I barely have time for my own children. To adopt more children and not have time for them, that would be poor parenting on my part.

You hear so much awful stuff before you have a kid, like you’ll never sleep again, we always knew it would be utter garbage. We’re pretty relaxed people, the less stressed you are the more easy you’ll find parenting.

My son was five months old, and I built a makeshift studio in my living room so that I could do the attachment parenting approach and write the record at the same time. That was fortuitous, that we could build that in the house.

When you hold your baby in your arms the first time, and you think of all the things you can say and do to influence him, it’s a tremendous responsibility. What you do with him can influence not only him, but everyone he meets and not for a day or a month or a year but for time and eternity.

The parenting books didn’t work for me; I got my parenting lessons from everything but the books! And it was about figuring things out. So every time I had a thought, I would put down my conclusions and thoughts.

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.

People always want to give you advice about parenting. People who you’ve never met before will tell you you’re doing something wrong. And it’s quite similar in writing. People forget that you’re a human; they just want to give you their advice.

Parenting is more than a numbers game: it’s a question of whether people are equipped for the toughest job they will ever be asked to do.

Thing is, I went to a born-again Christian high school, was brought up in a traditional Mormon family where these ideas about parenting are of structure and sacrifice. To think outside of that idea of family and parenting that I’ve grown up with is tough but also very freeing.

Everywhere, people are discovering that doing things more slowly often means doing them better and enjoying them more. It means living life instead of rushing through it. You can apply this to everything from food to parenting to work.

I’d just as soon stay home and raise babies.

Single parenting is sometimes just a case of sitting around by yourself in mild despair, not knowing what to do.

The interesting thing about being a mother is that everyone wants pets, but no one but me cleans the kitty litter.

I grew up with no money. My kids will grow up with a lot of money and so it’s really important to me, and it will always be a part of my parenting, to keep them conscientious and connected socially to other people.

Children live in the only successful Marxist state ever created: the family. ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ is the family’s practice as well as its theory. Even with today’s scattershot patterns of marriage and parenting, a family is collectivist to a more than North Korean degree.

The ’70s were a different time as far as parenting was concerned. People left their kids in the car with the windows cracked while they went to the grocery store.

I regret not having had more time with my kids when they were growing up.

We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.

For me, Twitter works best as a way of taking pictures of being stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. If people really want to read really funny quips about life, parenting, and pop culture, then by all means read Michael Ian Black‘s tweets.

My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all – the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would be, and much less about what we would do.

Parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done. I tried to find the balance between the strict, traditional Chinese way I was raised, which I think can be too harsh, and what I see as a tendency in the West to be too permissive and indulgent. If I could do it all again, I would, with some adjustments.

If the day ever came when we were able to accept ourselves and our children exactly as we and they are, then, I believe, we would have come very close to an ultimate understanding of what ‘good’ parenting means.

Slow parents understand that childrearing should not be a cross between a competitive sport and product-development. It is not a project; it’s a journey. Slow parenting is about giving kids lots of love and attention with no conditions attached.

Indeed – judicious, consistent parenting is a dream of mine. No judgements, learning space and listening carefully are my goals.

What parent has it easy? I just never make the difficulty of it an obstacle. I just do it.

Children that are raised in a home with a married mother and father consistently do better in every measure of well-being than their peers who come from divorced or step-parent, single-parent, cohabiting homes.

Parenting is perhaps the most important job we have in our lives.

Much is written about parenting – its joys and tribulations – and then about the transition into hot flushes, night sweats and (if we’re lucky) a new life as a grandmother.

As soon as you become a parent, everyone gives you their parenting advice. It’s like an onslaught of information about how other people do it.

There’s no one right way to be a person, we’re all just doing our best. So the same thing should apply to parenting and raising your children and the things you go through.

The top tip for parenting, especially for newly married couples or people trying to have a baby: you should want to have a child.

Growing up, I’ve always felt I was from two different worlds. I was born in the U.S., but my parents were born in Vietnam, and they raised my sisters and I with the parenting methods of the Vietnamese culture.

No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.

A picture excites the love of parenting that comes through meditation on a child.

I adore my family. I don’t love their politics. I think they’re wonderful parents. They were dreadful at parenting.

The relation between parents and children is essentially based on teaching.

Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own.

Parents forgive their children least readily for the faults they themselves instilled in them.

Many people think that discipline is the essence of parenting. But that isn’t parenting. Parenting is not telling your child what to do when he or she misbehaves. Parenting is providing the conditions in which a child can realize his or her full human potential.

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.

Parenting three children at the same time has helped me grow as a filmmaker. It taught me to be more empathetic and understand what people want from me.

Gorsuch showed his true colors to the LGBTQ community when, in one of his first dissenting opinions on the high court, he advocated limiting the reach of the landmark 2015 marriage equality ruling by denying certain parenting rights to same-sex couples.

If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weed.

The more we learn, the more we will be confronted with decisions that we’ve never had to make before about life, about death, about parenting.

Ah, the power of two. There’s nothing quite like it. Especially when it comes to paying utility bills, parenting, cooking elaborate meals, purchasing a grown-up bed, jumping rope and lifting heavy machinery. The world favours pairs. Who wants to waste the wood building an ark for singletons?

Parenting isn’t just parenting your own child.

Do you want to be an artist and a writer, or a wife and a lover? With kids, your focus changes. I don’t want to go to PTA meetings.

I’m afraid the parenting advice to come out of developmental psychology is very boring: pay attention to your kids and love them.

Around a third of parents still worry that they will look like a bad mother or father if their child has a mental health problem. Parenting is hard enough without letting prejudices stop us from asking for the help we need for ourselves and our children.

Parenting is tough.

Parents are key when it comes to keeping kids off drugs. Good parenting is the best anti-drug we have.

My parents were divorced when I was a young teenager, and I was raised by a single mother after that. So, I understand the difficulties that families have. I understand single parenting.

You have to support your children to have a healthy relationship.

Giving kids whatever they ask for is disastrous parenting. There’s no sense of something earned. I’m sorry, but when you’re 12, you don’t need a new cell phone every few months just because a new one comes out.

I do think that there’s an art form to parenting, and I have nothing but admiration for those who do it well.

My dad was not super-intentional in his parenting. He was very self-absorbed. I won’t say mean or selfish per se, but very self-absorbed. I think he was just thinking out loud.

The thing about parenting rules is there aren’t any. That’s what makes it so difficult.

My parenting philosophy pretty much boils down to this: I love my kids; I tolerate yours. Mine just make common, age-appropriate mistakes – phases, let’s call them – while your kids are completely undisciplined and probably need counseling.

I’m hosting weekend retreats all over America. It is like a 24-hour slumber party for moms. We laugh, eat, play games, get massages, win prizes, talk about parenting and even cry a bit.

While not impossible, it is especially challenging for teenage parents to develop bonds with their children. A high percent of them were themselves children of teenage parents and have never experienced appropriate parenting.

Being a chef isn’t the ideal career to intersect with parenting, but I try to be in my kids’ lives as much as possible.

In parenting, as in judging, the days are long, but the years are short.

Everyone’s generation probably feels like they’re parenting in a better way.

Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.

Parenting advice is mostly useless because every family is uniquely its own; artistic advice is mostly useless because every artist works in their own way. Thus, figuring out how to balance the two has an intense specificity.

If you put twenty parents in a room together, they will all have different parenting styles due to how they were raised and how they choose to raise their children. To each their own!

When I was a kid, my mother’s parenting style teetered between benign neglect and intense bouts of violence.

Parenting is one of the hardest jobs on earth.

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

Somebody once told me I treated my smart phone like Wilson, the volleyball Tom Hanks turns into a friend when he’s stranded on a desert island in that movie ‘Castaway.’ It’s an apt comparison: parenting a toddler occasionally feels like being marooned, and your phone is your only connection to the rest of the world.

My kids love it. I thought I was the coolest dad in the world when I got to be in a Bond film, but ‘Harry Potter‘, too? Well, I think I qualify for a medal for exceptional parenting or something, don’t you?

People ask me how I’ve raised three children as a single parent but honestly, parenting has been a breeze.

As parenting goes, knowing the whereabouts of one’s children is pretty fundamental.

Parenting is not for everybody. It changes your life. Especially when they’re little.

It’s a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things.

If you’re financially responsible, your children have a much better chance to grow up financially responsible.

When it comes right down to it, developing a critical sensibility about parenting isn’t really about disapproval; it’s about honing your own sensibilities, figuring out how you want to parent.

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.

Offering unequal leaves just reinforces the longstanding notion that parenting responsibilities aren’t equal, and that doesn’t help anyone.

I’ve become sort of an accidental advocate for attachment parenting, which is a style of parenting that… basically, the way mammals parent and the way people have parented for pretty much all of human history except the last 200 years or so.

My father wasn’t really involved and my mom is the light in my life.

I might be at the odd press conference with a little bit of spill on me because I’m not going to hide the imperfections of parenting. I don’t think anyone needs that.

Dad needs to show an incredible amount of respect and humor and friendship toward his mate so the kids understand their parents are sexy, they’re fun, they do things together, they’re best friends. Kids learn by example. If I respect Mom, they’re going to respect Mom.

It’s funny: everybody is going to have a little bit of different point of views when it comes to parenting.

I take parenting incredibly seriously. I want to be there for my kids and help them navigate the world, and develop skills, emotional intelligence, to enjoy life, and I’m lucky to be able to do that and have two healthy, normal boys.

Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children.

The uncertainty of parenting can bring up feelings in us that range from frustration to terror.

Parenting is something that I got early, because when you grow up without a father being there, and you see a single mother struggle to feed the kids, you do not want to put your own blood through that.

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

For me, conscious parenting is staying attuned to your child, being really open and in the moment. It means staying as present as possible in your own breath for the betterment of your whole family.

Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.

The government cannot overcome bad parenting. What our leaders can do is publicly condemn irresponsible parental behavior in vivid terms.

Kids are a great analogy. You want your kids to grow up, and you don’t want your kids to grow up. You want your kids to become independent of you, but it’s also a parent’s worst nightmare: That they won’t need you. It’s like the real tragedy of parenting.

I set out to write an anti-parenting parenting book.

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.

I feel sure that unborn babies pick their parents.

My guess is that good and bad parenting is spread fairly evenly across different social groups. But can you imagine Tony Blair lecturing the middle class on how to bring up their children? He is far more comfortable as a latter-day exponent of the Poor Law mentality.

The basic idea that incentives can be used to motivate behavior is a powerful one. It works for employees, and it has a clear place in parenting, as anyone who has tried to potty-train a recalcitrant toddler with sticker rewards knows.

Very often when you see families it’s all perfect and neat, and parenting isn’t like that. You do have constant negotiations. Things are ever developing and ever changing, and you constantly have to evaluate how you deal with your kids.

Every cliche about kids is true; they grow up so quickly, you blink and they’re gone, and you have to spend the time with them now. But that’s a joy.

A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.

My husband’s a pediatrician, so he and I talk about parenting all the time. You can’t raise children who have more shame resilience than you do.

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.

A director‘s job is like parenting. You have to look after your actors like children, pay attention to each of their different abilities.

I don’t think my music is that big of a deal – my entire life is parenting. The fact that I make records and go off and play shows is a small percentage of my day-to-day existence.

Gerard and I pretty much share all parenting responsibilities, although I’m definitely the disciplinarian.

Parents learn a lot from their children about coping with life.

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.

My father once said about being a parent that it is the only thing you do that requires a very long period of learning, and at about the time that you are becoming competent, you don’t need the skills anymore. Notwithstanding this modest assessment of their parenting skills, they were wonderful parents.

The well-being and welfare of children should always be our focus.

Marriage is no longer the main way in which societies regulate sexuality and parenting or organize the division of labor between men and women.

As a dad, you are the Vice President of the executive branch of parenting. It doesn’t matter what your personality is like, you will always be Al Gore to your wife’s Bill Clinton. She feels the pain and you are the annoying nerd telling them to turn off the lights.

Kids are fat because of lack of parenting.

In the past, I have been guilty of returning from work with some parenting words of wisdom, ignoring the fact that my wife has been dealing with the situation for a while. The correct strategy at these times is to wind my mansplaining neck in.

I was allowed to do whatever made me happy. I can’t think of a better or more worthwhile approach to parenting.

Even as kids reach adolescence, they need more than ever for us to watch over them. Adolescence is not about letting go. It’s about hanging on during a very bumpy ride.

My whole thing with parenting, even though this is my first time, I want to just put five or six objects on the floor – a trumpet, a piano, some dancing or a computer or whatever it is, and just see what he picks up.

I’m not the first to admit that raising a child in Park Slope, Brooklyn, can bear an embarrassing resemblance to the TV show ‘Portlandia.’ My wife and I try to have some ironic distance from the culture of organic, chemical-free parenting, but we’re often participants.

I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home.

We put more emphasis on who can drive a car than on who can be a parent. And I think there ought to be mandatory parenting classes starting in high school, and you should have to have a license to be able to be a parent to explain that you don’t give alcohol to kids.

I am always trying to evolve, so I like to read parenting books and things like that.

Learning from wolves to interact with pet dogs makes about as much sense as, ‘I want to improve my parenting – let’s see how the chimps do it!’

I think that the ideal of parenting can make people unhappy. It’s that this lie that they’re being told by society that parenting is one thing – and when parenting is something completely different – that’s what makes them unhappy.

Dad was a strict disciplinarian and would give us a wallop with a wooden spoon if we were out of order. But we really respected him – he didn’t try to be our best friend.

Some men don’t want to be responsible fathers. It’s easier to say ‘Let’s just turn the kids over to the state.’ Women end up bearing the entire load, raising kids alone without a husband to share the parenting.

I’m doing a lot of parenting work and acting as a spokesperson. I have a clothing line and a line of toys.

Children should have enough freedom to be themselves – once they’ve learned the rules.

The reason I stopped music for a while and concentrated on theatre was that it was more conducive to parenting; having the days free was quite handy. I love them both. I hope I don’t have to compromise one for the other.

Having children with someone is the real bond.

Parenting takes a lot of creativity, and I embrace it fully.

Abortion is defended today as a means of ensuring the equality and independence of women, and as a solution to the problems of single parenting, child abuse, and the feminization of poverty.

My worldview, my philosophy, my attitudes, my relationships, my parenting, my marriage – everything has been transformed by my relationship with Christ.

It’s hilarious to me that by writing an obscene fake children’s book I am mistaken for a parenting expert.

I was emancipated at 15. I went to school and had a full-time job and apartment, and ever since, I’ve been on my own, parenting myself.

Attachment parenting is not a passive parenting style.

I’m not a parenting expert. In fact, I’m not sure that I even believe in the idea of ‘parenting experts.’ I’m an engaged, imperfect parent and a passionate researcher. I’m an experienced mapmaker and a stumbling traveler. Like many of you, parenting is by far my boldest and most daring adventure.

Relationships are complicated no matter what style of parenting you choose.

Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they’re already asleep.

As I started parenting, I realised there is no formula to it.

Parenting is different for everybody.

Mothers – especially single mothers – are heroic in their efforts to raise our nation’s children, but men must also take responsibility for their children and recognize the impact they have on their families’ well-being.