2,497 Quotes About Parenting

Being controlling, being judgmental, or always having to be right are other ways that adults may inflict trauma on children.

The abandonment I suffered from my parents created a neural pathway that sends me into massive self-victimization.

In his youth Jim had dreams of becoming a writer. In fact he was still dreaming about that until long into Jack’s childhood. Then he started to dream that Jack might become a writer instead. That’s an impossible thing for sons to grasp, and a source of shame for fathers to have to admit: that we don’t want our children to pursue their own dreams or walk in our footsteps. We want to walk in their footsteps while they pursue our dreams.

When I was a little boy my daddy told me to sell pots and pans. He said it's good stuff. Makes you LIVE LONGER. By the time I was 22 I really didn't want to live very long at all....

He did not like the thought that he was to blame, but the only alternative he could think of to explain their behavior was much worse: that all the love and attention his parents had given him before had somehow been the result of George’s presence, and with George gone there was nothing for him … and all of that had happened at random, for no reason at all. And if you put your ear to that door, you could hear the winds of madness blowing outside.

Sometimes, January, being a parent feels like being a kid who someone has mistakenly handed another kid. ‘Good luck!’ this unwise stranger cries before turning his back on you forever.

There was one time when Papa asked him, 'Bunso, why do you love me?' We were surprised when he answered, 'I love you because I love you.' I guess it means that for Bunso, love needs no explanations, no buts, no ifs. For him, love is love, plain and simple. For him, both the quantity and quality of time that we give him are acts of love and he does his very best to reciprocate by being the most sweet and affectionate little boy that he is right now.

Do you know what the worst thing about being a parent is? That you're always judges by your worst moments. You can do a million things right, but if you one single thing wrong you're for ever that parent who was checking his phone in the park when your child was hit in the head by a swing.

No matter how old they become, our children will always be our babies.