Parenting

“Parenting is difficult under any circumstances, and in my father's view, to raise a morally upright and honest child, you sometimes have to lie to him.”

“He's taking the change well?" She asked.Except for getting a bit overtired. He's excited, but what 15-year-old wouldn't be under these circumstances?”

“Father, I am from a different egg than your other children. Think of me as a duckling raised by hens. I am not a domestic bird destined to spend his life in a chicken coop. The water that scares you rejuvenates me. For unlike you I can swim, and swim I shall. The ocean is my homeland. If you are with me, come to the ocean. If not, stop interfering with me and go back to the chicken coop.”

“There can be no fooling ourselves into thinking this is something other than what it is—the willful ejection of Molly from our nest. It’s too late for second thoughts, anyway. She has to be moved into her dorm in time for freshman orientation. It’s been marked on the kitchen calendar for weeks—the expiration date on her childhood.”

“During childhood, it’s about trying to help develop who your kid’s going to be. During adolescence, it’s about responding to who your kid wants to be.”

“When a boy feels as if no one cares about him, or as if he will never amount to anything, he truly believes it doesn’t matter what he does.”

“Gay people getting married is not a threat to the institution of marriage. You know what's a threat to the institution of marriage? Infidelity is! Hate is! Unforgiveness is! Apathy is! Coldheartedness is! Fear is! And you know what's a threat to the kids? It’s not having gay parents! Most gay kids have straight parents! And plenty of gay parents raise respectable, straight kids! The threat to children isn't their parents being gay; the threat to children is their parents not loving one another! Not caring for one another! Not being crazy about each other! Domestic violence is a threat to children. Stupidity is a threat to children. A swimming pool in the backyard with no supervision is a threat to children!”

“Parenting is a rollercoaster of baloney with no instruction manual. We just have to do our best.”

“Dietary patterns are set at a very early age—somewhere between four and eight years old. The research shows that children who have established a healthy diet are healthier in the longer range and less likely to develop cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and obesity.”

“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?”

“Believe that God is strong enough to save your children, no matter how you fail.”

“Somewhere along the line we stopped trying to fix the child that we had expected and started to enjoy the child that was.”

“We parents are in the process of losing parts of ourselves, of waking up each morning to find ourselves changed by our children. We may fantasize that we are not really changed, that we can go back to poring over Wittgenstein, immersing ourselves in the latest movies, being beach bums- whatever it was that we were before the child or children came into our lives. But part of what we have lost is the part of our identity that is the person-without-children. The parent we are now has a life inextricably entwined not only without our past life and our private selves but also with the lives of our children.”

“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.”

“When I got to the States and started going to an American high school, which I did for an extremely short time, I thought everyone around me was insane, the way they talked about their parents. I thought the parents were insane too, the way they handled their kids, like every request they made was a bargain they weren't sure would be kept. That little whiny tone at the end of every statement: "Be home by ten, okay?”

“Try as we might, we cannot force our children to reach their full potential. Theirs is the life that they alone must live. The role of the parent is to prepare the most fertile soil and appropriately water the seedling so it can most fully blossom.”

“I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,Adore to weeping,Love to laughing,Desire to praising.Tickle, giggle, kiss!Adonai my God,For one moment in love,Let alone a thousand,Let alone my life,For the honor of raising and lovingChildren in love,Praise of You is ever upon my lips.”

“As parents we're meant to help each other out and build each other up.”

“There is no such thing as reproduction, only acts of production.”

“We have to learn to remind the other parents who think we're being careless when we loosen our grip that we are actually trying to teach our children how to get along in the world, and that we believe this is our job. A child who can fend for himself is a lot safer than one forever coddled, because the coddled child will not have Mom or Dad around all the time, even though they act as if he will.”