Parents in the early half of the twentieth century were primarily concerned with the development of character in their children. They wanted to be certain that their children were ready to cope with adversity, for...

The only way your child will grow out of their dependency into self-sufficient adults is for you to essentially abandon your own independence for 20 years or so.

My handsome husband and I didn’t make love for almost six months. I was enraptured, lost to my old life, and, in this obsession, disregarded author Ayelet Waldman – who famously wrote of her ‘smug...

abuse card”, the custodial parent has the aforementioned ability to operate as a double agent: on the one-side, the protector and caretaker; while on the other side, the divider and abuser. Similarly, the state can...

That first pregnancy is a long sea journey to a country where you don’t know the language, where land is in sight for such a long time that after a while it’s just the horizon...

Coming back last time to the house she grew up in, Isabel had been reminded of the darkness that had descended with her brothers’ deaths, how loss had leaked all over her mother’s life like...

He felt her heartbeat against his shoulder, through his jacket, light as raindrops.

Youth was the time for happiness, its only season; young people, leading a lazy, carefree life, partially occupied by scarcely absorbing studies, were able to devote themselves unlimitedly to the liberated exultation of their bodies....

Become a parent. Lose your autonomy, but gain the wondrous superpower of The Magic Kiss that instantly dries tears and makes the pain of boo-boos disappear.

Raising teenage sons and daughters is a long and tiresome journey. With God’s help the final outcome will be worthwhile.

As parents we’re meant to help each other out and build each other up.

As I grew into womanhood my confusion at the world became more apparent. I was taking comfort in behaviours that were familiar, not bathing, wearing multiple layers of clothes and, like my mother, I was...

But the smell of the hospital, the sting of those overhead lights in the night, the snippets of conversations I had overheard, stayed with me and marked the beginning of how I came to know...

You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they’re going.

The greatest lessons I learned from my father didn’t come from lectures or discipline or even time spent together. What has stuck with me is his example. From watching, I chose whether to be or...

Oh, brothers and sisters, families can be forever! Do not let the lures [or the irritants] of the moment draw you away from them! Divinity, eternity, and family–they go together, hand in hand, and so...

In the mystifying world that was Victorian parenthood, obedience took precedence over all considerations of affection and happiness, and that odd, painful conviction remained the case in most well-heeled homes up until at least the...

I have that hypocrisy of a parent in that I’m like,’Come on, you’ve got to toughen up at the same time let me take care of that for you.

I kept glancing at her animated face, scrunched up as though imitating an adult. I got hit with that overwhelming feeling. It sneaked up on me. Parents get it from time to time. You are...

Children act on the words they hear.May your words be gracious to the hearing of children.May your words inspire and challenge children to fulfill their true potential.

A man with no children can easily be lulled into a sense that time is standing still. It’s not. It’s marching past us, relentlessly. Having a child growing and changing before your eyes makes this...

But the truth is, there’s little even the most organized people can do to prepare themselves for having children. They can buy all the books, observe friends and relations, review their own memories of childhood....

we will seek out the imagery of vice.

We both liked children; we just didn’t want any ourselves. There were children everywhere, and we saw no reason to start our own brand. Young couples plunge into parenthood and about half the time they...

We watched each other evolve into parents, with all the fear, rage and confusion evolution can involve. Our eight-year-old is the incarnation of our union; we are forever fused by her blood. My old take...

grand experiment”, and other influences of parenthood and childrearing.

Why did you do it? Give up everything to raise another man’s son?’His father did look up at that. ‘I didn’t raise another man’s son,’ he said sharply. ‘I raised my own.

Memory loss is the key to human reproduction. If you remembered what new parenthood was actually like you wouldn’t go around lying to people about how wonderful it is, and you certainly wouldn’t ever do...

No one is ever quite ready; everyone is always caught off guard. Parenthood chooses you. And you open your eyes, look at what you’ve got, say “Oh, my gosh,” and recognize that of all the...

These stories depressed me. Love ruined people’s lives, the way our parents said drugs could.

What is much harder to handle is the sense that you have to live up to the mark someone else has set for you. The grades become too important, the competition too frantic, the fear...

If I had to do it all again, I would still want my same daughter and two sons; through laughter, tears, prayers, and blessings.

The sound of her breathing reminded me, as it so often did, of how vulnerable she was. And how vulnerable we were because of how much we loved her. The fear – that something could...

All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.

If John Lennon was right that life is what happens when you’re making other plans, parenthood is what happens when everything is flipped over and spilling everywhere and you can’t find a towel or a...

It’s a . . . transcendental act. Making life. . . . ‘By this act, I bring one death into the world.’ One birth, one death, and all the pain and acts of will between....

You are the closest I will ever come to magic.

Memories particularly of when they weren’t being what parents are nine-tenths of the time, the taskmasters, the examples, the moral authorities, the nags of pick-that-up and you’re-going-to-be-late, keepers of the diary of her duties and...

It was the most traumatic period in my life.

Excitement about things became a habit, a part of my personality, and the expectation that I should enjoy new experiences often engendered the enjoyment itself.

My mother delayed my enrollment in the Fascist scouts, the Balilla, as long as possible, firstly because she did not want me to learn how to handle weapons, but also because the meetings that were...

Having kids means taking care of them, raising them, loving and supporting them, and none of those things have anything to do with who makes them one night in the bedroom or the experience of...

Maybe children just want whatever it is they don’t get. And then they grow up and give their children what they wanted, be it silence or information, affection or independence–so that child, in turn, craves...

Fatherhood to us was an act of passion, soon forgot; but not to Orem ap Avonap. Never guessing that the blond and happy farmer was no blood of his, Orem had taken a part of...

The debt we owe our parents can never be squared, and jolly good too, because doing so would threaten to nullify all relationship, all emotional commerce between the two generations. Being in debt, just like...

The married man and the mother of a Christian family, if they are faithful to their obligations, will fulfill a mission that is as great as it is consoling: that of bringing into the world...

In retrospect, it seems obvious that my research about parenting was also a means to subdue my anxieties about becoming a parent…. I grew up afraid of illness and disability, inclined to avert my gaze...

why”—so as to leave nothing more. To speak, or think, of these many questions is to sound like I’m whining. But I am whining, about why….

If you are a good parent, please continue to be a good one. But if you are bad parent, today is a great new beginning for you to start a great new chapter of parenthood.

Parents are programmed to want the best for their kids, regardless of what they get in return. That’s what love is supposed to be like, right? But in fact, if you think about it, that’s...