Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don’t misunderstand me, both are needed- but an emphasis on fathering is necessary...

Everyone over 50 in America feels like a refugee. In the Old America there were a lot of bad parents. There always are, because parenting is hard. Inadequate parents could say, ‘Go outside and play...

A dam doesn’t try to reason with the water. Its main purpose is to hold it still for a while. When I lecture my kids I’m doing much the same thing. I’m not trying to...

To enjoy true, vibrant health, increased awareness, effort, and focus are required.

Stories arrest us. Parents use stories to capture the attention of active children. Preachers use stories to capture the attention of sleepy adults.

Now and again, one could detect in a childless woman of a certain age the various characteristics of all the children she had never issued. Her body was haunted by the ghost of souls who...

My heart broke not only for the daughter who already was forced to become her mother’s alarmingly narrow ideal, but also for the middle daughter who knew that her in mother’s mind she had already...

We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris- ing generation. I am an oldster myself and might be expected to take the oldsters’ side, but in fact I have been far more...

The first night in the hospital with a snuffling baby girl, I learned that my family was not the only thing that had expanded. There was now a whole new world of opportunities for judgment...

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...

It’s a fool who thinks that having a kid is a right, which is the biggest crock of fishheads I’ve ever heard. You have a responsibility, not only to a person but also to a...

How can families harm us when they love us? Very easily, unfortunately. Most of us overlook one important fact when we think love is enough: Love and respect aren’t the same thing.Love is fusion. As...

Whether you’re explaining where pets go when they die or teaching your child to recycle, your philosophies have ramifications. For the rest of history, echos of your voice will be heard.

Parenting should always come from a place of unconditional loving.

Parenting is the greatest pay it forward system on earth. We don’t owe our parents anything. We owe our children everything. The same was true for our parents. The same will be true for our...

I believe that parents who love their children do everything for them with love, even discipline.

You can’t have that wish, my Little Bear,’ said Mother Bear.

We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change.

Surely, our greatest parental hope is that our children attain a state of righteousness. It is the only sure road to happiness. But to attain such a state requires that they be decent as well...

It’s a long haul bringing up our children to be good; you have to keep doing that — bring them up — and that means bringing things up with them: Asking, telling, sounding them out,...

Being a parent is dirty and scary and beautiful and hard and miraculous and exhausting and thankless and joyful and frustrating all at once. It’s everything. (Confessions of a Scary Mommy, Gallery Books 2012).

Never forget,Each day that we have together is a precious gift.In the web of daily living, we are creating character.Let’s take the time to create memories, listen and observe.Time flees, and it does not return.If...

I was delighted to see him growing more cautious and skeptical about what he heard, especially when he heard it from someone in apparent authority. I think that is fundamental to a good education. And...

Patty believed that parents have a duty to teach their children how to recognize reality when they see it.

You try as a parent. You love beyond reason. You fight beyond endurance. You hope beyond despair.You never think, until the very last moment, that it still might not be enough.

The danger of motherhood. you relive your early self, through the eyes of your mother.

It’s hard to trust your child to find his or her own path, especially when we’re told everyday by professionals that children must fit into rigid boxes. We all want to give our kids the...

I didn’t know how I could live with that knowledge, without it eating me up, without it poisoning every happy memory I had of growing up. Without it ruining everything Beck and I had.I didn’t...

Don’t even think about it.””Well, when can I walk by myself?””When you get your driver’s license.””You always, always say that.” Dillie scowled at him. “That’s when everything happens.””It’s going to be a busy day,” Phin...

Helicopter parents. Before I started at Pirriwee Public, I thought it was an exaggeration, this thing about parents being overly involved with their kids. I mean, my mum and dad loved me, they were, like,...

We can walk to town.”How do mothers manage to bring everything a child could need?

There’s a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It’s not something you can give; it’s something they have to build.

The idea that there is are all these people who are going to make all these great and wise decisions with guns. Because you know all the people who can make the best decisions in...

Let those parents that desire Holy Children learn to make them possessors of Heaven and Earth betimes; to remove silly objects from before them, to magnify nothing but what is great indeed, and to talk...

If we, as mothers, are not careful we can begin to find our identity in our children and their behavior

It’s not enough, and so limiting, to teach the simplistic value of a designer’s material wear. Give children the gift of values that will last far beyond [a] fad’s temporal popularity.

In between every action and reaction, there is a space. Usually the space is extremely small because we react so quickly, but take notice of that space and expand it. Be aware in that space...

We seem to take notice of our body only when health is lacking. With that lack of recognition comes a lack of motivation and incentive to stretch.

Fifteen-year-old girls produce children with sixteen-year-old boys in the backseat of cars and in the stairwells of apartment buildings. Why can’t two loving adults who have contemplated parenthood and are prepared to offer love, patience,...

You can’t predict the outcome. You can’t raise a child and then tell them what to think.

When we talk with our children about sexual abuse, we are not only taking a proactive step toward protecting them, we are building our relationship with them–grounded in honesty and trust. It’s a win-win situation.

Doctor Copeland belt old evil anger in him. The words rose inchoately to his throat and he could not speak them. They would listen to the old man. Yet to word the reason they will...

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable-even legally actionable-to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, “Hey fatty-lose some weight.” By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around...

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.

[I] never talk about gratitude and joy separately, for this reason. In 12 years, I’ve never interviewed a single person who would describe their lives as joyful, who would describe themselves as joyous, who was...

If we never have headaches through rebuking our children, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up.

We can only afford two children’ is a squalid argument, but more acceptable in our society than ‘we don’t like children’.

Education is our path to change. Minds and hearts are brightened via learning.

I wanted her to have the full, long life that every parent promises his or her child by the simple act of bringing that child into the world.

Did children want sports cars for parents? No. They wanted Hondas. They wanted to know that the car would start in all seasons.