Quotes & Sayings About A Parent's Love

Every parent craves for a child, and once their wishes come true, they feel that it's not possible for them to love anyone more that the first born. But the fact is, after you have the second issue, the feeling is, how can I not love the kid? — Kajol

Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I never told you this enough- it's a failing between all men, I think, but too often of fathers to their sons- I love you. When you came into the world, you brought me a new purpose and a new drive. Suddenly , I was not just a parent, I was a guardian too. — Joseph D'Lacey

Grit isn't something you're born with, Carter says. It's something you can learn and exercise, like a muscle. If you're a parent, you can teach grit. How? Let your children struggle. A little challenge, a little anguish, even, is good for them. When children learn to resolve their own conflicts, without Mom or Dad swooping in to the rescue, they build grit, self-confidence, and the creative problem-solving skills that lead to higher academic achievement.14 Teach them to try new things, she says, to take risks, follow inklings, see if they turn into passions, work hard, maybe master something, maybe make mistakes, but love the journey itself, not the reward. — Brigid Schulte

Nicole's door opened, and she stomped down the hall. "I have something to say," she said, giving him the Slitty Eyes of Death. "You're totally unfair, and if I run away, you shouldn't be surprised." "Don't make me put a computer chip in your ear," Liam answered. "It's not funny! I hate you." "Well, I love you, even if you did ruin my life by turning into a teenager," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Did you study for your test?" "Yes." "Good." He looked at his daughter - so much like Emma, way too pretty. Why weren't there convent schools anymore? Or chastity belts? "Want some supper? I saved your plate." She rolled her eyes with all the melodrama a teenager could muster. "Fine. I may as well become a fat pig since I can't ever go on a date." "That's my girl," he said and, grinning, got up to heat up her dinner. — Kristan Higgins

Healthy love, I always think, is ... wanting the person you love to be more of themselves. And I think for a parent that's a challenge, because you have to let a baby spread its wings. — Anne-Marie Duff

You must have been the best mother in the world.
Have prayed seventeen times a day ... just for me.
Been the strongest woman on earth.
Had a direct connection to God.
Have been hand-picked to parent a daughter like me.
Know how much I miss you everyday.
Not a day goes by that I don't think of you.
You are woven into every thought, dream and ambition I possess ...
Happy Mother's Day, mom.
I miss you and love you ... — Paula Heller Garland

The greatest gift a parent can leave a child is that parent's own independence. — Rosamunde Pilcher

Young people realize that something is amiss. There's a generation that fell in love with their phones, and it's very hard for them to see that there's a problem. But young people are desperate for the attention of their parents, who are really not paying attention to them. — Judy Woodruff

It's a natural thing for a child to lose a parent. I lost my mom too young but it happened. And I'm happy she's out of pain, 'cause I love her and she's my friend. — Angelina Jolie

Love involves more than just feelings. It is also a way of behaving. When Sandy said, "My parents don't know how to love me," she was saying that they don't know how to behave in loving ways. If you were to ask Sandy's parents, or almost any other toxic parents, if they love their children, most of them would answer emphatically that they do. Yet, sadly, most of their children have always felt unloved. What toxic parents call "love" rarely translates into nourishing, comforting behavior. — Susan Forward

Pain is a spiritual wake-up call showing you that there are oceans you have not yet explored. Step beyond the world you know. Reach for heights that you never thought possible. Go to places you have deemed off limits. This is the time to take off the shell of your past and step into the rich possibilities of your future. God does not give us dreams that we cannot fulfill. If you want to do something great with your life-whether it's to fall madly in love, become a teacher, be a great parent-if you aspire to do something beyond what you are doing now, this is the time to begin. Trust yourself. — Debbie Ford

It's different with a parent, isn't it? They have to consider constantly whether to say yes or no, now or later. They have to discipline and enforce as well as love and tend. You'll only have to love, and they'll soak all that up like sponges. — Nora Roberts

My kids know you can make it if you take risks and work hard. That we can work in the system you lunkers set up. That's all a parent really needs to give his child. That, and how to love someone with all your soul. — Kim Harrison

CARE and our partner organizations have found that one of the most effective ways of stopping child marriage is to tap into a parent's love for their child. When parents learn about the consequences of child marriage, they're far less likely to push their children into it. — Helene D. Gayle

It's not politically correct to say that you love one child more than you love your others. I love all of my kids, period, and they're all your favorites in different ways. But ask any parent who's been through some kind of crisis surrounding a child
a health scare, an academic snarl, an emotional problem
and we will tell you the truth. When something upends the equilibrium
when one child needs you more than the others
that imbalance becomes a black hole. You may never admit it out loud, but the one you love the most is the one who needs you more desperately than his siblings. What we really hope is that each child gets a turn. That we have deep enough reserves to be there for each of them, at different times.
All this goes to hell when two of your children are pitted against each other, and both of them want you on their side. — Jodi Picoult

Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did - that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that - a parent's heart bared, beating forever outside its chest. — Debra Ginsberg

Just because a child doesn't have both parents raising him or her, doesn't mean that child becomes half the person they were meant to be. One wonderful parent can love enough for two, and love will always be the biggest influence in a child's life. — Ron Baratono

Is it just me, or do you also think this is unnatural behavior in a female parent? Isn't there a federal law that says mothers are not allowed to laugh at vulnerable male children when they are required to wear stupid clothing to work?
There should be. — Ann Edwards Cannon

But here's the thing: once you become a parent ... once you start feeling a little funny and you buy a pregnancy test ... once you see a pink plus sign ... once you know it's not just you anymore ... well, you automatically carry around, for the rest of your life, an increased likelihood of having your heart broken. And it's a constant fear that we struggle to put to rest. We can choose to be afraid or we can choose to live. And I choose to live. Because an increased likelihood of having your heart broken also carries with it an increased likelihood of finding yourself the happiest you've ever been in life. — Kelle Hampton

A couple of years ago, I read the findings of a study on the effects of divorced and separated parents talking negatively about their exes in the presence of their children. What I remember about the study most vividly is really just one thing: that it's devastating for a child to hear one parent speak ill of the other. In fact, so much so that the researchers found it was less psychologically damaging if a parent said directly to the child "You are a worthless piece of shit" than it was for a parent to say "Your mother/father is a worthless piece of shit."
I don't remember if they had any theories about why that was so, but it made sense to me. I think we all have something sturdier inside of us that rears up when we're being attacked that we simply can't call upon when someone we love is being attacked, especially if that someone is our parent, half of us-the primal other- and the person doing the attacking is the other half, the other primal other. — Cheryl Strayed

I think being a parent is knowing how to love. Sometimes love is discipline, sometimes it's humor, sometimes it's listening. — Melissa Etheridge

Above all, staring at my old bedroom ceiling, I feel safe. Cocooned from the world; wrapped up in cotton wool. No one can get me here. No one even knows I'm here. I won't get any nasty letters and I won't get any nasty phone calls and I won't get any nasty visitors. It's like a sanctuary. I feel as if I'm fifteen again, with nothing to worry about but my Homework. (And I haven't even got any of that.) — Sophie Kinsella

The same way all the people I love factor in - my parents, my sister, my girlfriend [Lena Dunham], my best friend, all the people I love are always right there. I don't have a lot of people in my life, but there's a small group of people that I don't like to do things without. — Jack Antonoff

Since all life's stories begin at home, the characters and plot are written over a lifetime. Children are products of their parents and their early environments. They become adults who often life out early roles, scripts, relationship patterns, unmet needs, and expectations. Early relationships plant seeds for later ones. Therefore, it is natural (at appropriate times) for both parent and child to examine their roles as family members so they can learn, grow, heal, and thrive over time. Parenting for Life holds parents accountable, helps children forge their own paths, and strengthens the parent-child bond through love, respect, and empathy. — Nina Sidell

As a parent, it has been instructive to discover that the deep, instinctive love I feel for my own child is counterbalanced by the antipathy I feel towards other people's children. — Andy Miller

The child comes home and the parent puts the hooks in him. The old man, or the woman, as the case may be, hasn't got anything to say to the child. All he wants is to have that child sit in a chair for a couple of hours and then go off to bed under the same roof. It's not love. I am not saying that there is not such a thing as love. I am merely pointing to something which is different from love but which sometimes goes by the name of love. It may well be that without this thing which I am talking about there would not be any love. But this thing in itself is not love. It is just something in the blood. It is a kind of blood greed, and it is the fate of a man. It is the thing which man has which distinguishes him from the happy brute creation. When you got born your father and mother lost something out of themselves, and they are going to bust a hame trying to get it back, and you are it. They know they can't get it all back but they will get as big a chunk out of you as they can. — Robert Penn Warren

Love without humility results in the inclination to act as everyone's parent, humility without love results in the need to be everyone's child, and love with humility results in the desire to be a friend. — Criss Jami

There are all sorts of experiences we can't really put a name to ... The birth of a child, for one. Or the death of a parent. Falling in love. Words are like nets
we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, grief, or wonder. Finding God is like that, too. If it's happened to you, you know what it feels like. But try to describe it to someone else
and language only takes you so far. — Jodi Picoult

A well-loved child is set a challenging precedent. In its very nature, parental love works to conceal the effort which went into generating it. It shields the recipient from the donor's complexity and sadness - and from an awareness of how many other interests, friends and concerns the parent has sacrificed in the name of love. — Alain De Botton

When I look at a child, I see a living, breathing person, made in God's image, for whom God has a plan. As parent educators, we need to embrace a new notion of learning ... we need to engage the hearten order to effectively educate the child. Our vision of a well-educated child is a child who has a heart for learning, a child who has the tools he needs to continue to learn for a lifetime and a child who has the love to want to do it. — Elizabeth Foss

Here's a handy list of warning signs of the worst people on the road. Some are tuned-out menaces, others are just assholes. Be alert, and if you see this on a vehicle close to you, get away now. STICK FIGURE FAMILY: I hereby decree that you are allowed to accelerate to ramming speed every time you see a minivan with a silhouette of the family and their names on the rear window. We get it, you didn't pull out. Is that information you really think I'm interested in? I know you're a parent. You're driving a Plymouth Voyager with two hundred thousand miles on it; do you imagine I'm behind you thinking, "Who is that gay entrepreneur?" Even worse is the theme family. Oh, you're into snowboarding? Oh, you've got cats? Oh, they've all got Mickey ears, they must really love Disney. You know what I love? Driving more than fifty-three miles an hour. How about a stick figure depiction of your family moving the fuck over and letting me get to work on time? — Adam Carolla

The most important part that Rose Marie and I had was to learn to stay out of the way and to put our lives at his disposal to be used in ways often contrary to our own instincts. Christ captured Barbara in a way that highlighted her unwillingness to submit to him and our helplessness in changing her. Indeed, more than once he let us see that we needed to be rescued as much as Barbara did - perhaps even more, since there is no more impenetrable barrier to God's love than the sense of being right. So often self-righteousness controls a parent's attitudes toward a rebellious offspring. For — C. John Miller

Sol! Take your daughter, your only daughter Rachel, Whom you love, and go to the world called Hyperion and offer her there as a burnt offering at one of the places of which I shall tell you." Sol hesitated and looked back to Rachel. The baby's eyes were deep and luminous as she looked up at her father. Sol felt the unspoken yes. Holding her tightly, he stepped forward into the darkness and raised his voice against the silence: "Listen! There will be no more offerings, neither child nor parent. There will be no more sacrifices for anyone other than our fellow human. The time of obedience and atonement is past. — Dan Simmons

This is not a book about teaching a child how to read; it's about teaching a child to want to read. There's an education adage that goes, "What we teach children to love and desire will always outweigh what we make them learn." The fact is that some children learn to read sooner than others, while some learn better than others. There is a difference. For the parent who thinks that sooner is better, who has an eighteen-month-old child barking at flash cards, my response is: sooner is not better. Are the dinner guests who arrive an hour early better guests than those who arrive on time? Of course not. — Jim Trelease

I think I'm actually built for fatherhood. I love to have a good time and play, but at the same time I've got a really serious side to me, and I think that's the balance you have to have. Get on your kids' level, but at any point in time, let them know who the parent is. — Nick Cannon

Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-
great-children's will be. But we learn to live with that love. — Jonathan Safran Foer

If the parent represses the girl's anger not just once but over and over again, a deeper injury occurs: the girl will eventually dismantle her anger response. Ultimately, it's safer for her to cut off a part of her being than to battle the person on whom her life depends. — Patricia Love

We'd love to just be parents at home. I absolutely acknowledge the unreasonable demands put upon you (I used to be a teacher), but in the few hours a day we have with our children, we don't want to be tutors, homework drill sergeants, project managers, and trauma counselors. We just want to be moms. Our children are in school seven hours a day, which is enough for a kid. It's almost a full-time job. They should not endure another two hours of homework, especially assignments that are basically Parent Homework (don't get me started). — Jen Hatmaker

The first gift of Christmas was love. A parent's love. Pure as the first snows of Christmas. For God so loved His children that He sent His son, that someday we might return to Him. — Richard Paul Evans

A large portion of Christ's miracles of love were wrought at the urgent request of parents for their suffering children. Is that ear gone deaf to-day? Will He not do for our children's souls what He did for the bodies of the ruler's daughter, and the dead youth at Nain? — Theodore L. Cuyler

Abuse of gift-giving can occur when a child is living with a custodial parent following a separation or divorce. The noncustodial parent is often tempted to shower a child with gifts, perhaps from the pain of separation or feelings of guilt over leaving the family. When these gifts are overly expensive, ill-chosen, and used as a comparison with what the custodial parent can provide, they are really a form of bribery, an attempt to buy the child's love. They may also be a subconscious way of getting back at the custodial parent. Children receiving such ill-advised gifts may eventually see them for what they are, but in the meantime they are learning that at least one parent regards gifts as a substitute for genuine love. This can make children materialistic and manipulative, as they learn to manage people's feelings and behavior by the improper use of gifts. This kind of substitution can have tragic consequences for the children's character and integrity. — Gary Chapman

For not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's love. — Charles Dickens

You don't understand,' she said, and there was a puzzling trace of resentment in her voice. 'Children never do. The love a parent has for a child, there's nothing else like it. No other love so consuming. — Cassandra Clare

Faith should be a tool to set us free, not a means to fuel a fascist agenda seeking to impede the civil liberties of the "us"s. The first shall be last and the last shall be first ... therefore, those who stand for their Pius self-righteousness in order to trample those they deem inferior will be the 'last' and the poor and oppressed shall be 'first.' If the self-righteous want a lesson on morality, then actually take a lesson from Jesus whose best friend was a former hooker and whose mother was a single parent. — Cristina Marrero

The childless experts on child raising also bring tears of laughter to my eyes when they say, I love children because they're so honest. There is not an agent in the CIA or the KGB who knows how to conceal the theft of food, how to fake being asleep, or how to forge a parent's signature like a child. — Bill Cosby

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day-
A sunny day with the leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled - since I watched you play
Your first game of fotball, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
with the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take - the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay.
I had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show-
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love proved in the letting go. — Cecil Day-Lewis

It's nice to be able to work; I'd love to be able to do another TV show I could do in Chicago so I could live and work in the same place. It's hard being a parent and being in a good marriage, and it all takes a lot of work, but if you're not there you can't do any of it. — Joan Cusack

I realized today that a daughter is born twice. For nine months, a mother carries and nourishes her daughter in her stomach, then gives birth to her. It's a happy occasion, but the mother is left feeling sadly empty inside ... But I realized today that, after raising her within my love and embrace and sending her off in marriage, this day is just as sad and leaves me just as empty as the one when I first gave birth to her.
Picture Man: Only after a parent has let go of their child will the parent truly be an adult. Living creatures leave their nest when ready. But the ones sending them off still anxiously and unnecessarily spread out their hands to catch them. — Kim Dong Hwa

The love a parent feels for a child is strange. There is a starting point to our love for everyone else, but not this person. This one we have always loved, we loved them before they even existed. No matter how well prepared they are, all moms and dads experience a moment of total shock, when the tidal wave of feelings first washed through them, knocking them off their feet. It's incomprehensible because there's nothing to compare it to. It's like trying to describe sand between your toes or snowflakes on your tongue to someone who's lived their whole life in a dark room. It sends the soul flying. — Fredrik Backman

When I was a boy, I choked on a piece of candy outside the kitchen window for a few minutes while watching my parents making dinner. I thought I was going to die, but I didn't want to scare them. Our existence was so separate, a dying and a doing well, an outside and an inside. Trey Moody's poems hover in that cold, wet, refrigerator-lit place between the dying and the doing well, the outside and the inside. His poems are the thoughts of the person you love who is always standing behind you, slowly and silently suffocating. But they're not afraid to say hello, and please, and I'm scared. — Zachary Schomburg

This is the hope of many adolescent girls
to capture a parent's heart with love for them as they are, as people. They reject thenotion of being loved just because they are the child of the parent. They want the parent to fall in love with them all over again, because being new, they deserve a new love. — Terri E Apter

You realize how much the relationship when kids are young can suffer. And it's important to make sure that you are able to spend some time with each other. As a father, the best thing you can do for the kid is to love the mom. Even as a parent, I believe that loving the mother is the most important thing. And even parents who maybe aren't together I think that's important for them as well to respect each other and to be kind to each other, because I think it does so much in who they would pick to be around, or how they feel about themselves. — Vince Vaughn

You could time a suburban story by your watch: it lasts as long as it takes a small furry animal that's lonely to find friends, or a small furry animal that's lost to find its parents; it lasts as long as a quick avowal of love; it lasts precisely as long as the average parent is disposed on a Tuesday night to spend reading aloud to children. — Rachel Cusk

Everyone talks about how hard it is to have a kid, and that scares you into waiting. It obviously is tough [to be a parent], but when you feel that love, and it's instant, and it's so cool, so fun. When your baby smiles at you or when you just hold your baby, it's a pretty awesome feeling. — Clayton Kershaw

I have a clear understanding of things, and no stress. A child brings regrets, not clarity. It can open up your eyes to an illusion, not a reality. But nonetheless, the gift of life is a beautiful thing; cherish it, love it, and lavish it. A birth of a child may not bring clarity, but it brings infinite love, new hope, and turns its parent(s) to a new light. — Lionel Suggs

SADNESSES OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood [sic]; Humor sadness; Sadness of love wit[hou]t release; Sadne[ss of be]ing smart; Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean]; Sadness of having options; Sadness of wanting sadness; Sadness of confusion; Sadness of domes[tic]ated birds; Sadness of fini[shi]ng a book; Sadness of remembering; Sadness of forgetting; Anxiety sadness . . . INTERPERSONAL SADNESSES: Sadness of being sad in front of one's parent; Sa[dn]ess of false love; Sadness of love [sic]; Friendship sadness; Sadness of a bad conversation; Sadness of the could-have-been; Secret sadness . . . — Jonathan Safran Foer

Oh, come on, what's the matter with Romeo and Juliet?"
Megan took the movie from my grasp to put it in the DVD player.
"Do you want a list?" I didn't wait for an answer. "Romeo's whining about a girl one day, in love with Juliet the next. He has the decency to marry her but then they go back to her parent's house? I mean, what kind of asinine plan is that? Come on, their families hate each other! If you're going to sneak away and get married, just sneak away! It's like watching the girl in a horror movie walk up the dark attic stairs. She totally deserves whatever
she gets at the top."
"Are you saying they deserved to die? — Jolene Perry

It's something I passed on to my kids. They really love the earth because they've experienced it from the youngest age. They know where food comes from - it doesn't come from the Safeway bush or the Ralph's tree. It comes from the earth. And water and sunshine and nutrients. My children understand that because they've experienced it. I feel successful as a parent, having done that. — Ed Begley Jr.

From my parent's generation the idea was not that marriage was about some kind of idealized, romantic love. It was a partnership. It's about creating family. It's about creating offspring. — Aasif Mandvi

The greatest gift a parent can give a child is unconditional love. As a child wanders and strays, finding his bearings, he needs a sense of absolute love from a parent. There's nothing wrong with tough love, as long as the love is unconditional. — George W. Bush

It's very important my parent's don't think I'm starting to fall in love with people, because then they might notice that I'm growing up, and I'm kind of trying to keep it a secret. I think it will cause an incident — Caitlin Moran

There is no greater love than a maker's for the things she makes. Especially when they grow to be something she never imagined. — Hannu Rajaniemi

I feel like from a very early age, we know who we are as individuals. I love when I see parents with their kids in these crazy outfits and they're like, "That's what they wanted to wear." Those small things are so important. — Tyler Blackburn

God's love is so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His commandments because He knows that only through obedience to His laws can we become perfect, as He is. For this reason, God's anger and His wrath are not a contradiction of His love but an evidence of His love. Every parent knows that you can love a child totally and completely while still being creatively angry and disappointed at that child's self-defeating behavior. — Dallin H. Oaks

Consider Social Security. The young have always contributed to the support of the old. Earlier, the young helped their own parents out of a sense of love and duty. They now contribute to the support of someone else's parents out of compulsion and fear. The voluntary transfers strengthened the bonds of the family; the compulsory transfers weaken those bonds. — Milton Friedman

God has already shown us the way [to parent]. He parents, not according to an external list of rules, but according to his nature. Because he is a God of abounding love, he showers love and tenderness upon his children. Because he is a God of clarity and fairness, he provides definitive expectations for his children. Because he is a God of justice, he punishes his children's sin. Because he is a God of truth, who always fulfills his word, he disciplines their violations just as he promised. Because he is a God of mercy, he makes a way for their sins to be covered. Because he is a God of hope, he offers restoration even in the midst of judgement. — Leslie Leyland Fields

You gotta love the cops. They start the night ready to shoot someone's eyes off and at the same time ready to carry a child with a grandmother's tenderness. Ready to shatter and ready to soothe at the touch of a trigger, a good cop is an amazing animal. — Marc Parent

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 kind of a strange belief. Given what we know about the way people really are. Selfish and shortsighted and egotistical and needy. Why should being a parent, in and of itself, somehow confer superior-personhood on everybody who tries it? Obviously it doesn't. — Jonathan Franzen

To let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee
and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that's excruciatingly difficult
to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive." And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says, "I'm enough," then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves. — Brene Brown

I'd be devastated if my son grows up to be a hetero. I mean, I'd still love him ... but as a parent you just envision a certain life for your child. I mean, if he's straight, think of all the fabulous things he's going to miss out on. When I think my son might never know the joys of having a quarter share on Fire Island and walking through Judy Garland Memorial Park on the way to the Meat Rack. — Debra Messing

Because love encompasses everything, nothing is unimportant, including tonight's dinner menu. Think about it for a minute. If you were pure love, the loving parent of all life, how would you want people to eat? — Victoria Moran

It was never the fame or fortune that drove me to act. It was something I love and enjoy doing it. A lot of people identify who they are by what they do and that's not me. It's what I do but not who I am. Who I am is a parent. I'm a family man. — Adam Baldwin

Most families would be healthier and happier if their members treated one another with the respect they would give to a perfect stranger. C. S. Lewis's discussion of storge, familial love, is endlessly instructive on this point and is required reading for all who intend to have a decent family life.1 He notes that he has been far more impressed by the bad manners of parents to children than by those of children to parent. — Dallas Willard

It's really hard to deny a kid who's father has passed away. We all just wanted you to be happy so we messed that up. Your career wasn't about the money. Not at first. It gave you both something big to do so you could stay busy and forget how much you missed your dad." His heart twisted, and he whispered, "When I think of him ... I don't remember his face, but I do remember how much it hurt to have him simply there one day and gone the next ... just gone." Nan nodded. "Imagine how your mom felt. Your dad was the love of her life. — Anne Eliot

How did Ixtel become real for me? The world is full of Ixtels who I can help without hurting my father. Why this one? How was it her suffering that touched me? Father. I feel connected to her through my father's actions. I feel an obligation to right my father's wrong. But why? Shouldn't my father's welfare come first? His welfare is my welfare. How does one weigh love for a parent against the urge to help someone in need? I feel like what is right should be done no matter what. This lack of doubt makes me feel inhuman. But it is not a question of my head for once. I hear the right note. I recognize the wrong note. Maybe the right action is a lake like this one, green and quiet and deep. — Francisco X Stork

True love in Mexico isn't between lovers; it's between a parent and a child. Mexico is a very intense culture of sons adoring their mothers, and this is why I claim that Mexican culture is matriarchal. Because the one constant, faithful, inviolable, holy love of loves - the love of your life - is not your wife or your lover; it's your mother. — Sandra Cisneros

Dorothy did feel threatened. Whose child was or wasn't she? Almost unconsciously, she detached her-self a little from love. She would be canny. She would not invest too much passion in loving her parents, her acting parents, in case the love turned out to be disproportionate, unreturned, the parent not-a-parent. — A.S. Byatt

I look for someone whose upbringing was somewhat similar to mine because they can understand me - love for the family and everything else. You see someone's relationship with their parents, and you realize what that person's going to be like as a parent. — Maksim Chmerkovskiy

Everything just feels so empty without her. She was more a parent to me than my birth parents were. She took me in, fed, dressed me, but most importantly, she treated me with respect. She taught me that my abilities were nothing to be ashamed of, nothing I should try so hard to deny. She convinced me that what I had was a gift-not a curse- and that I shouldn't let other people's narrow minds and fears determine how I love, what I do, or how I perceive myself in the world. She actually made me believe that in no way, shape, or form did their uninformed opinions make me a freak. — Alyson Noel

A parent's love is whole, no matter how many times divided. — Robert Breault

All parents gush about what it's like to be a parent. I love it. — Liz Phair

When children feel understood, their loneliness and hurt diminish. When children are understood, their love for their parent is deepened. A parent's sympathy serves as emotional first aid for bruised feelings. When we genuinely acknowledge a child's plight and voice her disappointment, she often gathers the strength to face reality. — Haim Ginott

It's a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love. — Graham Greene

You fall so deeply in love with your grandbaby. It's so so so much easier than being a parent, because you really don't have much responsibility. And just when you are at the end of your rope with exhaustion, the parents take the baby away. So it's the best of both worlds. — Anne Lamott

What it's like to be a parent: It's one of the hardest things you'll ever do but in exchange it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love. — Nicholas Sparks

To be a husband or wife, to be a parent, is inevitably to be aware of so many disappointing, exasperating things about your mate or child, but at the same time to see those people in depth, to see them with both eyes, and to be reminded of why you still love them. — Harold S. Kushner

Being a parent is a life sentence. You see, that's why normal people should not have children. Because, if you raise a kid with only love and support, I guarantee that kid will be in rehab by the time he is sixteen. Why ? Because you never introduced him to mister back-of-your-hand. You know why I only broke into a liquor store once ? 'Cos my father introduced me to mister back-of-his-hand. And it's wiley side-kick. Mister foot-in-my-ass. — Christopher Titus

The love you have for your child is so much greater than any challenge you'll face as a parent, and that's what helps you through. — Hilary Duff

Nobody's strong enough to be a parent. We just do it, blindly, going forward on faith and love and hope. That's all it is ... Being afraid ... and going on. — Kristin Hannah

Of course I love you, So let's have a kid. Who will say exactly What its parents did; "Of course I love you, So let's have a kid. Who will say exactly What its parents did; 'Of course I love you, So let's have a kid Who will say exactly What its parents did -'" Et cetera. -NOBLE CLAGGETT (1947-1966) — Kurt Vonnegut

Would that our harsh judgments could be restrained, our impatience checked, our selfishness broken down, our passions controlled, our waste of time and life in worthless or unworthy objects corrected, by the thought that there is One in whose hands we are, who cares for us with a parent's love, who will judge us hereafter without the slightest tinge of human' infirmity, the All-Merciful and the All-Just. — Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

Losing your parent at a tender age is like losing everything thing. The love, care, support and what have you. It only takes determination, strong will and the love, care and support from others to make a difference in the lives of these ones as they grow to face their future. You and I can impact in their lives ... Just a little love, a little care, a little support can make a huge difference in a child's life. Support an orphan today! — Oziohu Sanni

Other people look at me and think: That poor woman; she has a child with a disability. But all I see when I look at you is that girl who had memorized all the words to Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by the time she was three, the girl who crawls into bed with me whenever there's a thunderstorm - not because you're afraid but because I am, the girl whose laugh has always vibrated inside my own body like a tuning fork. I would never have wished for an able-bodied child, because that child would have been someone who wasn't you. — Jodi Picoult

The relationship between love and appropriate action is demonstrated repeatedly in the scriptures and is highlighted by the Savior's instruction to His Apostles: 'If ye love me, keep my commandments' (John 14:15). Just as our love of and for the Lord is evidenced by walking ever in His ways (see Deuteronomy 19:9), so our love for spouse, parents, and children is reflected most powerfully in our thoughts, our words, and our deeds (see Mosiah 4:30)."Feeling the security and constancy of love from a spouse, a parent, or a child is a rich blessing. Such love nurtures and sustains faith in God. Such love is a source of strength and casts our fear (see 1 John 4:18). Such love is the desire of every human soul."We can become more diligent and concerned at home as we express love - and consistently show it. — David A. Bednar

Our culture has become something that is completely and utterly in love with its parent. It's become a notion of boredom that is bought and sold, where nothing will happen except that people will become more and more terrified of tomorrow, because the new continues to look old, and the old will always look cute. — Malcolm McLaren

I am so sorry. That we cannot go back to that moment and get you the help you needed, the information you wanted, the hope and love you craved. I am so sorry about what you're learning now, what you're seeing, what you're reliving. Our culture didn't let you mourn - we pretend you weren't a parent, that you're not. What's hidden is laid bare. Know you're loved and not judged. I'm so sorry the law let this happen. I'm so sorry we let this happen. — Kathryn Jean Lopez

When a parent interferes with a child's anger response in these heavy-handed ways [ridiculing, ignoring, isolating, goading, punishing, distracting, hitting, joking], the anger increases and is redirected at the parent: now the parent is the one who's violating the child's sense of well-being by interfering with a natural and necessary outlet of emotion. Most parents stifle this secondary outburst of anger, too, only this time with more force. [...] Instead of allowing the anger to flow through the child's system the first time it's expressed, the parent unwittingly fans the anger, then dams it up. The anger becomes trapped in the little girl's stomach, muscles, and jaw, and becomes an enduring wound. — Patricia Love

If the whole world seems like it's against you, it helps to know that you've still got home. A safe place. It just takes one person - a teacher, a friend, a parent. If I didn't have you and Dad, if you hadn't made it so clear you loved me as much as you did, or if you'd said, 'yeah, why don't you do it, and put yourself out of our misery, just shut up,' I would have killed myself. I really would have. I spent most of those days wishing I were dead anyway, and what always stopped me was the fact that doing so would destroy the lives of the only people who ever cared about me. — Nenia Campbell

It may be that psychologists are off-base in their preoccupation with children's need to feel that their father or some other parent loves them. It also seems valid to consider the child's desire to feel that a parent actually likes them, as love itself is so automatic and preprogrammed in a parent that it isn't a very good test of whatever it is that the typical child feels so anxious to pass the test of — David Foster Wallace