Family For Children Quotes & Sayings

Do not presume to judge the Qui, Mr. President. Your society aspires to an ideal that exists only at levels like the United Regions. Analyze your world's history and you find pockets of feudal life that continue to exist today. Cultures where rape victims are killed so as not to dishonor their family; countries where the male of your species has so little self-control, the female is obliged to hide behind cloth for fear they will tempt them into carnal acts; regions where children are slaughtered for no reason. And this was all before our invasion. — Kayla Stonor

Dad mistook - for some reason unbeknownst to me - he mistook his family for a platoon of Marines. I mean, he - the exact same thing he brought to the disciplining of a squadron, a battalion, a platoon, he brought to the disciplining of his children. He ran the house - he had Saturday morning inspections for us, he had white-glove inspections for us as kids. — Terry Gross

I also don't think that parents should pay for their children's graduate or law school. Helping a student with a four-year bachelor's degree is very generous, but an advanced degree should be considered a personal responsibility. That will ensure that the coursework is taken very seriously and makes the young person take ownership of their degree. and when they graduate, it's a shared accomplishment that the whole family can be proud of. But do not encourage graduate school just for graduate school's sake. Work experience is much more valuable if the decision come down to that. — Dana Perino

As children become increasingly less connected to adults, they rely more and more on each other; the whole natural order of things change. In the natural order of all mammalian cultures, animals or humans, the young stay under the wings of adults until they themselves reach adulthood. Immature creatures were never meant to bring one another to maturity. They were never meant to look to one another for primary nurturing, modelling, cue giving or mentoring. They are not equipped to give one another a sense of direction or values. As a result of today's shift to this peer orientation, we are seeing the increasing immaturity, alienation, violence and precocious sexualization of North American Youth. The disruption of family life, rapid economic and social changes to human culture and relationships, and the erosion of stable communities are at the core of this shift. — Gabor Mate

A woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to suppress her desires, to moderate her thoughts and to spend her days putting another first. She has to put him first even when she longs to serve herself or her children. She has to put him first even if she longs to judge for herself. She has to put him first even when she knows best. To be a good wife is to be a woman with a will of iron that you yourself have forged into a bridle to curb your own abilities. To be a good wife is to enslave yourself to a lesser person. To be a good wife is to amputate your own power as surely as the parents of beggars hack off their children's feet for the greater benefit of the family. — Philippa Gregory

This inability to just do nothing is a direct result of our habit of externalisation. As children we are never taught in schools, or in social settings, to look within ourselves for answers. Whether it is that our answers are found in some sort of religion, or another person, or in something else, we start to make this common practice. We are indecisive in life looking to friends, family, counsellors, teachers, and even strangers for advice. We are never taught or, better yet, shown how to look after our number one relationship in life, which is the relationship with one's self. — Evan Sutter

Play on lively, diversified sidewalks differs from virtually all other daily incidental play offered American children today: It is play not conducted in a matriarchy.
Most city architectural designers and planners are men. Curiously, they design and plan to exclude men as part of normal, daytime life wherever people live. In planning residential life, they aim at filling the presumed daily needs of impossibly vacuous housewives and preschool tots. They plan, in short, strictly for matriarchal societies. — Jane Jacobs

The only safe guide is the Bible. It is the revelation of a God who has infinite knowledge and can therefore give you absolute truth. God has given you a revelation that is robust and complete. It presents an accurate and comprehensive picture of children, parents, family life, values, training, nurture, and discipline - all you need to be equipped for the task of parenting. — Tedd Tripp

But suppose it past, - suppose one of these men, as I have seen them meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame ; suppose this man surrounded by those children for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault than he can no longer so support; suppose this man - and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victims, - dragged into court to be tried for this new offence, by this new law, - still there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him, and these are, in my opinion, twelve butchers for a jury, and a Jefferies for a judge! — George Gordon Byron

If responsibility for the upbringing of children is to continue to be vested in the family, then the rights of children will be secured only when parents are able to make a living for their families with so little difficulty that they may give their best thought and energy to the child's development and the problem of helping it adjust itself to the complexities of the modern environment. — Suzanne La Follette

Every parent is an artist, for the bared canvas of a newborn's soul begs for the artist's touch. And because this is so, a parent must prepare the palette with the utmost care, choose the brushes with poised caution, and mindfully attend to every brushstroke regardless of how slight. And such caution is utterly imperative for the emerging rendering will be both a legacy borne of the parent, and a life lived by the child. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

This was my world: a world of truly irrational behavior. We spend our way into the poorhouse. We buy giant TVs and iPads. Our children wear nice clothes thanks to high-interest credit cards and payday loans. We purchase homes we don't need, refinance them for more spending money, and declare bankruptcy, often leaving them full of garbage in our wake. Thrift is inimical to our being. We spend to pretend that we're upper class. And when the dust clears - when bankruptcy hits or a family member bails us out of our stupidity - there's nothing left over. Nothing for the kids' college tuition, no investment to grow our wealth, no rainy-day fund if someone loses her job. We know we shouldn't spend like this. Sometimes we beat ourselves up over it, but we do it anyway. — J.D. Vance

A cat met up with a big male rat in the attic and chased him into a corner. The rat, trembling, said, 'Please don't eat me, Mr. Cat. I have to go back to my family. I have hungry children waiting for me. Please let me go.' The cat said, 'Don't worry, I won't eat you. To tell you the truth, I can't say this too loudly, but I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat any meat. You were lucky to run into me.' The rat said, 'Oh, what a wonderful day! What a lucky rat I am to meet up with a vegetarian cat!' But the very next second, the cat pounced on the rat, held him down with his claws, and sank his sharp teeth into the rat's throat. With his last, painful breath, the rat asked him, 'But Mr. Cat, didn't you say you're a vegetarian and don't eat any meat? Were you lying to me?' The cat licked his chops and said, 'True, I don't eat meat. That was no lie. I'm going to take you home in my mouth and trade you for lettuce.' — Haruki Murakami

This is for the kids who know that the worst kind of fear isn't the thing that makes you scream, but the one that steals your voice and keeps you silent. — Abby Norman

It takes courage to gather children from whatever they're doing and kneel together as a family. It takes courage to turn off the television and the computer and to guide your family through the pages of the scriptures every day. It takes courage to turn down other invitations on Monday night so that you can reserve that evening for your family. It takes courage and willpower to avoid over-scheduling so that your family can be home for dinner. — Larry R. Lawrence

Many Christians wonder if it is good for children to have them in the regular service. After all, they cannot understand what is going on. But imagine saying that you're not going to have toddlers sit at the table for meals with the family because they do not understand the rituals or manners. Or keeping infants isolated in a nursery with nothing but mobiles and squeaky toys because they cannot understand the dialogue of the rest of the family around them. We know, instinctively, that it's important for our children to acquire language and the ordinary rituals of their family environment in order to become mature. — Michael S. Horton

De-Christianizing America has been high on the progressive agenda, and, thanks to the government (especially the federal courts), it has been a great success. Nor can we overlook the contribution of the entertainment industry, which now determines what passes for 'culture.' The main practical vehicle of de-Christianization has been the Sexual Revolution. A few radicals have called for the abolition of the family, but most liberals have been more discreet, avoiding hostile rhetoric while quietly but constantly pursuing policies that result in lower birthrates and fatherless children. — Joseph Sobran

People under the influence of cults is similar to that we observe in addicts. Typical behaviour for both includes draining bank accounts, neglecting children, destroying relations with family and losing interest in anything except the drug or cult. — Keith Henson

It is to this dimension of God, a God who cannot tolerate the reduction of a human being, fashioned in His image, to less than human status, that Job may be appealing. Job, in his extremity, is calling on God, saying, "I have no one left. I am without family. My friends have deserted me. You who are the Father of all humanity, is it not Your obligation to atone for my children's deaths as their go'el and to extract me from my current situation as my go'el?" Zophar — Harold S. Kushner

Providing for one's family as a good husband and father is a watertight excuse for making money hand over fist. Greed may be a sin, exploitation of other people might, on the face of it, look rather nasty, but who can blame a man for 'doing the best' for his children? — Eva Figes

As for bread, I count that for nothin'. We always have bread and potatoes enough; but I hold a family to be in a desperate way when the mother can see the bottom of the pork barrel. Give me children that's raised on good sound pork afore all the game in the country. Game's good as a relish and so's bread; but pork is the staff of life ... My children I calkerlate to bring up on pork with just as much bread and butter as they want. — James F. Cooper

Mother love has been much maligned. An over mothered boy may go through life expecting each new woman to love him the way his mother did. Her love may make any other love seem inadequate. But an unloved boy would be even more likely to idealize love. I don't think it's possible for a mother or father to love a child too much. — Frank Pittman

Nothing prepares a family for having multiple children at once. — Derek Fisher

there are times when no one is right, and sometimes among family and children, no one can admit that there is no right, and that maybe at the same time there is no wrong. But in this case I was wrong and I appreciate Vivian Baxter for being big enough to accept my apology. — Maya Angelou

People should know that Palestinians don't live for themselves alone. They live for each other. What I do for myself and my children, I also do for all my family. We are a community. — Izzeldin Abuelaish

family structure that produces the best outcomes for children, on average, are two biological parents who remain married. Divorced parents produce the next-best outcomes. Whether the parents remarry or remain single while the children are growing up makes little difference. Never-married women produce the worst outcomes. All of these statements apply after controlling for the family's socioeconomic status.14 I know of no other set of important findings that are as broadly accepted by social scientists who follow the technical literature, liberal as well as conservative, and yet are so resolutely ignored by network news programs, editorial writers for the major newspapers, and politicians of both major political parties. In — Charles Murray

provided a road map for how a real man was supposed to lead his life. Get married. Love your wife and treat her with respect. Have children, and teach them the value of hard work. Do your job. Don't complain. Remember that family - unlike most of those people you might meet in life - will always be around. Fix what can be fixed or get rid of it. Be a good neighbor. Love your grandchildren. Do the right thing. Good — Nicholas Sparks

We must work tirelessly to make sure that every boy and girl in America who is up for adoption has a family waiting to reach him or her ... This is a season of miracles, and perhaps there is no greater miracle than finding a loving home for a child who needs one. — William J. Clinton

Have a look at the results when Australians are asked if they agree or disagree with the statement: 'It is better for the family if the husband is the principal breadwinner outside the home and the wife has primary responsibility for the home and children.' In 1986, just over 55 per cent of men agreed with that proposition. That proportion swan-dived down to about 30 per cent by 2001, but by 2005, it had gone up again, to 41.4 per cent. Women subscribe to that view less enthusiastically than men on the whole, but they too have waxed and waned over the last 30 years. In 1986, 33 per cent of them thought it was better for men to work and women to keep house. By 2001, that had dipped to 19 per cent. But by 2005, it had bobbed back up to 36.4 per cent.17 — Annabel Crabb

The best time for marriage will be towards thirty, for as the younger times are unfit, either to choose or to govern a wife and family, so, if thou stay long, thou shalt hardly see the education of thy children, who, being left to strangers, are in effect lost; and better were it to be unborn than ill-bred; for thereby thy posterity shall either perish, or remain a shame to thy name. — Walter Raleigh

So often when God places a call on one of His children, the ability to answer the call requires a separation between the old life and the new life. We are called away from the old in order to prepare our heart for what is to come. This can be a painful and difficult separation. Joseph was separated from his family. Jacob was sent to live with his uncle Laban. Moses was sent to the desert. Perhaps God has placed you in your own desert period. Perhaps you cannot make sense of the situation in which you find yourself. If you, like Paul, will get intimate with God during this time, He will reveal the purposes He has for you. The key is pressing into Him. Seek Him with a whole heart, and He will be found. — Os Hillman

My priority is always the family and Victoria [Beckham] and I always ensure we are there for our children. We work hard but family comes first. — David Beckham

Marriage includes a spouse, and often children. But the goal, center, and purpose of marriage is not self, spouse, or children. The ultimate goal of marriage and family is the glory of God. Only when marriage and family exist for God's glory - and not to serve as replacement idols - are we able to truly love and be loved. Remember, neither your child nor your husband (or wife) should be who you worship, but instead who you worship with. — Mark Driscoll

A famous cigarette billboard pictures a curly-headed, bronze-faced, muscular macho with a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth. The sign reads 'Where a man belongs.' That is a lie. Where a man belongs is at the bedside of his children, leading in devotion and prayer. Where a man belongs is leading his family to the house of God. Where a man belongs is up early and alone with God seeking vision and direction for the family. — John Piper

One thing that happens often times in family life is that people think maybe the challenge you are having with a child when they are a teenager or even in adolescence that this is going to go on forever and it doesn't. They get to their 20s, they change dramatically in their 20s. So sometimes it's just holding on for the ride, and just being there and holding on for the ride. — Michele Bachmann

Living in a small town ... is like living in a large family of rather uncongenial relations. Sometimes it's fun, and sometimes it's perfectly awful, but it's always good for you. People in large towns are like only-children. — Joyce Dennys

I want to set the example my mother set for me: a strong female role model who faces challenges takes risks and conquers fears. I want my children to know that as women they can do whatever they dream as long as they believe in themselves. More than anything it is my responsibility to instill in my daughters the knowledge that they can have a family and everything else too. — Mireya Mayor

The wind was blowing from the east and the cedars bent before it, - blowing from the east like the breath of the war god. And Fred and Stanley were waving their hats gayly back to her, while the cedars bent and the wind blew from the east. They were like her own boys marching off to war. Children of her children, she loved them as she had loved their parents. Did a woman never get over loving? Deep love brought relatively deep heartaches. Why could not a woman of her age, whose family was raised, relinquish the hold upon her emotions? Why could she not have a peaceful old age, wherein there entered neither great affection nor its comrade, great sorrow? She had seen old women who seemed not to care as she was caring, whose emotions seemed to have died with their youth. Could she not be one of them? For a long time she stood in the window and looked at the cedars twisting before the east wind, like so many helpless women under the call from the east. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I have failed to continue to set an example for a secure, loving family unit as an example for our children. That is the reality of it. There is no way of getting around it. — Seal

For me to sit here and give all kinds of excuses to make it right, I can't do. But what I want to ask everyone out there, everyone that has a child, everyone that has a brother, a sister: if your child or family member was abducted today, if a mad man came in, a terrorist came in, abducted your family member or your child and if I said to you I can bring your child home ... does it matter how I bring them home? — Sam Childers

A house means a family house, a place specially meant for putting children and men in so as to restrict their waywardness and distract them from the longing for adventure and escape they've had since time began. — Marguerite Duras

If it is perfectly acceptable for a widow to disfigure herself or commit suicide to save face for her husband's family, why should a mother not be moved to extreme action by the loss of a child or children? We are their caretakers. We love them. We nurse them when they are sick ... But no woman should live longer than her children. It is against the law of nature. If she does, why wouldn't she wish to leap from a cliff, hang from a branch, or swallow lye? — Lisa See

We all love stories, even if they're not true. As we grow up, one of the ways we learn about the world is through the stories we hear. Some are about particular events and personalities within our personal circles of family and friends. Some are part of the larger cultures we belong to - the myths, fables, and fairy tales about our own ways of life that have captivated people for generations. In stories that are told often, the line between fact and myth can become so blurred that we easily mistake one for the other. This is true of a story that many people believe about education, even though it's not real and never really was. It goes like this: Young children go to elementary school mainly to learn the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics. These skills are essential so they can do well academically in high school. If they go on to higher education and graduate with a good degree, they'll find a well-paid job and the country will prosper too. — Ken Robinson

It didn't seem to matter that Reagan made his heartfelt endorsements of traditional family values despite being divorced and so alienated from his own children that one of them would write a book about what a rotten father he had been; by the same token, the president's failure to have made regular or even occasional visits to church hardly dimmed his appeal for the resurgent religious right — Douglas Brinkley

When I see brokenness, poverty and crime in inner cities, I also see the enormous potential and readiness for transformation and rebirth. We are creating an art form that comes from the heart and reflects the pain and sorrow of people's lives. It also expresses joy, beauty, and love. This process lays the foundation of building a genuine community in which people are reconnected with their families, sustained by meaningful work, nurtured by the care of each other and will together raise and educate their children. Then we witness social change in action. — Lily Yeh

Out would come another star, winking at me over the white shoulder of the Rothorn. Round me stood the mountains, exquisite examples of peace - A world above man's head, to let him see How boundless might his soul's horizons be - and here was I, minding because guests went into their bedrooms and told each other I had five children. Well, so I had. Nothing could possibly be more true. How vast, yet of what clear transparency - and minding because they said I was forty, which I certainly would be some day, if I went on living at the rate I was doing. How it were good to abide there and be free - The fact was, I reflected, my eyes on the glittering slopes of the Weisshorn, we were all too close together, and my guests, being of one family, only made this closeness worse. The remedy - it burst upon me suddenly in a flash, - was not to waste my serenity vainly longing for the guests I had to go, but to invite yet more of them. Unrelated ones. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

When the perfect order prevails, the world is like a home shared by all. Leaders are capable and virtuous. Everyone loves and respects their own parents and children as well as the parents and children of others. The old are cared for, adults have jobs, children are nourished and educated. There is a means of support for all those who are disabled or find themselves alone in the world. Everyone has an appropriate role to play in the family and society. Devotion to public duty leaves no place for idleness. Scheming for ill gain is unknown. Sharing displaces selfishness and materialism. — Confucius

The mere existence of an additional child or children in the family could signify Less. Less time alone with parents. Less attention for hurts and disappointments. Less approval for accomplishments ... No wonder children struggle so fiercely to be first or best. No wonder they mobilize all their energy to have more or most. Or better still, all. — Adele Faber

I know that not every family is a clean-cut nuclear Mom and Dad at home situation - but I think every father needs to do whatever he can to be present in the lives of his kids. If you are in a situation where you have not been - fight for it. Don't give up till you get it. Don't be a jerk about it - don't "fight" mom - but "fight" whatever things tell you to just give up. Send cards, make phone calls, pay your support, and do whatever you can to be present in the lives of your children. — Josh Hatcher

It's really all about family, love and the children for me. I work at that every day. — Celine Dion

We went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have two, or it is no use. When the footman had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: Poor little doggie, you saved HIS child! — Mark Twain

I don't struggle to forgive people. I find it quite easy to forgive people for the harms that they have inflicted on me. What I do find challenging is to forgive people for the harms they inflict on my daughters and family. So, I find it challenging when I see somebody else experience hurt. I also look at my children and family and then I realize, I don't stand inside their skin and that is for me a forgiveness practice I still need to engage in. — Desmond Tutu

I picked up the phone, 'Hello?'
'Merry Christmas!' said Mom and Dad.
...
'I love you too' I replied. I hung up the phone. My students were gaping at me. Two girls in the back row brushed away tears and hugged each other. Parents and children rarely said those three words in China. They knew their parents loved them, but they knew from their actions, not because they had ever been told. The students had studied and heard about the importance of family at Christmas, but with that telephone call they saw it for themselves. — Aminta Arrington

Now you listen to me," says Ove calmly while he carefully closes the door. "You've given birth to two children and quite soon will be squeezing out a third. You've come here from a land far away and most likely you fled war and persecution and all sorts of other nonsense. You've learned a new language and got yourself an education and you're holding together a family of obvious incompetents. And I'll be damned if I've seen you afraid of a single bloody thing in this world before now ... I'm not asking for brain surgery. I'm asking you to drive a car. It's got an accelerator, a brake and a clutch. Some of the greatest twits in world history have sorted out how it works. And you will as well." And then he utters seven words, which Parvaneh will always remember as the loveliest compliment he'll ever give her. "Because you are not a complete twit. — Fredrik Backman

When a destitute mother starts earning an income, her dreams of success invariably center around her children. A woman's second priority is the household. She wants to buy utensils, build a stronger roof, or find a bed for herself and her family. A man has an entirely different set of priorities. When a destitute father earns extra income, he focuses more attention on himself. Thus money entering a household through a woman brings more benefits to the family as a whole. — Muhammad Yunus

Nothing in life is yours to keep - not your children, not your friends and family, not your lover, not your material possessions, not your youth and vitality, not your struggles (which is great news) or successes, not your body and not even your life. Everything in life is given to you for a short period of time, to enjoy, to learn from, to appreciate and to love, but never to keep. — Luminita D. Saviuc

Maturity is a needed component of faithful, loving relationships. And if not directed into the healthy channel of permitted adult behaviour, romantic and sexual jealousies can literally tear families and communities apart.
A permanent solution like marriage makes this much less a problem and also ensures that when couples have children, those children have a mother and father to care for them. — Linda Harvey

We shall never know what Rubens' children "really looked like," but this need not mean we are forever barred from examining the influence which acquired patterns or schema have on the organization of our perception. It would be interesting to examine this question in an experimental setting. but every student of art who has intensely occupied himself with a family of forms has experienced examples of such influence. In fact I vividly remember the shock I had while I was studying these formulas for chubby children: I never thought they could exist, but all of a sudden I saw such children everywhere. — E.H. Gombrich

Our children need to be able to see us take a stand for a value and against injustices, be those values and injustices in the family room, the boardroom, the classroom, or on the city streets. — Barbara Coloroso

I have been through the stages of disbelief and shock, to anger and ultimately grief over the loss of the family I so badly wanted for my children. — Elin Nordegren

Where are the ethical concerns, that so many people called animal lovers invoke, when you steal the children of wild dog mothers and other family members from right before their eyes? Do ethics always refer only to what people think appropriate for purely subjective reasons?
Ultimately, our long-term research resulted in a very sad picture: With the exception of the random puppy, who today as an adult actually is interested in people, neither male Maccia nor the most of the other "rescued" dogs are socially and environmentally secure, but had remained shy and partly vegetate in kennels with empty eyes. Such dogs are neither fish nor fowl, although taken from the wild population in the early age of about eight to twelve weeks (except Maccia, whom Funny "rescued" at the age of four months, which is even more irresponsible). — Gunther Bloch

A family of four needs to transport around 200 pounds of water each and every day to meet its most minimal drinking, cooking, and cleaning needs. To manage such an impossible weight, two trips to the well each day by mother and children are not uncommon. Carrying water for basic subsistence devours school time for children and places a dispiriting burden on the enterprising will of parents to struggle out of their material privation. That the water carrying falls traditionally on women adds the insult of gender inequity to the tragedy. — Steven Solomon

I would love to get married, first of all, from my children's perspective. People don't think of children when they think of gay marriage, but I do have children, and for them to see their family validated as other families are validated and protected by our government, yes. — Judy Gold

We ought to care for those closest to us in terms of relatedness. After our immediate family, we ought to pursue our calling diligently as employees and provide just incentives (perhaps through profit-sharing) and reasonable care for our workers as employers. We should seek the wisdom of teachers and elders in society and look to them for leadership, while rejecting their folly when it is discerned. We must put our children and their education, both at home and in school, before our own entertainment, pleasure, and success. We ought not to tolerate insolence or haughtiness in them; nor ought we to punish them too severely, but should lead them as good teachers, by example and patient instruction. — Michael S. Horton

I dream of a day when governments and societies no longer value blood and race over children, and the millions of unwanted children are freed at birth for adoption by people of every race. Aside from all its other benefits, massive adoption is the best assurance that people will never again slaughter the "other." When members of every family are one of those "others," such hatreds will become, finally, impossible. — Dennis Prager

a woman who contributes to the life of mankind by the occupation of motherhood is taking as high a place in the division of human labor as anyone else could take. If she is interested in the lives of her children and is paving the way for them to become fellow men, if she is spreading their interests and training them to cooperate, her work is so valuable that it can never be rightly rewarded. In our own culture the work of a mother is undervalued and often regarded as a not very attractive or estimable occupation. It is paid only indirectly and a woman who makes it her main occupation is generally placed in a position of economic dependence. The success of the family, however, rests equally upon the work of the mother and the work of the father. Whether the mother keeps house or works independently, her work as a mother does not play a lower role than the work of her husband. — Alfred Adler

It's about that applause I want to speak to you. I want you to remember that when you've done a little dance or a song or sketch, the applause which you get is not only because you yourself have done your best, but because each of those men is seeing in you someone he loves at home, and because of you is able to forget for a little while the unhappiness of not being in his home, and in some cases the great tragedy of not knowing what has happened to the children in his family. — Noel Streatfeild

It's not that parents love their children less than in generations past. It's that they no longer receive consistent societal support for the belief that parenting is their highest priority ... TV messages championed rather then detracted from wholesome ideals ... maybe "the old days" before the societal changes of the '60s weren't perfect, but they allowed a bevy of family-friendly forces to surround parents with encouragement for their mission ... — Diane Medved

Because you're the one. Because I've never felt for anyone what I feel for you. I want a lifetime with you, Abigail. I want a home with you, family with you. I want to make children with you, raise them with you. If you truly don't want any of that with me, I'll give you the best I've got, and hope you change your mind. I just need you to tell me you don't want it. — Nora Roberts

Mental illness was a family secret. This patient had four children grow up in foster homes, and they never knew her. It was heart-wrenching for her granddaughter to find this out. — Sean Moran

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 of disappointing those who believe in you turns into an overwhelming nightmare. And it is desperately unfair to the boy. He cannot live his parents' life over again for them. He cannot make up for their own lacks, their own unfulfillments. He cannot carry their torch
only his own. — Sydney J. Harris

It is important for practical and psychological reasons to call any reasonably stable group that rears children a family ... The advantage of this view is that traditional and nontraditional families can all be seen to serve the interests of children. Children can also feel comfortable with an approved family form, even if it is not traditional. — Sandra Scarr

He is my brother," I said. "I cannot desert him."
"You can go to your own death," William said. "Or you can survive this, bring up your children, and guard Anne's little girl who will be shamed and bastardized and motherless by the end of this week. You can wait out this reign and see what comes next. See what the future holds for the Princess Elizabeth, defend our son Henry against those who will want to set him up as the king's heir or even worse-flaunt him as a pretender. You owe it to your children to protect them. — Philippa Gregory

I was always a person on my mother's hip in the kitchen. My mom really wanted her kids at her side as much as possible, and she worked in restaurants for over fifty years. And my grandfather had ten children, and he grew and prepared most of the food. My grandmother, on my mother's side, was the family seamstress and the baker. So my mom, the eldest child, was always in the kitchen with my grandpa and I was always in the production and restaurant kitchens and our own kitchen with my mom. And it's just something that has always spoken to me. — Rachael Ray

they feel ignored, unappreciated, and unloved. That's because their context-blind Aspie family members are so poor at empathic reciprocity. As we have learned, we come to know ourselves in relation to others. This doesn't just apply when children are developing self-esteem. Throughout our lifespan, we continue to weave and re-weave the context of our lives, based on the interactions we have with our friends, coworkers, neighbors and loved ones. This is why it is so important for an NT parent/partner to get feedback from their spouse. A smile, a hug, a kind word, a note of encouragement: These are messages that reinforce the NT's self-esteem and contribute to a healthy reciprocity in the relationship. Without these daily reminders from their loved ones, NTs can develop some odd defense mechanisms. One is to become psychologically invisible to others and even to themselves. — Kathy J. Marshack

Over and over these organizations tell America that family, above all, is what Christianity is about. Devotion to one's family is, indeed, a wonderful thing. Yet it is hardly something to brag about. For all except the most pathologically self-absorbed, love for one's parents, spouse, and children comes naturally. Jesus did not make it his business to affirm these ties; he didn't have to. Jews feel them, Buddhists feel them, Confucians and Zoroastrians and atheists feel them. Christianity is not about reinforcing such natural bonds and instinctive sentiments. Rather, Christianity is about challenging them and helping us to see all of humankind as our family. It seems clear that if Jesus had wanted to affirm the "traditional family" in the way that Pat Robertson claims, he would not have lived the way he did. — Bruce Bawer

I don't see how a woman in documentary photography could have children. I think it's a very difficult thing to do to raise a family, and I have enormous respect for people who do it. I'd hate to do something like that and not be good at it. — Mary Ellen Mark

No one goes anywhere alone, least of all into exile - not even those who arrive physically alone, unaccompanied by family, spouse, children, parents, or siblings. No one leaves his or her world without having been transfixed by its roots, or with a vacuum for a soul. We carry with us the memory of many fabrics, a self soaked in our history, our culture; a memory, sometimes scattered, sometimes sharp and clear, of the streets of our childhood, of our adolescence; the reminiscence of something distant that suddenly stands out before us, in us, a shy gesture, an open hand, a smile lost in a time of misunderstanding, a sentence, a simple sentence possibly now forgotten by the one who had said it. — Paulo Freire

But, neither of these educational scenarios worked for us, so when we started a family, we wanted a different school for our children. And the other founders felt the same way. — Daniel Greenberg

While there is widespread recognition that the War on Drugs is racist and that politicians have refused to invest in jobs or schools in their communities, parents of offenders and ex-offenders still feel intense shame - shame that their children have turned to crime despite the lack of obvious alternatives. One mother of an incarcerated teen, Constance, described her angst this way: "Regardless of what you feel like you've done for your kid, it still comes back on you, and you feel like, 'Well, maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I messed up. You know, maybe if I had a did it this way, then it wouldn't a happened that way.'" After her son's arrest, she could not bring herself to tell friends and relatives and kept the family's suffering private. Constance is not alone. — Michelle Alexander

I drink because I don't stand a chance and I know it. I couldn't drive a truck and I couldn't get on the cops with my build. I got to sling beer and sing when I just want to sing. I drink because I got responsibilities that I can't handle ... I am not a happy man. I got a wife and children and I don't happen to be a hard-working man. I never wanted a family ... Yes, your mother works hard. I love my wife and I love my children. But shouldn't a man have a better life? Maybe someday it will be that the Unions will arrange for a man to work and to have time for himself too. But that won't be in my time. Now, it's work hard all the time or be a bum ... no in-between. When I die, nobody will remember me for long. No one will say, "He was a man who loved his family and believed in the Union." All they will say is," Too bad. But he was nothing but a drunk no matter which way you look at it." Yes they'll say that. — Betty Smith

For the church as we know it is a tragically dysfunctional family, in which some children are starving while others have food stashed in their closets. Some of us are living on the street while others have empty rooms in our homes. And, of course, there are all sorts of things being done that bring great dishonor and embarrassment to the family name. — Shane Claiborne

Perfectionist parents seem to operate under the illusion that if they can just get their children to be perfect, they will be a perfect family. They put the burden of stability on the child to avoid facing the fact that they, as parents, cannot provide it. The child fails and becomes the scapegoat for family problems. Once again, the child is saddled with the blame. — Susan Forward

Love the family! Defend and promote it as the basic cell of human
society; nurture it as the prime sanctuary of life. Give great care to the
preparation of engaged couples and be close to young married couples, so
that they will be for their children and the whole community an eloquent
testimony of God's love. — Pope John Paul II

Donald Trump creates scapegoats in Muslims and Mexican immigrants. He calls for the use of torture. He calls for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists. He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit First Amendment freedom of the press. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss. — Mitt Romney

[Fighting Climate Change] is important for every single person on the planet, which is why it has to be the greatest grassroots movement of all time. This is the battle of our lives. We're fighting for our children. — Emma Thompson

If books were food, I'd weigh thirty thousand pounds. I devour the things. I'm addicted to reading, and when I'm in the middle of a great book, I'm tempted to tell my kids to eat dog food for dinner. Before you call the Department of Family and Children's Services, I said tempted. I've never actually done that. — Sandi Hutcheson

When women earn the money for the family, everyone in the family benefits. We also know that when women have an income, everyone wins because women dedicate 90% of the income to health, education, to food security, to the children, to the family, or to the community, so when women have an income, everybody wins. — Michelle Bachelet

Apparently, it was common for children to participate in the Civil War, and thus, lots of fathers had brought their sons along for a fun family weekend of simulated violence and bloodshed. — Stuart Gibbs

My father never put a book into my hands and never forbade a book. Instead, he let me roam and graze, making my own more or less appropriate selections. I read gory tales of historic heroism that nine-teenth century parents were suitable for children, and gothic ghost stories that were surely not; I read accounts of arduous travel through treacherous lands undertaken by spinsters in crinolines, and I read handbooks on decorum and etiquette intended for young ladies of good family; I read books with pictures and books without; books in English, books in French, books in languages I didn't understand where I could make up stories in my head on the basis of a handful of guessed-at words. Books. Books. And books. — Diane Setterfield

The world changed, and the idea of having a family became feasible for homosexuals. But I was still left with the question as to what it would be like for a child to grow up with gay parents. — Andrew Solomon

It must be emphasized that as a father, you are always teaching. For good or ill your family learns your ways, your beliefs, your heart, your ideas, your concerns. Your children may or may not choose to follow you, but the example you give is the greatest light you hold before your children, and you are accountable for that light. — Joseph Smith Jr.

[To the masculine lover] Without a deep sense of purpose to direct your daily life, you will be directed by externals-financial need, your children's needs, your lover's needs-and you will begin to blame them for your lack of fulfillment. You will feel trapped in obligations, and your resentments will show. You will hold back in your relationships with your lover and family, not really wanting to be there, unsure what else to do, mired in ambiguity, guilt, and anger. Your actions will lack integrity and follow-through. Your feminine lover won't be able to trust you in everyday life or open to you sexually. [Pg 121] — David Deida

It was entirely taken for granted that there wasn't any lying in our family, and I was advanced in adolescence before I realized that in plenty of homes where I played with schoolmates, and went to their parties, children lied to their parents and parents lied to their children and to each other. It took me a long time to realize that these very same everyday lies, and the stratagems and jokes and tricks and dares that went with them, were in fact the basis of the scenes I so well loved to hear about and hoped for and treasured in the conversation of adults. My instinct - the dramatic instinct - was to lead me, eventually, on the right track for a storyteller: the scene was full of hints, pointers, suggestions, and promises of things to find out and know about human beings.I had to grow up and learn to listen for the unspoken as well as the spoken - and to know a truth, I also had to recognize a lie. — Eudora Welty

I cannot step into any day without help. I have a fantastically engaged husband who is very present for his children and our family life. We've got a brilliant nanny, other help from parents-in-law, godparents, friends. Also, I've had incredible women around me in the business. — Tamsin Greig

My objective is to leave my family adequately catered for, but I want my children to make their own way. I want them to have pride in their own achievements. — John Caudwell

The Family and Medical Leave Act, for example, only entitles spouses, grown children, and parents to take time off to care for a sick loved one. If a childless single person falls ill, only her parents have the legal right to take off work to care for her. If they're deceased or not up to the task, she's out of luck. Even if she has a sister, niece, or best friend willing to take a leave, they won't be legally entitled to do so. No one has the right to care for her. — Sara Eckel

Has there ever been a more important subject, in all the world, than children and families? These are, after all, the foundation and ultimate purpose of any society. Moreover, the overall purpose of this experience is not merely survival or just the day after day (after day) exercise of going through the motions of meeting basic needs. Rather, it was meant to be a long, deep immersion of a work in progress, a life-long celebration of sorts, steeped in love, beauty, and joy. Anything less is a travesty and is tragically off the mark of true success for the parent and the child, and amiss of the essentials for a fullness of life for both. — Connie Kerbs

Will non-English-speaking students start speaking English because their teachers were fired? Will children come to school ready to learn because their teachers were fired?
It would be good if our nation's education leaders recognized that teachers are not solely responsible for student test scores. Other influences matter, including the students' effort, the family's encouragement, the effects of popular culture, and the influence of poverty. A blogger called "Mrs. Mimi" wrote the other day that we fire teachers because "we can't fire poverty." Since we can't fire poverty, we can't fire students, and we can't fire families, all that is left is to fire teachers.
— Diane Ravitch

My journey started with the understanding that poor parents share the universal desire for education for their children. No family in our experience has ever turned down educational support for their daughter. — Ann Cotton