Parenthood And Love Quotes & Sayings

Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation resembles no book I've read before. If I tell you that it's funny, and moving, and true; that it's as compact and mysterious as a neutron; that it tells a profound story of love and parenthood while invoking (among others) Keats, Kafka, Einstein, Russian cosmonauts, and advice for the housewife of 1896, will you please simply believe me, and read it? — Michael Cunningham

The married man and the mother of a Christian family, if they are faithful to their obligations, will fulfill a mission that is as great as it is consoling: that of bringing into the world and forming young souls capable of happiness and love, souls capable of sanctification and transformation in Christ. — Thomas Merton

Who provides the love and a path to reconciliation? It's not Planned Parenthood; it's the Catholic Church, the other Christian churches, and the ministries they have created. — Chris Smith

I've got to be kind of careful because I've had good advice: "Don't sell yourself too short." I have to not be too available to everything that comes along. I've always been a people pleaser and now I'm upping the ante in terms of price so I can be more selective. I really enjoyed working on three tracks on Sara Groves' [parenthood-focused] album Station Wagon. I love playing on those songs and I love the heart in that album. — Phil Keaggy

What's great about TV, and what I love about being on 'Parenthood,' is you have this family. I'm now going on four years of working with the same 100 people, and that helps you feel like your life has more roots. It's more conducive to having a family, and you're staying in town. So that part is amazing. — Dax Shepard

Art is love-times-love; the creator loves it and his audience adores it. To miss the sensation of loving art is to miss a kind of parenthood - false pregnancy perhaps - but as Van Gogh said, "If, defrauded of the power to create physically, a man tries to create thoughts in place of children, he is still part of humanity" ... a big part. — Vincent Price

And the end of this paradox is that only when the child is thus free can he have the proper attachment to his parents; only when we allow his independence can he then freely offer us love and respect, without conflict and without resentment. It is the hardest lesson to learn that the goal of parenthood is not to reign forever but to abdicate gracefully at the right time. — Sydney J. Harris

We watched each other evolve into parents, with all the fear, rage and confusion evolution can involve. Our eight-year-old is the incarnation of our union; we are forever fused by her blood. My old take on romance seemed vaguely ludicrous, as affected as a pair of spats. I no longer saw the point in 'getting back to normal', that pantomime of pretending nothing had changed; I wanted to evolve from sexual posturing into a deeper consciousness, that of love. — Antonella Gambotto-Burke

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

I'm talking about the soul-crushing drudgery of day-to-day parenthood that we're too embarrassed to talk about. The boredom, the stress, the nagging dissatisfaction, and the sense of personal failure that parents feel when raising a kid isn't all it's cracked up to be. Perhaps worst of all is the guilt that so many women buy into because they're too ashamed to admit that despite the love they have for their kids, child rearing can be a tedious and thankless undertaking. — Jessica Valenti

It is God's will that some of his children should learn this deep union with himself through the perfect flowering of natural human love in marriage. For others it is equally his will that the same perfect union should be learned through the experience of learning to lay down completely this natural and instinctive desire for marriage and parenthood, and accept the circumstances of life which deny them this experience. This instinct for love, so firmly implanted in the human heart, is the supreme way by which we learn to desire and love God himself above all else. — Hannah Hurnard

The birth of a child is a joy to the parent and the world. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Genuine love for a child, it seems to me, must include a desire for his maturity and ultimately his independence. WAtching a personality unfold is perhaps the deepest pleasure of parenthood; wishing, or trying, to retard this growth is one of the deepest sins. — Sydney J. Harris

You see how it is godlike to love the being of someone. Your existence is a delight to us. I hope you never have to long for a child as I did, but oh, what a splendid thing it has been that you came finally, and what a blessing to enjoy you now for almost seven years. — Marilynne Robinson

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

Instead of treating your child like how you were treated. Treat them with the same love and attention you wanted from your parents while growing up. — Jonathan Anthony Burkett

Billy is a funny, cheeky, lovely boy and I love being with him. Parenthood is terrifying though. I can barely walk past a building without panicking that it's going to collapse on his head. — Rufus Sewell

Children see beauty in everything. — Lailah Gifty Akita

If the world is so cruel you are frightened of it, I will hold you, and protect you, and teach it to love you as I already love you. — Lois Leveen

But doing 'Parenthood,' I've never ever been happier in 35 years. I drive to work and I drive home. I'm like a factory worker and that is in my DNA. I love having a steady job with the same people. It's made me so much calmer and more content. Now I just hope the series goes on for 15 years. — Dax Shepard

Then Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry. But he loved him, and he preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy without the boy. — Hermann Hesse

To look deep into your child's eyes and see in him both yourself and something utterly strange, and then to develop a zealous attachment to every aspect of him, is to achieve parenthood's self-regarding, yet unselfish, abandon. It is astonishing how often such mutuality had been realized - how frequently parents who had supposed that they couldn't care for an exceptional child discover that they can. The parental predisposition to love prevails in the most harrowing of circumstances. There is more imagination in the world than one might think. — Andrew Solomon

A few days after we came home from the hospital, I sent a letter to a friend, including a photo of my son and some first impressions of fatherhood. He responded, simply, 'Everything is possible again.' It was the perfect thing to write because that was exactly how it felt. — Jonathan Safran Foer

The parent is protector and trainer, but never the ultimate teacher. Every parent is responsible for teaching their kid basic moral conduct, manners, the difference between love and hate, and right from wrong. However, after maturity, the child must set off to seek knowledge on their own. Religion is never to be forced. And you cannot threaten your child with hell and tell them your religion is the only right way. There is no one right way. The many ways to the Creator are as varied as the colors of a rainbow. — Suzy Kassem

Our ferocious commitment to our children's safety and success, along with our genuine love, drives us to endure the often unhappy experience of disciplining our children. — Matt Chandler

To you who are parents, I say, show love to your children. You know you love them, but make certain they know it as well. They are so precious. Let them know. Call upon our Heavenly Father for help as you care for their needs each day and as you deal with the challenges which inevitably come with parenthood. You need more than your own wisdom in rearing them. — Thomas S. Monson

Then keep your confidence in the infinite mercy of the Savior. Say, like one mother I know who was distressed by the conduct of her children, 'Jesus, You love them too much not to save them.' Thank Him in advance for the Heaven which He is preparing for them...but, and this is very, very important--while you are suffering, wait in peace for the time of Jesus, the time chosen by Him to grant your request. He will perhaps make you wait a long time, precisely as a proof of your confidence...tell Him whatever your trial, that with His grace nothing will make you lose your profound peace, because you are sure of Him. — Jean C.J. D'Elbee

God's Fatherly prerogative, is a kingly attribute so sweetly veiled in love, that the King's crown is forgotten in the King's face, and His sceptre becomes, not a rod of iron, but a silver sceptre of mercy - the sceptre indeed seems to be forgotten in the tender hand of Him who wields it. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The most potent reward for parenthood I have known has been delight in my fully grown progeny. They are friends with an extra dimension of affection. True, there is also an extra dimension of resentment on the children's part, but once offspring are in their thirties, their ability to love their parents, perhaps in contemplation of the deaths to come, expands, and, if one is fortunate, grudges recede. []p. 209] — Carolyn G. Heilbrun

To receive children's love and to come home to a child who runs to you with a hug, among the
most powerful emotional experiences available. — Dennis Prager

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

Of all the joys of life, none other equals that of happy parenthood. Of all the responsibilities with which we struggle, none other is so serious. To rear children in an atmosphere of love, security, and faith is the most rewarding of all challenges. The good result from such efforts becomes life's most satisfying compensation. — John Hinckley Jr.

I was into third guesses with Theo and Maddy. Anyway, that's one of the reasons I opted to buy
the van and drive cross-country instead of dumping us all in a plane. It gave us some time. Nothing
like a three-thousand-mile drive in an enclosed vehicle to cement a family unit - if you live through
it."
"It was very brave of you."
"You want to talk courage?" He drove easily up the lane to the villa. "I've been chief taste-tester
on this wine experiment Maddy's conducting. It's brut — Nora Roberts

Delirious as it can be, sex is only one kind of intimacy, and yet has become the cultural catchment area for all kinds of needs because our understanding of intimacy is so poor. Brutal work schedules, related geographic isolation, and the concomitant fracturing of families has meant that there is little time for intimacy, and even less to teach the necessary skills. But intimacy, the axis of romance, is slow, based on the sharing of a life rather than show. In terms of intimacy, folding laundry together or sharing the feeding of a child can have more impact than the most extravagant bouquet. — Antonella Gambotto-Burke

The abortion isn't what they(conservative pro-life men of 1940s) are thinking
about; they're really thinking about sex. They're really thinking
about love and reducing it to its most mechanical aspects - that is to
say, the mechanical fact of intercourse as a specific act to make
children in this world, and thinking of its use in any other way as
wrong and wicked. They are determined to reduce women's normal sexual
responses, to end them, really, when we've just had a couple of
decades of admitting them. — Grace Paley

Wary of being caught unawares, we planned our parenthood, committed to trial marriages with pre-nuptials, and pre-arranged our parents' funerals - convinced we could pre-feel the feelings that we have heard attend new life, true love, and death. — Thomas Lynch

I didn't just see a child in my dreams - I felt it in my heart. — Seth Adam Smith

It wasn't until we dropped him at his university dormitory and left him there looking touchingly lost and bewildered amid an assortment of cardboard boxes and suitcases in a spartan room not unlike a prison cell that it really hit home that he was vanishing out of our lives and into his own. — Bill Bryson

If coupling should but make us whole / And of the selfsame mind and soul, / Then couple let's in celebration; / We have contained the population. — N. Scott Momaday

Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong. — Richard Dawkins

It's a strange thing, having a child," he said. It completely alters your most fundamental priorities. When my eldest daughter was born, I realized that I would do anything - anything - to protect her. If I had to set myself on fire to save her from something, I would do it with the utmost relief and gratitude. It's quite a thing, quite a privilege, to care about someone so much that the measure of worth of your own life is changed so much."

Tatsu. — Barry Eisler

When seventeenth-century Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune lectured a Montagnais Indian man about the dangers of the rampant infidelity he'd witnessed, Le Jeune received a lesson on proper parenthood in response. The missionary recalled, "I told him that it was not honorable for a woman to love any one else except her husband, and that this evil being among them, he himself was not sure that his son, who was there present, was his son. He replied, 'Thou hast no sense. You French people love only your own children; but we all love all the children of our tribe.'"5 — Christopher Ryan

To put radically asunder what nature and nature's God joined together in parenthood when he made love procreative, and to disregard the foundation of the covenant of marriage and the covenant of parenthood in the reality that makes for a loving procreation, and to attempt to soar so high above an eminently human parenthood, is inevitably to fall far below - into a vast technological alienation of man. — Paul Ramsey

In response to our fast-food culture, a 'slow food' movement appeared. Out of hurried parenthood, a move toward slow parenting could be growing. With vital government supports for state-of-the-art public child care and paid parental leave, maybe we would be ready to try slow love and marriage. — Arlie Russell Hochschild

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

After having been standing by the gate of the garden for a long time, Siddhartha realised that his desire was foolish, which had made him go up to this place, that he could not help his son, that he was not allowed to cling him. Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to become a blossom and had to shine. — Hermann Hesse

Perhaps the best function of parenthood is to teach the young creature to love with safety, so that it may be able to venture unafraid when later emotion comes; the thwarting of the instinct to love is the root of all sorrow and not sex only but divinity itself is insulted when it is repressed. To disapprove, to condemn the human soul shrivels under barren righteousness. — Freya Stark

Before they had kids, if asked to conjure images of parenthood they would have said things like "Reading in bed," and "Giving a bath," and "Running while holding the seat of a bicycle." Parenthood contains such moments of warmth and intimacy, but isn't them. It's cleaning up. The great bulk of family life involves no exchange of love, and no meaning, only fulfillment. Not the fulfillment of feeling fulfilled, but of fulfilling that which now falls to you. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Parental love is not contingent on the talents and attributes the child happens to have. We choose our friends and spouses at least partly on the basis of qualities we find attractive. But we do not choose our children. Their qualities are unpredictable, and even the most conscientious parents cannot be held wholly responsible for the kind of child they have. That is why parenthood, more than other human relationships, teaches what the theologian William F. May calls an openness to the unbidden. — Michael J. Sandel

She watched as he settled down on the bed with Naya skin to skin on his chest. His hand all but covered her tiny body as he stroked her in that changeling way, bonding with her on the most elemental level. Then he purred, and Naya made a happy little sound of delight, very much a cat in her love of touch. — Nalini Singh

Do not expect too much from your child and she will grow in your love ... But if you push her too much, you will push her away. A child is not yours to own but to raise. She may not be what you will have her to be, but she will be what she has to be. Remember what they say, that 'Wood may remain twenty years in the water, but it is still not a fish. — Jane Yolen

Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger, and the more alien the stranger, the stronger the whiff of negativity. We depend on the guarantee in our children's faces that we will not die. Children whose defining quality annihilates that fantasy of immortality are a particular insult; we must love them for themselves, and not for the best of ourselves in them, and that is a great deal harder to do. Loving our own children is an exercise for the imagination. — Andrew Solomon

A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' ... — Christopher Hitchens

Their lifelong love of learning, their remarkable wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, was fostered primarily by their father. He read aloud to them at night, eliciting their responses to works of history and literature. He organized amateur plays for them, encourage pursuit of special interests, prompted them to write essays on their readings, and urge them to recite poetry. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

No one said parenting was easy,but NO good parent has any right to give up.It is one labyrinth you can never quit because it seems too hard. — Gillian Duce

Distrust won't do good to you.
But still if you ever do.

Doubt you husband,
Maybe doubt your wife.
But never suspect,
your kid's father,
or the mother of your child. — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

Married love, therefore, requires of husband and wife the full awareness of their obligations in the matter of responsible parenthood, which today, rightly enough, is much insisted upon, but which at the same time should be rightly understood. Thus, we do well to consider responsible parenthood in the light of its varied legitimate and interrelated aspects. — Pope Paul VI

The purest, most beautiful and appealing experiences of life: romance, love, marriage, and parenthood. — Boyd K. Packer

Fifteen-year-old girls produce children with sixteen-year-old boys in the backseat of cars and in the stairwells of apartment buildings. Why can't two loving adults who have contemplated parenthood and are prepared to offer love, patience, and devotion come up with enough chromosomal matter to stick together and create a child? — Scott Simon