Parents Love Child Quotes & Sayings

A child in its greed for love does not enjoy having to share the affection of its parents with its brothers and sisters; and it notices that the whole of their affection is lavished upon it once more whenever it arouses their anxiety by falling ill. It has now discovered a means of enticing out its parents' love and will make use of that means as soon as it has the necessary psychical material at its disposal for producing an illness. — Sigmund Freud

Every human relationship begins with a coincidence. Even the most fundamental relationship - that of parent and child - begins entirely with a coincidence. The child is produced by whatever serendipity brought its parents together, and the fact that the child was born to its particular parents instead of to another couple is pure happenstance. Thus, children have no choice over the relationship that is most important to their existence.
By contrast, friends and lovers choose each other, but even these choices are reactions to whatever random coincidence made the resulting relationship possible. — Zack Love

Every child is born with tremendous love for himself. It is the society that destroys that love, it is the religion that destroys that love - because if a child goes on growing in loving himself, who is going to love Jesus Christ? Who is going to love the president, Ronald Reagan? Who is going to love the parents? — Rajneesh

Parents are supposed to give the child back to herself with love. If they've got duct tape over their eyes because of narcissism, it doesn't happen. — Jane Fonda

He found himself filled with joy, for now his existence had a meaning. He had a future, because he was part of a world that had a future, and instead of wanting to decide for himself and determine that future for everyone else, he knew that he would be glad just to touch some small part of it. To marry and give happiness to his wife. To have a child and give it the same love that his parents gave him. To have a friend and ease his burdedn now and then. To have a skill or a secret and teach it to a student whose life might be changed a little by what he learned. Why had he dreamed of leading armies, whichwould accomplish nothing, when he could do these miraculous small things and change the world? — Orson Scott Card

I see my upbringing as a great success story. By disciplining me, my parents inculcated self-discipline. And by restricting my choices as a child, they gave me so many choices in my life as an adult. Because of what they did then, I get to do the work I love now. — Amy Chua

When faced with choosing between attributing their pain to "being crazy" and having had abusive parents, clients will choose "crazy" most of the time. Dora, a 38-year-old, was profoundly abused by multiple family perpetrators and has grappled with cutting and eating disordered behaviors for most of her life. She poignantly echoed this dilemma in her therapy:
I hate it when we talk about my family as "dysfunctional" or "abusive." Think about what you are asking me to accept - that my parents didn't love me, care about me, or protect me. If I have to choose between "being abused" or "being sick and crazy," it's less painful to see myself as nuts than to imagine my parents as evil. — Lisa Ferentz

Parents of handicapped children are occasionally embarrassed or hurt by others who awkwardly express sympathy but cannot know or appreciate the depth of the parents love for a handicapped child. Perhaps there is some comparison in the fact that there is no less love in families for the helpless infant who must be fed, bathed, and diapered than for the older but still dependent members. We love those we serve and who need us. — James E. Faust

What I always knew about my parents was that they were in love, and this love had a fizz. It was exciting to be their child, to be around them. There was a dynamism between them, a charge. — Monique Roffey

A child is a Soul, a Unit Consciousness materialized on Earth to learn, fulfill its purpose contributing within the Matrix of Gaia. Our parents fought for 'Expression of Thoughts', 'Equality', we now have a task to fight for the Supremacy of Love over Control within all Areas of Life.'
Conscious Parenting by Natasa Pantovic Nuit Quotes about kids development soul — Natasa Nuit Pantovic

Our most important and powerful assignments are in the family. They are important because the family has the opportunity at the start of a child's life to put feet firmly on the path home. Parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles are made more powerful guides and rescuers by the bonds of love that are the very nature of a family. — Henry B. Eyring

She had navigated her parents' hostile waters with a child's discretion, learning to keep from one the confessions of the other. Learning to hide love. — Jeanette Winterson

By loving them for more than their abilities we show our children that they are much more than the sum of their accomplishments. — Eileen Kennedy-Moore

I realize it's commonplace for parents to say to their child sternly, 'I love you, but I don't always like you.' But what kind of love is that? It seems to me that comes down to, 'I'm not oblivious to you - that is, you can still hurt my feelings - but I can't stand having you around.' Who wants to be loved like that? Given a choice, I might skip the deep blood tie and settle for being liked. I wonder if wouldn't have been more moved if my own mother had taken me in her arms and said, 'I like you.' I wonder if just enjoying your kid's company isn't more important. — Lionel Shriver

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

Dads. It's time to tell our kids that we love them. Constantly. It's time to show our kids that we love them. Constantly. It's time to take joy in their twenty-thousand daily questions and their inability to do things as quickly as we'd like. It's time to take joy in their quirks and their ticks. It's time to take joy in their facial expressions and their mispronounced words. It's time to take joy in everything that our kids are. — Dan Pearce

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

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

Leave your mark on the world by leaving behind a child who grows up to love and serve the Lord. — Elizabeth George

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

Family comes in many shapes and forms. It's a single mom that happily gives up the things she wants or needs in order to provide that extra special something for her child. It's the single father that's trying to be a mother and father to his kids. It's the parents that were never able to have children of their own and adopt a child. Family doesn't show prejudice based on race, age or sex. Family isn't only defined by blood; it's defined by love. Something that Lily and I have in leaps and bounds. Family's what we make it, what we want it to be. — Jennifer Miller

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

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

Dads. Do your faces light up when you first see your child in the morning or when you come home from work? Do you not understand that a child's entire sense of value can revolve around what they see in your face when you first see them? — Dan Pearce

Our earth is like a child who has grown up without parents, having no one to guide her ... Some have attempted to help her but most have simply tried to use her. Humans, who have been given the task to lovingly steer the world, instead plunder her with no consideration, other than their immediate needs. And they give little thought for their own children who will inherit their lack of love. So they use her and abuse her with little consideration and then when she shudders of blows her breath. They are offended and raise their fist at God. — William P. Young

Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents. — Abraham Lincoln

There is great beauty in the notion of desire. Each of us is a child of the desire of our parents for each other. We are creatures of desire because we are creations of desire. The human heart discovers its most touching music when desire and love inform each other. When we love, we leave our separate solitudes and come toward union, where we complement each other. It is this ancient desire in every heart to discover and come home to its lost other half that awakens and activates its capacity for love and belonging. There are certain things that can happen to us only in solitude, and every life needs a rhythm of solitude in order to experience this. However, the experience of self-discovery, psychological integration, and spiritual growth can happen to us only when our desire draws us out of our shells and toward the precarious and life-giving sanctuary of another heart. — John O'Donohue

I am a divorced child, of divided, uncertain background. Within this division I - supposed fruit of their love - no longer exist. It happened nearly forty years ago, yet to me, nothing is sadder than my parents' divorce. — Sylvia Kristel

A child deserves to be born of that love, and not by any other means, for "he or she is not something owed to one, but is a gift", which is "the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of the parents". This is the case because, "according to the order of creation, conjugal love between a man and a woman, and the transmission of life are ordered to each other (cf. Gen 1:27-28). Thus the Creator made man and woman share in the work of his creation and, at the same time, made them instruments of his love, entrusting to them the responsibility for the future of mankind, through the transmission of human life". — Pope Francis

Unconditional love is a full love that accepts and affirms a child for who he is, not for what he does. No matter what he does (or does not do), the parent still loves him. Sadly, some parents display a love that is conditional; it depends on something other than their children just being. Conditional love is based on performance and is often associated with training techniques that offer gifts, rewards, and privileges to children who behave or perform in desired ways. — Gary Chapman

I always say, you never know how much your parents loved you until you have a child to love. — Jennifer Hudson

I was very much an only child who was raised by the television and movies, and I grew up in New York. We weren't, like, rich people, but we were middle-class people and my parents supported this love I had for entertainment. — Billy Eichner

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

When parents say, 'I wish my child did not have autism,' what they're really saying is, 'I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead.' Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces. — Andrew Solomon

Children need their parents' time and attention. Giving one's time is part of the work of love. It means being there for the child, attending to the child's needs rather than the parent's needs. — John Bradshaw

I think love is sort of a con you play on yourself. I think the whole conception of love is something the previous generation invents to justify having created you. You know I think the real reason children are born is because parents are so bored they have children to amuse themselves. They're so bored they don't have anything else to do so they have a child because that will keep them busy for a while. Then to justify to the kid the reason he exists they tell him there's such a thing as love and that's where you come from because me and your daddy or me and your mommy were in love and that's why you exist. When actually it was because they were bored out of their minds. — Richard Hell

For the most part, mental illness is caused by an absence of or defect in the love that a particular child required from its particular parents for successful maturation and spiritual growth. It — M. Scott Peck

When a child reaches adolescence, there is very apt to be a conflict between parents and child, since the latter considers himself to be by now quite capable of managing his own affairs, while the former are filled with parental solicitude, which is often a disguise for love of power. Parents consider, usually, that the various moral problems which arise in adolescence are peculiarly their province. The opinions they express, however, are so dogmatic that the young seldom confide in them, and usually go their own way in secret. — Bertrand Russell

Having absolutes in our life is freeing. Parents who love their children give them rules for their protection, and God does the same for His children. As a child of God, His laws free you to move into the plans and purposes He has for you. From His Word you find out what works and what doesn't work and never will. You don't have to wander down paths that will hurt you, rob you, ruin your life, and take you far away from the fulfillment and purpose God has for you. That's why God's Word is His love letter to you. — Stormie O'martian

But then as time passed, I learned the lesson that parents do early on. You fail sometimes. No matter how much you love your children, there are times you slip. There are moments you can't give, stutter, lose your temper, or simply lose face with the world, and you can't explain this to a child. — Louise Erdrich

The cliche about autism is that the syndrome impedes the ability to love, and I began this research interested in how much a parent could contrive to love a child who could not return the affection. Autistic children often seem to inhabit a world on which external cues have limited impact; they may seem to be neither comforted by nor engaged with their parents are not motivated to gratify them. — Andrew Solomon

Parents are in a position to forgive when they remember two things. One, the child that I am rearing is God's child. God loved the child before I did; He will continue this love long after I am gone. Two, God's method of dealing with sin, even the most destructive kind, is forgiveness. I am not going to be able to improve on God's methods. — Eugene H. Peterson

My parents were two-faced. To me, they showed no mercy. They preached from theBook of Fallen Children - Commandment 1: The Child Is Always Ungrateful. At eighteen, the free ride would stop, and I'd be dumped into the mess of the world. But in their private moments, they were soft, cowed by love. They critiqued their own parenting skills and thought of all the ways the could help their kids get ahead. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Good guilt is a product of love and responsibility. It is a natural, positive instinct that parents and good child care providers have. If bad guilt is a monster, good guilt is a friendly fairy godmother, yakking away in your head to keep you alert to the needs of your baby. — Jean Marzollo

Most of us are quite selfish when it comes to our children, you know. We want things from them: love, the satisfaction of seeing them do well, and so on. Plenty of parents don't think just of their child's best interest. Oh, they may pay lip service to it, but they really think of themselves, of what they get from parenting. — Alexander McCall Smith

A love of reading is an acquired taste, not an instinctive preference. The habit of reading is formed in childhood; and a child's taste in reading is formed in the right direction or in the wrong one while he is under the influence of his parents; and they are directly responsible for the shaping and cultivating of that taste. — Henry Clay Trumbull

Parents' early responses to and interactions with a child determine how that child comes to view himself. These parents are also profoundly changed by their experiences. If you have a child with a disability, you are forever the parent of a disabled child; it is one of the primary facts about you, fundamental to the way other people perceive and decipher you. Such parents tend to view aberrance as illness until habituation and love enable them to cope with their odd new reality - often by introducing the language of identity. Intimacy with difference fosters its accommodation. — Andrew Solomon

Children are gifts. They are not ours for the breaking. They are ours for the making. — Dan Pearce

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

We must remember when we speak of the "negativism" of the toddler that this is also the child who is intoxicated with the discoveries of the second year, a joyful child who is firmly bound to his parents and his new-found world through ties of love. The so-called negativism is one of the aspects of this development, but under ordinary circumstances it does not become anarchy. It's a kind of declaration of independence, but there is no intention to unseat the government. — Selma Fraiberg

I believe one of the most sacrificial acts of love adoptive parents can do is to give up their preconceptions and agendas about what their child's views "should" be and be open to hear the conflicting emotions and thoughts their child often experiences. — Sherrie Eldridge

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

Anyone who has ever been a mother or father and is at all honest knows from experience how difficult it can be for parents to accept certain aspects of their children. It is especially painful to have to admit this if we really love our child and want to respect his or her individuality yet are unable to do so. — Alice Miller

We can take our parenting fears to Christ. In fact, if we don't, we'll take our fears out on our kids. Fear turns some parents into paranoid prison guards who monitor every minute, check the background of every friend. They stifle growth and communicate distrust. A family with no breathing room suffocates a child. On the other hand, fear can also create permissive parents. For fear that their child will feel too confined or fenced in, they lower all boundaries. High on hugs and low on discipline. They don't realize that appropriate discipline is an expression of love. Permissive parents. Paranoid parents. How can we avoid the extremes? We pray. — Max Lucado

I'll never get to hear her say, 'I love you, Mommy,' like other parents take for granted. — Kelly Moran

My love for the child asleep in the crib, the child's need for me, for my vigilance, had made my life valuable in a way that even the most abundantly offered love, my parents', my brother's, even Tom's, had failed to do. Love was required of me now
to be given, not merely to be sought and returned. — Alice McDermott

Conditional love is love that is turned off and on ... Some parents only show their love after a child has done something that pleases them. "I love you, honey, for cleaning your room!" Children who think they need to earn love become people pleasers, or perfectionists. Those who are raised on conditional love never really feel loved. — Louise Hart

Dads. It's time to show our sons how to properly treat a woman. It's time to show our daughters how a girl should expect be treated. It's time to show forgiveness and compassion. It's time to show our children empathy. It's time to break social norms and teach a healthier way of life! It's time to teach good gender roles and to ditch the unnecessary ones. Does it really matter if your son likes the color pink? Is it going to hurt anybody? Do you not see the damage it inflicts to tell a boy that there is something wrong with him because he likes a certain color? Do we not see the damage we do in labeling our girls "tom boys" or our boys "feminine" just because they have their own likes and opinions on things? Things that really don't matter? — Dan Pearce

Communion is the to - and - fro of love. It is the trust that bonds us together, children with their parents, a sick person with a nurse, a child with a teacher, a husband with a wife, friends together, people with a common task. It is the trust that comes from the intuitive knowledge that we are safe in the hands of another and that we can be open and vulnerable, one to another. Communion is not static; it is an evolving reality. Trust is continually called to grow and to deepen, or it is wounded and diminishes. It is a trust that the other will not possess or crush you but rejoices in your gifts and calls you to growth and to freedom. Such a trust calls forth trust in yourself. — Jean Vanier

I think the love between a child and parent is wonderful. You know, Mei ... I haven't seen my mother for over two years. I used to live with her ... but now I live with my father. I used to be sad and wonder why it happened ... but parents have a lot of things they have to deal with too. I saw how they were suffering ... and I know they both love me a lot. You can't let loneliness harden your heart. Mei, you know ... Misuzu loves you, don't you? — Bisco Hatori

The child must adapt to ensure the illusion of love, care, and kindness, but the adult does not need this illusion to survive. He can give up his amnesia and then be in a position to determine his actions with open eyes. Only this path will free him from his depression. Both the depressive and the grandiose person completely deny their childhood reality by living as though the availability of the parents could still be salvaged: the grandiose person through the illusion of achievement, and the depressive through his constant fear of losing "love." Neither can accept the truth that this loss or absence of love has already happened in the past, and that no effort whatsoever can change this fact. — Alice Miller

My parents read the comics to me, and I fell in love with comic strips. I've collected them all of my life. I have a complete collection of all the "Buck Rogers" Sunday funnies and daily paper strips, I have all of "Prince Valiant" put away, all of "Tarzan," which appeared in the Sunday funnies in 1932 right on up through high school. So I've learned a lot from reading comics as a child. — Ray Bradbury

When a child does bad things, the parents are always going to love their child even if they do something bad. — Selena

Dads. Do you not realize that your child needs to feel your skin on his? Do you not realize the incredible and powerful bond that skin on skin contact with your daughter will give you? Do you not understand the permanent mental connections that are made when you stroke your son's bare back or rub your daughter's bare tummy while you tell bedtime stories? And if any idiot says anything about that being inappropriate, you're gonna get kicked in the face, first by me, and then by every other good dad out there. Touching your child is your duty as a father. — Dan Pearce

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

Do you not realize that your kids are going to make mistakes, and a lot of them? Do you not realize the damage you do when you push your son's nose into his mishaps or make your daughter feel worthless because she bumped or spilled something? Do you have any idea how easy it is to make your child feel abject? It's as simple as letting out the words, "why would you do that!?" or "how many times have I told you ... — Dan Pearce

A particularly difficult line to navigate is the one between fear and love, especially for parents, who want more than anything to protect their children from suffering. — Sharon Salzberg

Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted, and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child, and be loved by the child. From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3,000 children from abortions. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents, and have grown up so full of love and joy! — Mother Teresa

Dads. Do you honestly expect anybody to believe that you can't find 20 minutes to step away from your computer or turn off the television to play with your child? It has to happen every single day. Do you not understand that children will hinge their entire facet of trust on whether or not their dad plays with them and how involved he is when he plays with them? Do you know the damage you do by not playing with your children every day? — Dan Pearce

Love your kids and just be there for them. You don't have to eyeball their every moment or to orchestrate all their comings and goings. They know this. They know that's too much. All they want is to be assured that there's a home fire cooking, that there are two foremen and a rulebook, and that there's someone to tuck them in at night. — Carew Papritz

I have heard people say love is weak but they're wrong
love is strong. In nearly everyone it trumps all other things
patriotism and ambition, religion and upbringing. And of every kind of love
the epic and the small, the noble and the base
the one that a parent has for their child is the greatest of them all. — Terry Hayes

No child is taught to kill, but he has to be taught to love, respect, honor and value, not only his own life, but the lives of his classmates, parents and teachers. He has to experience love and acceptance. He has to know his life has purpose and meaning. No amount of money can do that. — Cal Thomas

I am far from a perfect dad. And I always will be. But I'm a damn good dad, and my son will always feel bigger than anything life can throw at him. Why? Because I get it. I get the power a dad has in a child's life, and in a child's level of self-belief. I get that everything I ever do and ever say to my son will be absorbed, for good or for bad. — Dan Pearce

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

Because parents have power over children. They feel they have to do what their parents say. But the love of money is the root of all evil. And this is a sweet child. And to see him turn like this, this isn't him. This is not him. — Michael Jackson

I was taught as a young child by my parents and family to love myself. — Zendaya

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

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

Love is unconditional acceptance. It is love of parents for child; also the non-possessive love of partners; also the caring love between all people that enables forgiveness. It's above energy, though it may be expressed energetically. It's our essential nature: Spirit itself, the quality we share with God. And it is the binding force of the Universe, inherent in all that is. — Peter Shepherd

No child, no matter what path they may have chosen, should be abandoned by the people who should love them the most. When two people come together and make the conscious decision to create a life, they have an obligation to protect and love that child until death. — S.L. Jennings

It is at this moment that I realize the best thing I ever did in my life was to marry this woman.
She is willing to give up her life for her child. I know most parents would do the same. But how many mothers would give up everything that they love, everything that they will ever be able to do in the future for the "possibility and not the guarantee" of getting their child better.
Now reduce the odds of success to less than 1%.
How many mothers are still standing?
She is. — JohnA Passaro

I also very well remember that on another occasion the father dean said: 'In order that at responsible age a man may be a real man and not a parasite, his education must without fail be based on the following ten principles. 'From early childhood there should be instilled in the child: Belief in receiving punishment for disobedience. Hope of receiving reward only for merit. Love of God - but indiference to the saints. Remorse of conscience for the ill-treatment of animals. Fear of grieving parents and teachers. Fearlessness towards devils, snakes and mice. Joy in being content merely with what one has. Sorrow at the loss of the goodwill of others. Patient endurance of pain and hunger. The striving early to earn one's bread. — G.I. Gurdjieff

I believe that it should be the blessing of every child to be born into a home where that child is welcomed, nurtured, loved, and blessed with parents, a father and a mother, who live with loyalty to one another and to their children. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Parents who treat the teenager in the same manner in which they treated the child will not experience the same results they received earlier. When the teenager does not respond as the child responded, the parents are now pushed to try something different. Without proper training, parents almost always revert to efforts at coercion, which often lead to arguments, loss of temper, and perhaps, verbal abuse. Such behavior is emotionally devastating to the teenager whose primary love language is words of affirmation. The parents' efforts to verbally argue the teenager into submission are in reality pushing the teenager toward rebellion. — Gary Chapman

All that a child needs is great love. — Lailah Gifty Akita

When I first saw the sand, I thought it was beautiful. Like maybe it'd be fun to just roll around in and make sand angels. Now I know the truth, that sand is actually the love child of proud parents Marie Antoinette and Joseph Stalin. — Victoria Scott

No doubt Richard's father, like my mother, had once held his infant son in his arms, looked into the eyes of his child's mother, and believed they would move into the future together with love. The fact that they didn't was a weight each of us carried, as every child does, probably, whose parents no longer live under the same roof. Wherever it is you make your home, there is always this other place, this other person, calling to you. Come to me. Come back. — Joyce Maynard

The beggarly question of parentage
what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom. — Thomas Hardy

I mean that a battered child has a marvelous capacity to adjust to his torture and will ceaselessly love his battering parents. I mean that the mother of a sexually molested child will not leave nor truly protect the child from the father as long as the man has a good job or otherwise preserves that mother from an economic life which is more horrifying to her than the molestation of her child. I mean that the weakness of the human race is stupefying and that it's not the capacity for evil which astounds young policemen like you and me, Dean. Rather it's the mind boggling worthlessness of human beings. There's not enough dignity in mankind for evil and that's the most terrifying thing a policeman learns. — Joseph Wambaugh

Like all young people, he has no idea who his parents really are; for eighteen years he has experienced their existence only insofar as it has related to his own needs. Suddenly his mind is full of questions. What do they talk about when he's not around? What secrets do they hold from each other, what aspirations have been left to languish? What private grievances, held in check by the shared project of child rearing, will now, in his absence, lurch into the light? They love him, but do they love each other? Not as parents or even husband and wife but simply as people - as surely they must have loved each other at one time? He hasn't the foggiest; he can no more grasp these matters than he can imagine the world before he was alive. — Justin Cronin

My parents were lovely. They've always been supportive. When you love your child, you don't know what to do with someone who wants to do what no one else does successfully. If I had someone younger I loved, I'd be worried for them too if I didn't have guidance to give them. — Lana Del Rey

Our parents were our first gods. If parents are loving, nurturing, and kind, this becomes the child's definition of the creator. If parents were controlling, angry, and manipulative, then this becomes their definition. — David W. Earle

The two bond over their mutual lack of family ties: Saul from his disownment, Miriam from the car accident that orphaned her as a college junior. Both want children. Miriam has inherited her parents' idea of procreative legitimacy, wants to compensate for her only-child-dom. She sees in Saul the househusband who will enable her parental ambitions without disabling her autonomy. In Miriam, Saul sees the means to a book-lined study and a lifestyle conducive to mystical advancement. They are both absolutely certain these things equal love. — Myla Goldberg

You can't "let go". You can't "detach with love". You can't let them "hit bottom". You can't seem to implement the strategies you have learned when you are faced with your adult child's chaos and anxiety. When you try to do this, it makes you physically and emotionally ill, and the anxiety and fear becomes unbearable. — Mary Crocker Cook

When I have children that go home and mom and dad are not home because they're working, they're trying to get food on the table, and they come home to an empty house and they go to sleep in an empty house, there is no way that child can compete against a child from the west side of Los Angeles who both parents went to Stanford. Well, good for them, God love them. That's not an equal playing field. — Rafe Esquith

Still, Allen and the Greens are an example of foster care working exactly as it should: a foster home is meant to be only a temporary holding place while parents get the support they need to get back to being parents again. The foster family should provide the kind of bonding and love that the Greens gave Allen and then, wrenching as it is, let the child go. The biological parents may be imperfect - they may feed the kids inappropriate foods or leave the TV on too long - but as long as there's no abuse, a child belongs with his blood. — Cris Beam

Someone told me that their child was diagnosed with ADHD. They wanted to know how I handle the day to day. It's hard on me but it's harder on them. I cry sometimes which means they probably do to. I worry that the world will never give them the chance they deserve but I am. I get frustrated when they are treated badly but they feel worse. I keep trying, I keep learning, and I keep telling their story. Just love your child and don't give up. They need you to be the person that understands. — Brenda Lochinger

Think long and hard about the way you invest your children's time. Time is treasure. And where your time investment is, there you will find the heart of a child. Invest the majority of his time in entertainment, and his heart will be turned to love of pleasure. Invest his time in peers rather then family, and his heart will be with the peers more than his family. There is a time and place for all good things in balance, but wise parents will steward the treasure of time, and in so doing, shepherd their children's hearts. — Douglas W. Phillips

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