When Kids Grow Up Quotes & Sayings

Ri, here's a question for you," Stella started. She opened it up to everyone else, as well. "When do your kids stop being pets and start being people?"
The room went silent, except for Gloria trying to stifle her giggles.
Stella looked around and felt pleased that she'd gotten the desired reaction.
"What are you talking about? How could you call children pets?" Shannon demanded before Bernadette had the chance to.
"No, this is an honest question." Stella insisted. "You have them, you name them. They're helpless, and you teach, or train, them. Feed them, water them, whatever. And as they grow up, you just hope that they grow up well and don't spend their time clawing your nice sofa or humping your leg."
Stella, "Sugar and Spies: Spy Sisters Book 1 — Rebekah Martin

In every language, the first word after "Mama!" that every kid learns to say is "Mine!" A system that doesn't allow ownership, that doesn't allow you to say "Mine!" when you grow up, has — Frank Zappa

When I was a kid, I felt like I could do anything and play anything. I just felt super-confident. And then, once I started to play music professionally, maybe it's from being from a small town, but you grow up and then you're suddenly a big fish in a small pond, and I realized that there were a billion other drummers out there that could play as good as you or better, and everybody wants that job. — Patty Schemel

When you have kids it's nice to have a place where they can always return to and some place where they will grow up in, but I never had that. I'm not attached to things and places. I like that we [the family] keep moving. It's a nomadic life, and I think that's a great life. I'm excited when we take our kids to a new country and they don't just immediately look for the comforts of home. They blend into that country. Send them to any place in the world and they won't be scared. They'll just feel like they can make friends there. — Angelina Jolie

My wife, Rohini, visits a lot of government schools as part of her NGO reach-out. One of the questions she most likes to ask the kids is what they would like to be when they grow up. The answers are varied--'engineer,' 'teacher,' 'policeman' and, increasingly, 'computer' [sic]. But even in the rural schools, one aspiration that they never express is 'farmer — Nandan Nilekani

I want to be the best race horse around when I grow up, Mama.
You can be, Charlie, as long as you are willing to try your best and not give up when you have a bad day. — Deanie Humphrys-Dunne

I didn't grow up in a creative environment. It was very boring town, boring everything. You go to school and you basically hate all the other kids because you don't understand them or what it's all about. At the same time I'm happy for that because I became very withdrawn and when you become withdrawn you develop your own bizarre-o personality. — Rob Zombie

Remember when you were a kid and the boys didn't like the girls? Only sissies liked girls? What I'm trying to tell you is that nothing's changed. You think boys grow out of not liking girls, but we don't grow out of it. We just grow horny. That's the problem. We mix up liking pussy for liking girls. Believe me, one couldn't have less to do with the other. — Jules Feiffer

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

It wasn't until I could get out of Stanford that I could sit down and think about my life, to do the things that most kids do, which is to ask who am I, what do I want to be when I grow up. I never got to do Dan Pintauro. — Danny Pintauro

I was lucky to grow up with phenomenal parents who were into talking about things. When something hit me hard as a kid, we'd just talk about it. I'm usually pretty open about what's going on with me. I'm not a great actor in the sense that I can't fake it if I'm going through something difficult. — Eric Lange

The more that Japanese players go to the big leagues to play and succeed, the more that will serve to inspire young kids in Japan to want to become baseball players when they grow up. — Ichiro Suzuki

Where do I get my seriousness? You can't help but grow up fast when your parents get divorced. You see your mother go to get food stamps and she's making fifty dollars too much to get them, with four kids to support. — Tom Cruise

When you're a kid, you think, "Well, I will grow up and I will get a wife and we will have kids and then we will have grandkids." My life has a different shape. That is weird, but there are things about it that are exciting. — Guy Branum

All we can do when we think of kids today is think of more hours of school, earlier age at the computer, and curfews. Who would want to grow up in that world? — James Hillman

Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies!
get them out of the house so they won't know what you're up to
it's true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul
that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images
and when you grow old as grow old you must
they won't hate you — Frank O'Hara

A parent does not do everything for their kid. A parent that does everything for their kid produces a kid with no self-confidence. If our parents fixed everything for us and did not allow us to do anything on our own, or intervened every single time, we would all grow up to be completely dependent. The reason we grow up to be healthy adults is because our parents played this game of giving us responsibility, disciplining us when necessary, letting us try, letting us fail. — Simon Sinek

Otis and his brother, Marvin, pulled the god's chariot. They also provided Thor with a never-ending supply of goat meat. Each night, Thor killed and ate them for dinner. Each morning, Thor resurrected them. This is why you should go to college, kids - so when you grow up you do not have to take a job as a magical goat. — Rick Riordan

Well, I didn't really grow up playing or listening to metal, like many of the kids I went to school with. I only got into it in my late teens, so when Marilyn Manson formed, it was at a time when I was still excited about approaching music from that angle. — Daisy Berkowitz

When I was a kid I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I did know what I didn't want to do. I didn't want to grow up, have 2.2 kids, get married, the whole white picket fence thing. — Jody Williams

Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up 'cause they're looking for ideas. — Paula Poundstone

You know, when I was a kid, I always thought Id grow up to be a hero. — Butch Cassidy

You dream that you want to be a monster maker when you grow up, and that's what happened. I refused to take no for an answer. I just was a very driven kid, who's now a very driven semi-adult. — Howard Berger

So often, we blame other people when, really, the problem is right down in here. I'm not happy. I don't know what's wrong. If I just had another job, I could be happy. If I just get married, I would be happy. Well if I just wasn't married, I would be happy. Well, if I just had some kids, I'll be happy. I'll be happy when these kids finally grow up and get out of here. If I had a bigger house, I would be happy. Well, I got a big house. Now if I just had a maid to clean, I'd be happy. Well, now if I just had a maid I could get along with better, I'd be happy. — Joyce Meyer

When you're a kid, somebody's mid-forties, you think they're an old man. Then you grow up and it's like, I was a kid. — Billy Bob Thornton

What I didn't know until right this very minute was how growing up happens in little surges. We grow up in moments - when we encounter such stupidities in ourselves that our only choice is to grow past them or into them. Maybe that's why some kids grow up too fast and others not at all. — Natalie C. Parker

Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas. - PAULA POUNDSTONE — Timothy Ferriss

Little kids grow up discovering the world that's shown to them and then when you become a teenager, it kind of shrinks a little bit. I think when you get past that point, one of the important things is that you see there is more to the world than yourself. — Kenneth Lonergan

There is a report that says that kids who watch violent TV programs tend to be more violent when they grow up. But did the TV cause the violence, or do violent children preferentially enjoy watching violent programs? — Carl Sagan

No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics. — Jeannette Walls

Dad said I had no respect for money and that if I didn't learn when I was little when was I going to learn? Kids who get Bart Simpson dolls at the drop of a hat turn into punks who steal from convenience stores, 'cos they wind up thinking they can have whatever they want, just like that. So instead of a Bart doll he bought me an ugly porcelain pig with a slot in its back, and now I'll grow up to be okay, now I won't turn into a punk. — Etgar Keret

I try to sit down at night before they go to bed and read the Bible with them and do little devotionals and pray with them. I think if you instill it in them when they are young, they'll remember when they grow up. I raise them in church. When the doors are open, I want to be there. My kids love to go. So does my wife. — Andy Pettitte

When we strive to remove all risk from childhood we also remove the foundations of a rational adulthood, and we eliminate the very experiences that will help kids grow up to be the empowered, creative, brave problem-solvers that they can and must be. — Gever Tulley

You ask a lot of little kids today what they want to be when they grow up and they say "I want to be famous." You ask them for what reason and they don't know or care. I think Andy Warhol got it wrong: in the future so many people are going to become famous that one day everybody will end up being anonymous for fifteen minutes. — Banksy

Why would any parent want their kid on their health-care plan when they are 26? Parents want their kids to grow up and take care of themselves. A 26-year-old is an adult. — Michele Bachmann

If you walked by a street and you was walking a concrete and you saw a rose growing from concrete, even if it had messed up petals and it was a little to the side you would marvel at just seeing a rose grow through concrete. So way is it that when you see some ghetto kid grow out of the dirtiest circumstance and he can talk and he can sit across the room and make you cry, make you laugh, all you can talk about is my dirty rose, my dirty stems and how am leaning crooked to the side, u can't even see that I've come up from out of that. — Tupac Shakur

Leesha knew from experience that when parents don't parent, kids grow up fast. — Cinda Williams Chima

But when I really look back on my life, being really honest about it and now that I've got the chance to travel the world, seeing how a lot of little kids grow up - my life wasn't so bad. — Coolio

When I was a little kid I thought I would grow up to be black and sing jazz in nightclubs. — Molly Ringwald

There are kids who get on BMX bike when they are eight years old and they go,'Whoa, this is incredible,' and grow up to do extreme sports. It is the same for me with acting. — Joaquin Phoenix

There is a real problem with the lack of diversity, specifically in genre films and the superheroes our kids grow up watching and emulating, they can't really identify with. When you see the same thing, over and over again, and it seems not to speak of you and your heritage and your culture, it leaves you out of this world, a little bit. It gives a certain social distance with your world. — Djimon Hounsou

I have love in my life, a soul mate u2014u00a0absolutely. When someone asked me why Angie and I don't get married, I replied, 'Maybe we'll get married when it's legal for everyone else.' I stand by that, although I took a lot of flak for saying it u2014u00a0hate mail from religious groups. I believe everyone should have the same rights. They say gay marriage ruins families and hurts kids. Well, I've had the privilege of seeing my gay friends being parents and watching their kids grow up in a loving environment. — Brad Pitt

If it weren't for Jesus, I would not be where I am today and my life would be without purpose. I've heard kids say they want to be just like me when they grow up. They should know I want to be just like Jesus. — Albert Pujols

Kids are always asked, What are you going to be when you grow up? I needed an answer. So instead of saying, a fireman, or a policeman, I said, a reporter. — Charles Kuralt

But nothing on this earth is guaranteed, when you get right down to it, you know ? I've been thinking about that. About how your kids aren't really YOURS, they're just these people that you try to keep an eye on, and hope you'll all grow up someday to like each other and still be in one piece. What I mean is, everything you get is really just on loan. Does that make sense?"
Sure,"I said. "Like library books. Sooner or later they've all got to go back into the nightdrop. — Barbara Kingsolver

When a child is born, I once explained to the kids, some dads lay down bottles of wine for them that will mature when they grow up into ungrateful adults. Instead, what you're going to get from me, as each of you turns sixteen, is a library of the one hundred books that gave me the most pleasure when I was a know-nothing adolescent. — Mordecai Richler

You've got to give kids really beautiful children's books in order to turn them into revolutionaries. Because if they see these beautiful things when they're young, when they grow up they'll see the real world and say, 'Why is the world so ugly?! I remember when the world was beautiful.' And then they'll fight, and they'll have a revolution. They'll fight against all of our corruption in the world, they'll fight to try to make the world more beautiful. That's the job of a good children's book illustrator. — Tony Millionaire

I was privileged to grow up in Mexico at a time when you could play in the streets. We lived not too far from the ocean, and we would be outside all the time with the neighbours' kids, running free. What better place could there be for a child? — Salma Hayek

I don't know what I could say specifically, except that everything I've learned as a kid of course must somehow play into what I do now. I think when everything kind of drifted away, I had to go out into the world and learn how to emotionally be okay with all that, which to me was a decades-long process. But also I happened to find my way in life, to find a living, to figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up. I think all of that now probably helps me. It probably gives me more life experience to draw from. — Jackie Earle Haley

Most kids grow sullen and angry when they're working through issues, but Thanet mustered up another kind of bull-headed strength. The kind that sees beyond circumstances to what really matters. How could anyone hurt a soul that lovely? — Laura Anderson Kurk

I know when people think of New York, they think of theater, restaurants, cultural landmarks and shopping," I told him. "But beyond the iconic skyline and the news from Wall Street, New York is a collection of villages. In our neighborhoods, we attend school, play Kick the Can, handball and ride our bikes. I grew up knowing the names and faces of the baker, the shoe repair family, the Knish man and the Good Humor man who sold me and the other kids in my neighborhood half a popsicle for a nickel. My father took me to the playground where he pushed me on the swing, helped balance me on the seesaw and watched as I hung upside down by my feet on the monkey bars. Yes," I told the interviewer, "people actually grow up in New York. — Gina Greenlee

Finally, the last point that can kill your spark is Isolation. As you grow older you will realize you are unique. When you are little, all kids want Ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you still are a lot like your friends. But ten years later and you realize you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel, may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create conflict as your goals may not match with others. And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise. Love yourself first, and then others. — Chetan Bhagat

I got really offended when my single 'Smile' got banned [during after-school hours] from MTV in the U.K. because it had the word fuck in it. They said, 'We don't want kids to grow up too quickly.' But then you have Paris Hilton and the Pussycat Dolls taking their clothes off and gyrating up against womanizing, asshole men, and that's acceptable. You're thinking your kids are gonna grow up quicker because they heard the word fuck than from thinking they should be shoving their tits in people's faces? — Lily Allen

I want to be someone that kids in my community look up to and want to strive to give back when they grow up. — Ray Rice

I was a very determined kid. I couldn't imagine any other life for myself. This happens to kids who are different in any way. How am I going to make a life? Who am I going to be when I grow up? Will there be a place for me in the world? Acting gave me a sense of purpose, but it also gave me a sense that I would survive, that I would find my place. — Linda Hunt

Who's to blame when your kid goes nuts? Is it a blessing to not have children? 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' became a hit cult book for women without offspring who were finally able to admit they didn't want to give birth. They felt complete, thank you very much, and lived in silent resentment for years at other women's pious, unwanted sympathy toward them for not having babies. With even gay couples having children these days, aren't happy heterosexual women who don't want to have kids the most ostracized of us all? To me they are beautiful feminists. If you're not sure you could love your children, please don't have them, because they might grow up and kill us. — John Waters

When I was a kid, they'd say, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" kids would go Wonder Woman, an astronaut. Do you know what I always said? World domination - so we're on our way. — Terri Irwin

People are more easily manipulated when they don't have information. If you ensure that kids grow up without basic reading skills, math skills, and so forth, then you ensure that they can't act effectively. — Tony Kushner

I cried, sitting by her bed, and I told her the story of us. "It's about the feed," I said. "It's about this meg normal guy, who doesn't think about anything until one wacky day, when he meets a dissident with a heart of gold." I said, "Set against the backdrop of America in its final days, it's the high-spirited story of their love together, it's laugh-out-loud funny, really heartwarming, and a visual feast." I picked up her hand and held it to my lips. I whispered to her fingers. "Together, the two crazy kids grow, have madcap escapades, and learn an important lesson about love. They learn to resist the feed. Rated PG-13. For language," I whispered, "and mild sexual situations. — M T Anderson

I'm not even sure of what I want in a woman yet. I have a lot of things to do in life. When I grow up as long as she can cook, take care of the kids, and make me feel like "Daddy" then I'll be alright with her. — Kirko Bangz

I figure there are enough self-opinionated assholes trying to get their ugly little faces in front of you as it is. You ask a lot of kids today what they want to be when they grow up, and they say, 'I want to be famous.' You ask them, 'For what reason?' and they don't know or care. I think Andy Warhol got it wrong - in the future, so many people are going to become famous that one day everybody will end up being anonymous for 15 minutes. — Banksy

When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter. — Seth Godin

When you're a kid, you have no power. You're physically small and weak, and adults are constantly telling you what to do. So it's incredibly compelling to imagine yourself not only as someone to whom exciting things happen but as someone who is more than those around you. The problem is that then you begin to grow up and realize you're just a lowly muggle. ... Is it possible that all of us, weaned on these stories, end up inevitably disappointed with mundane life as it actually exists? — Paul Waldman

When we grow up," she said, "we'll have amazing families. Our dens will be better than this. Your kids and my kids will play together in a humongous room with every kind of toy and game." "Except I won't have kids," Dan said. "I'll come over myself and play ... — Peter Lerangis

When you have kids you do grow up. I have just started realising it now-it changes the world, having children. — David Beckham

No matter how many years pass, it means something to a parent when their child needs them. At first, kids need you so much, all you want them to do is grow up so they can do things for themselves. Then you learn. You learn you should have savored every time they reached for you or called your name. — Kristen Ashley

It's pretty popular today to say that everybody should learn to fail and that failure's a good thing. Intellectually, it's an obvious thing. But in fact, it gets conflated with another meaning of failure, so when we grow up as kids, failing in school was a really bad thing. — Edwin Catmull

The lack of diversity, specifically in genre films and the superheroes our kids grow up watching and emulating, they can't really identify with. When you see the same thing, over and over again, and it seems not to speak of you and your heritage and your culture, it leaves you out of this world a little bit. — Djimon Hounsou

I love the idea that we put in jokes the kids don't get. And that later, when they grow up and read a few books and go to college and watch the show again, they can get it on a completely different level. — Matt Groening

When I was two I was always like "I wanna be a famous singer when I grow up." When you listen to most kids they went in and did all these competitions. I was never like that, my mom never pushed me like that. I pretty much just sang when I wanted to. — Kiley Dean

We're all adolescents now," writes Thomas Bergler. "When are we going to grow up?"17 Bergler explains that churches and parachurch organizations first began to provide youth-oriented programs - mainly to help at-risk kids in the cities (e.g., the YMCA). Then the "teenager" was invented as a unique demographic in society. As a result, the youth group was created, offering adolescent-friendly versions of church. "In the second stage, a new adulthood emerged that looked a lot like the old adolescence. Fewer and fewer people outgrew the adolescent Christian spiritualities they had learned in youth groups; instead, churches began to cater to them." Eventually, churches became them. — Michael S. Horton

When you are in your 20s and you're not married with kids, you're having fun. But when you're in your 30s and you're not married and don't have kids, you begin to develop a Peter Pan complex. As you grow older, you have more responsibilities and you have to step up to them. — Ben Affleck

When you're a kid, nine times out of 10, everthing is pure depending on how you grow up. Everything is new as a kid, so it's all amazing and wonderful. But as we get older, things start to lose their luster or possibly their relevance. Things don't mean as much as they did then. I know the feeling. — Corey Taylor

When you grow up in a city like Boston, where I grew up, a lot of kids became criminals or cops. I never really had a bad take on cops other than I hate when there's one behind me on the highway. — Donnie Wahlberg

There are kids who get on a BMX bike when they're eight years old and they go, 'Whoa, this is incredible,' and grow up to do extreme sports. It's the same for me with acting. — Joaquin Phoenix

When you get into this business you have to grow up quickly. But I wouldn't say I've lost any of my childhood, I've always been a mature child. My Mom says I've been like that since I was little kid. I make time for my friends and I make time for things that other kids do. This is a business and I knew what I was getting into. I make time for being a kid, but I also know when to put on my business hat and go for the business. — Aaliyah