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Texts for Fellow Parents

You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around – and why his parents will always wave back. ~William D. Tammeus

If your kids are giving you a headache, follow the directions on the aspirin bottle, especially the part that says “keep away from children.” ~Susan Savannah

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories. ~John Wilmot

It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn’t. ~Barbara Kingsolver

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. ~Socrates 400 B.C.

Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected. ~Red Buttons

In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television. ~Erma Bombeck

To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while. ~Josh Billings

Ma-ma does everything for the baby, who responds by saying Da-da first. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going. ~Phyllis Diller

A child needs a role model, not a supermodel. ~Astrid Alauda

Insanity is hereditary – you get it from your kids. ~Sam Levenson

Your children need your presence more than your presents. ~Jesse Jackson

Setting a good example for your children takes all the fun out of middle age. ~William Feather

As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. ~Joyce Maynard

The trouble with being a parent is that by the time you are experienced, you are unemployed.

If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. ~Abigail Van Buren

Mother Nature is providential. She gives us twelve years to develop a love for our children before turning them into teenagers. ~William Galvin

The best substitute for experience is being sixteen. ~Raymond Duncan

If your children spend most of their time in other people’s houses, you’re lucky; if they all congregate at your house, you’re blessed. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Teenagers complain there’s nothing to do, then stay out all night doing it. ~Bob Phillips

The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering. ~Benjamin Spock

The thing about family disasters is that you never have to wait long before the next one puts the previous one into perspective. ~Robert Brault

If I had my child to raise all over again. I’d build self-esteem first, and the house later. I’d finger-paint more, and point the finger less. I would do less correcting and more connecting. I’d take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes. I’d take more hikes and fly more kites. I’d stop playing serious, and seriously play. I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars. I’d do more hugging and less tugging.
~Diane Loomans

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. ~Mark Twain

If you have never been hated by your child you have never been a parent. ~Bette Davis

Kids spell love T-I-M-E. ~John Crudele

Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy. ~Robert A. Heinlein

The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children. ~Edward, Duke of Windsor

What a child doesn’t receive he can seldom later give. ~P.D. James

Don’t demand respect as a parent. Demand civility and insist on honesty. But respect is something you must earn — with kids as well as with adults. ~ William Attwood

What nut adjusted the timetable for childbearing so that menopause and teaching a sixteen-year-old how to drive a car will occur in the same week. ~Unknown

The guys who fear becoming fathers don’t understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. ~Frank Pittman

Character is largely caught, and the father and the home should be the great sources of character infection. ~Frank H. Cheley

Your children vividly remember every unkind thing you ever did to them, plus a few you really didn’t. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Little children, headache; big children, heartache. ~Italian Proverb

Adolescence is perhaps nature’s way of preparing parents to welcome the empty nest. ~Karen Savage and Patricia Adams

How strange that the young should always think the world is against them – when in fact that is the only time it is for them. ~Mignon McLaughlin

“No”, is a complete sentence.

Why do they rate a movie “R” for having “adult language”, when the only people I hear talking that way are teens?

When my husband comes home, if the kids are still alive, I figure I’ve done my job.

I’d like to talk about my childhood memories, but they were all ruined by my childhood.

When our third child was born, my husband spent three weeks trying to find a loophole in the birth certificate.

I want to have more children and I know my time is running out. I need to have them while my parents are still young enough to take care of them.

The trouble with children is that there is no return policy.

I’ve noticed that one thing about parents is that no matter what stage your child is in, the parents who have older kids always tell you that the next stage is the worst.

A good example is better than the best lecture.

Families, above all else, above all others, must be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

Never make a threat that you aren’t ready, willing and determined to back up.

When dealing with kids, criticism is like fingerpaint, a little bit goes a long way.

Never hesitate to give a kid a second chance, but never make the mistake of giving a third.

Never accept unacceptable behavior.

Someone will always be looking to you as an example of how to behave. Don’t let that person down.