John Locke Quotes

I can see why people keep having babies. We were looking at a school for my youngest this morning, and there were all these little boys and girls. So sweet. And then the teenagers walk past, and, my God, they're enormous, and I bet they don't kiss their mummies. I'm just going to force my children to remain lovely.

It's never too late to make the right decision in your life. I want fathers to go grab their sons, tell them you love them and be more involved in their lives.

No adult can bear a child’s burden or grow up in his stead.

My children are now adults and just kind of guide them while they allow you to have input in their lives without controlling them the way you did when they were toddlers. These are good steps to use for fathers at each step of their children's lives.

Negotiating the adolescent stage is neither quick nor easy. . . . I have often said to parents, "If it isn't illegal, immoral, orfattening, give it your blessing." We do much better . . . if we find and support all the places we can appropriately say yes, and say only the no's that really matter.

Don't be a pal to your son. Be his father. What child needs a 40-year-old for a friend?

The best gift from a father to his child is Education and Upbringing.

And fathers, . . . listen to [your returned missionary sons], and connect with them in regular, focused conversation. Talk with them in depth about their feelings and desires. Pray with them and give them blessings as they face the important decisions in their future.

I calculated the amount of time I spent with my father during my entire life... the total amount of time I had with him, if you add up the hours, was about two months. My father was a busy man... we had very few opportunities to really sit down and talk as father and son.

After all you grow by experience. But while your son is young, you should try to set before him his ultimate goal.

My favorite thing about being a father is just seeing my kids grow and do some of the same things that I did when I was a kid, man.

I say to all fathers - be as good as you can be- because your sons and daughters will follow in your footsteps.

When parents put gold into the hands of youth, when they should put a rod under their girdle--when instead of awe they make them past grace, and leave them rich executors of goods, and poor executors of godliness, then it is no marvel that the son being left rich by his father's will, becomes reckless by his own will.

Some authority on parenting once said, "Hold them very close and then let them go." This is the hardest truth for a father to learn: that his children are continuously growing up and moving away from him (until, of course, they move back in).

The best time to give advice to your children is while they're still young enough to believe you know what you're talking about.

Perhaps the single most important point for parents to follow is the importance of giving goals to a child. And the most important goal is that of growing up to be an adult.

If fathers aren't growing up, I would challenge them to want to be a father that is present in the home, so that their kids have that identity.

Raising a child is like taking care of someone who's on way too many shrooms, while you yourself are on a moderate amount of shrooms. I am not confident in my decisions, but I know you should not be eating a mousepad.

And you fathers, are you so busy making a living, playing golf, bowling, hunting, that you do not have time to talk to your boys and hold them close to you and win their confidence? Or do you brush them off, so that they dare not come and talk about these things with you?

I think the best thing to try to do is allow your daughter or your son to know that they can come to you for anything. If you can break down that wall so they don't feel embarrassed by telling you things, that's half the battle.

It takes just as many men to build a sturdy man, son, as it does to build a tower. You will look back on this time and remember remarkably little of it, excpt the extent to which I tried or did not try.

You can't understand it until you experience the simple joy of the first time your son points at a seagull and says 'Duck!'

The reservedness and distance that fathers keep, often deprive their sons of that refuge which would be of more advantage to them than an hundred rebukes or chidings.

In just a few minutes, my son will have completed his first trip around the sun.

I'll teach my boy the sweetest things; I'll teach him how the owlet sings.