Pamela Druckerman Quotes

In Sweden, we've moved away from the notion that mothers have some magical, special bond with children.

In Chinese culture, it wouldn't occur to kids to question or talk back to their parents. In American culture, kids in books, TV shows and movies constantly score points with their snappy back talk. Typically, it's the parents who need to be taught a life lesson - by their children.

Ultimately, very few people parent their kids in ways that strike anybody else as reasoned, appropriate or sane.

To be honest, I know that a lot of Asian parents are secretly shocked and horrified by many aspects of Western parenting.

Cohabitation itself doesn't cause ineffective parenting.

I'm raising kids, and so much of American culture sustains me and gives me things to think about and work on.

Anyone who has brought up children knows that consistency has absolutely nothing to do with discipline.

Most American children suffer too much mother and too little father.

Men and women have defined roles, and it's the responsibility of a parent to make sure they know which way to go; otherwise, a child would feed themselves with their feet without the correct guidance.

Men have the influence and power in business and politics. It is the mother who can make the child's bedtime earlier, take away desserts or ground the child.

Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life.

Women may give lip service to wanting husbands who take on an equal role in raising children, but many will pull rank when an important decision, like how to discipline or what baby sitter to hire, has to be made.

Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.

I think with motherhood and child-rearing in general, everyone's going to tell you how to do it and why. I've always said to other mothers and women when they've asked me, that you have to find your own way and find out what works for your family, at all costs.

I was brought up differently than the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy.

I wish my parents could have raised every man out there.

I set out to write an anti-parenting parenting book.

There's no question that we have great value on the sanctity of the family, and there are a lot of competing visions about exactly how we teach a set of values and we teach skills to our children, especially in the early years when they're really forming their personalities, their personas, really.

I always thought, because America is supposed to be the land of the free, nudity would be part of the norm over there, but it isn't. It's surprising.

I've had three of my own children and spent my professional life thinking about children. And yet I still find my relation to my children deeply puzzling.

In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them.

Those children who have been most chastised seldom make the best men.

Attitudes about the rearing and education of children vary between two extremes. One, which might be labeled “authoritarian” or “coercive,” rests on an assumption that children are by nature irresponsible and lazy, and will do their schoolwork only if they are penalized for a poor performance. The opposite view might be labeled “progressive” or “democratic.” It rests on the assumption that children who are brought up with love, trust, and clear but kind leadership are eager to grow up and be like their parents, eager to explore, learn, master skills, and take on responsibility; they need guidance but not sternness or punishment.

Discipline socialized children. They became tolerable to those who didn’t already love them.

I think there's different parenting styles.