Art Alexakis Quotes

I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.

My youngest is 26, and so I hardly remember life not being a father, but my wife and I were hands on-parents.

Be a father first. Don't put a priority of being a friend with your wife first, or a friend with your kids first.

It's very important that we instill some respect for the parents. In America especially, the kids are unruly, screaming at Mommy and Daddy, running the show.

There comes a moment as a parent when you realize you will no longer be the center of your child's universe.

Not that we didn't have close relationships with our parents - I'm very close to my mom - but parents didn't think anything of going off for a few weeks and leaving their kids.

I don't have any children; I have four middle-aged people.

The problem with children is that you have to put up with their parents.

Mothers - especially single mothers - are heroic in their efforts to raise our nation's children, but men must also take responsibility for their children and recognize the impact they have on their families' well-being.

I married an excellent parent, but I'm not sure that I've made a great parent.

My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own fatherhood, but it didn't because parenting can only be learned by people who have no children.

Strange about parents. We have such easy access to them and such daunting problems of communication.

It has been tough being a mother of two daughters without a co-parent because I think I was a child myself, as my mother was.

I don't want to raise a child by myself. I could do it. But I definitely don't want to. I want to be a mother who has the original father there.

I don't agree with the whole 'my mother's my friend' approach, because you're their mum and there has to be a difference between the generations.

My own parents were very un-neurotic, so I never thought that I had to change enormously in order to become a parent.

If you've never been hated by your child, you've never been a parent.

This whole head of the home thing has been blown way out of proportion. Some guys just take it way too far. Some parents take it way too far. Yet children need guidance. They need a parent to help and guide them. They also need a friend. They need a confidant.

Parents still have a big influence on their kids - just ask any therapist. No, really, I think the parent is the most important influence on children: It's how they learn to love and treat other people.

If a parent keeps on saying that, 'my kid is not understanding me at all,' he or she needs to look inside and ask, what wrong am I doing that my child is unable to understand me?

I am trying to be both mother and father to my children.

I do think that there's an art form to parenting, and I have nothing but admiration for those who do it well.

Parenting is more than a numbers game: it's a question of whether people are equipped for the toughest job they will ever be asked to do.

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

What assurance do I have that your parenting isn't screwing me up?