Polly Berrien Berends Quotes

The greatest responsibility is your children. If my children turned out badly, I'd feel that nothing I had done was worthwhile.

In terms of parenthood, I think the pressure has amped up massively too. Some parents are setting the bar ludicrously high in terms of doing things "right," and seeing children more as products to be perfected than simply children.

It's difficult to keep that perspective, I think, as a parent: to know your boundaries as to what's good parenting or just projecting your own expectations on your kids. That's the hardest.

I'm not a goody-two-shoes. I'm just a father with four children.

We all want to raise our children well.

My greatest fear is that I'll fail my kids.

It's frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself. It seems unfair. You can't assume the responsibility for everything you do --or don't do.

Was it Gorky who had said, "If your children are no better than you are, you have fathered them in vain, indeed you have lived in vain".

when your child is in trouble, the first thing you do is blame yourself.

There is but one way to eliminate juvenile delinquency - that is by providing each child in America with competent parents.

If you're the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I'm a parent. I have daughters.

Different parents have different standards for their children.

It was just this interesting, my first, the first time you hear your child in any way criticise you. It's the worst review of your life and it's really relieving to find out that they don't know what they're saying.

Motherhood has been an exercise in guilt.

If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much.

I'm trying to avoid, you know, guilt, even though before the child is born, you're already thinking you're doing things wrong... Why do I think that will probably carry over until the day you die?

I'm scared of screwing up my kids.

Only recently - about five minutes ago, relative to the long-running human comedy - have parents been driving themselves to distraction by taking too seriously the idea that 'as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.'

Motherhood is like a big sleeping bag of guilt.

A baby comes with such responsibility. Once you become a mother, you always have a guilt trip. You always try to do the best, but you feel you can always be better.

Everything a parent chooses to do in their life will forever haunt their kids.

Many, many people - many parents feel that their decisions are, maybe not, great decisions. Every parent has that, you know, parent guilt of my goal is to produce wonderful, productive individuals and put them out into society.

Bringing up children always has a bigger role for the mother.

That's what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.

We do not raise our children alone.... Our children are also raised by every peer, institution, and family with which they come in contact. Yet parents today expect to be blamed for whatever results occur with their children, and they expect to do their parenting alone.