Gloria Estefan Quotes

Life is too short to rush around and be too busy for your kids.

I look forward to a time when lawyers aren't in the top three calls every day, and all you care about is how your kids are doing in school or what the weather's like and the great day you had with your family.

Sometimes it just means flying from Bogota to New York via Amsterdam to have a day with your kids. When we spend time with them, I think we do our utmost best to be really with them - on vacations or during weekends or even at breakfast in the morning.

I just want to make sure when I have kids, I can spend time with them. That's the whole point.

With the kids around, this is a different world to me. I spend a lot of time with them till they go to their playschool. I wake up early, have breakfast with them. I come back from work and am with them again till they go to bed by 10 P.M. Touch wood, this is what I wanted always.

To have kids and not be there every night is tough.

I try to go to my parents' house as much as I can. No matter how busy we are as a family, we always make that time to have that 'family together' day because we want to. You can't let work and life get in the way of spending time together.

I sort of spend every moment that I'm not working doing things with my son. You do the best you can, and you make the most of the time you have.

There are days that I love just devoting to going to the park and playing with my son, but then sometimes you have to leave out other things, or if work is a full day of work, perhaps I miss the play time with my son, and I guess the only struggle is trying to not shortchange any of the things that you want to do.

Flat-out, the time I wasn't working I was spending with the kids and my husband.

I'm enjoying my retirement, enjoying my life. I have two kids and a lot of my time is spent chasing these two animals.

I think it's a false trade-off to say quality time versus quantity - you have to have both.

The real challenge is when I'm at work, I'm at work. I'm locked in, I'm ready to go, I'm focused. When I'm at home, I'm locked in and I'm ready to go and I'm focused on home. We don't watch the show. We don't watch the news. We don't do any of that stuff. I sit down, I play Barbies. And sometimes the kids will come home and play with me.

I would love to sit at home all day and play with my kids. It's my favorite thing to do in my time off.

I don't waste as much time at work because I'd rather spend it with my kids.

My sons are precious to me and I have tried incredibly hard to strike the right balance between work and home life while being acutely aware that I haven't always got it right.

When the children were little, I'd fly into L.A. for a specific work project, but then I'd leave again, and when I was home, I wouldn't even read a script.

I'm not willing to spend too much time away from my kids, so I usually don't work that much.

I do consider how I spend my time off carefully because I've got two kids.

I've always said that kids should enhance your life, not hinder your life, so I just try to make the most out of being with my kids. You have to have a life for yourself somewhere in the mix of being a wife and mum.

I'm a good dad and a fair husband and I work quite a bit. That takes up a fair amount of time.

I can't cultivate a relationship with my child if it's between takes. I tried that on a movie and realized, 'This is not going to work.' It will work some of the year, but not 12 months a year.

I'm very, very focused on my children. In fact, I'm very religious about having breakfast with them every morning, having dinner with them every evening, and spend all the weekends with them that I don't work. So as long as I'm not traveling, I'm always with them and I go to their soccer and tennis matches.

After filming I like to go home and lie down with my daughter and have a glass of wine so I don't really socialize with the other actors.

My advice for raising daughters is to spend time with them doing things you both enjoy.