Dawn French Quotes

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

Even as kids reach adolescence, they need more than ever for us to watch over them. Adolescence is not about letting go. It's about hanging on during a very bumpy ride.

If I'm lucky enough to see the day when my sons are living independently, maybe with families of their own, I'll still be wondering how I can be a better mother and worrying about the things I overlooked back when they lived under my roof.

We've had bad luck with our kids - they've all grown up.

You wouldn't think it would but my parents were really balanced about that. When it came time for me to be out of the house and out on my own they were very supportive.

However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.

Being a good parent will necessarily break our hearts as we watch a child grow and eventually choose their own way, even through many of the same heartbreaks we have traversed.

You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going.

I feel like I grew up in such a big way in the past couple of years, in a way that I never thought I would. You can't be the enfant terrible when you have the enfant at home.

I know parents have a hard time letting their kids spread their wings and fly.

Nobody ever told me learning to let your child grow would be one of the hardest things I was going to go through!

I think there is a time in every person's life where they have to let their parents go and figure out what being a parent means for themselves.

Being a parent is a huge responsibility. Your child becomes the centre of your world.

But kids don't stay with you if you do it right. It's the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won't be needed in the long run.

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away.

. . . if we have children. When they are just born we do everything for them. We are omnipotent, they are completely dependent on us, but then when they grow up you must take back your influence on them, to give them freedom.

It's a little known fact, but parents are like superheroes. With just a few magic words they can make you feel ten feet tall and bulletproof, they can slay the dragons of doubt and worry, they can make your problems disappear. But of course they can only do this as long as you're a child. When you've become an adult, become the master of your own universe, they're not as powerful as they once were. Maybe that's why so many of us take our time growing up.

I think that the path that I took was normal in the American society where young women and men are not trained as to how to make the transition from being a girl to being a woman, from being a boy to being a man. And so I think that most young people in America live by trial and error, and not by parental instruction, community guidance.

You can never really live anyone else's life, not even your child's. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you've become yourself.

My brother and I had a lot of freedom growing up, and thankfully, we both turned out OK.

We're good at taking care of little kids, and spend a lot of energy teaching them things like how to read. But when kids get as tall as their parents and can look them in the eyes, we tend to drop the ball - at a time they most need a loving consistent community of adults, be it parents, aunts, uncles, or others.

To all those mothers and fathers who are struggling with teen-agers, I say, just be patient: even though it looks like you can't do anything right for a number of years, parents become popular again when kids reach 20.

It is a parent's responsibility to preserve the connection with their children, to preserve the relationship, so that the children can let go and become their own selves.

I think that if you become a parent, you stop being a child, and your position in relation to your parents changes.

Adolescence, that swampy zone between safety and power, is best patrolled by adults armed with sense and mercy, not guns and a badge.