Donatella Versace Quotes

When I was a kid, my mother's parenting style teetered between benign neglect and intense bouts of violence.

Growing up, there wasn't much emphasis on being nice or naughty. As a family, there wasn't much discipline. It was more relaxed at home, which I'm grateful for.

I let my boy go and do and say pretty much as he likes, as, and perhaps because, my father kept no string on me.

Parents do bear some of the responsibility if they don't talk to their kids, are never around, even deny their kids the love that young girls often crave when they decide to have a baby.

While they are kids, my children must do as I say.

My father was strict, but he recognised my ability and got a lot of flak from the church for supporting me.

If my father had hugged me even once, I'd be an accountant right now.

If you bungle raising your children, nothing else matters in life.

I think if I tried to be the stern parent, we would have slipped into Cinderella mode - with me as the evil stepmother!

The way I was parented did affect my parenting - probably in the reverse. My dad was pretty strict, and the next generation probably wants to be less strict.

You take responsibility for your children but you're not always the taxi driver and that doesn't make you a bad parent.

My parents were fantastic. I was an only child, so I had a lot of love and too much attention. I don't think I was spoilt. My mother was quite a disciplinarian, but I did have a lot of attention and quite a lot of pressure to do well at whatever I was doing.

You learn that there's no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. It's just what you feel comfortable with, to trust that, and don't let anybody box you in to a certain style of parenting or make you feel a certain way about what your kids do.

When it comes to raising children, I believe in give and take. I give orders and they take 'em.

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

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

I always feel like the odd mom out, because trust me when I tell you I'm on my girls. And every time I am, I know from the outside it looks like I'm an overbearing, controlling parent. But I don't think we have any responsibility to anybody else but our kids and ourselves.

Some have said that 'Frankenstein' is a story of a bad parenting giving rise to a troubled child.

Somewhere, sometime I'd stopped expecting my father to father.

My kids are free to do what ever they want. Because I only advise. I don't make them do anything.

While having two biological parents at home is, the statistics tell us, best for children, a single-parent household is almost as good.

The parents' job is to be there for their kids, not the other way round. Troubles between parents need to be talked through with friends and not visited on the children.

Don't live vicariously through your kids or try to shape them into who you wanted to be, like the popular kid or an athlete. Children should be given the opportunity to be themselves.

Parents have to understand: if your kid isn't you, don't blame the kid.

I don't think that I could ever be a strict dad. I never grew up with anybody strict in my life... I'm not saying I'm a role model by any means or anything. I think the fact that I wasn't told what not to do all the time - my spirit kind of told me things that I shouldn't - I got to develop on my own. It's part of your common sense.