Christina Aguilera Quotes

My mother used to go out on her own, and I used to have to keep a look out for my stepfather coming home.

For me, the toughest thing for kids to deal with is when the parents are fighting. It's not violence on them - it's the feeling of violence in the family.

My dad went to jail for a long time. We lost everything, and the situation never resolved itself. My parents had this sort of passionate, disastrous desire for each other - not ideal to grow up in.

I was fortunate to grow up in a middle-class home with two hardworking parents who enjoyed both reading and mathematics.

My father and I are friends and my mother and I don't speak. It's a bummer. I miss her.

As a parent, I know I speak for millions when I say that every child deserves to grow up in a stable, loving home.

I had a very difficult relationship with my father, which ended up okay, but there were many difficult years.

I have almost no memory of my parents ever speaking to each other. They split up on bad terms. I assumed that's what family life was like. Just essentially a soap opera.

One of the saddest things in this world is to see a child grow up hating one of their parents because they only got one side of the story.

We had all these smiley family pictures all over the walls of my house, but I always found those pictures to be odd because we weren't smiling all the time. I don't want to paint the picture of a total dysfunctional house, but there were a lot of arguments in that house. A lot of pain.

I did not give my daughter the kind of childhood anybody would want. The vision of the divided loyalty between a mother and father who don't live together and don't share in decisions is a great depravation for children.

The separation of a childless couple is dramatic, but the separation of a couple with children is always tragic.

If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers.

I was just a kid and I didn't have a dad. That's hard, because when you're a kid, you blame yourself for everything. And I blamed myself for him not being around, for my parents not being together.

But even though all this was going on at home, if someone had tried to take me away and put me in a children's home, I couldn't have handled it. Even though my mother was very brutal, it was my home.

I never remember my parents having an argument.

Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going.

It's true - my mother kicked me out the house at 14. I had to go live with my sister. I had some problems. I was very rebellious as a kid. I don't even know why or where it came from, but I had a lot of anger. Me and my mom clashed a lot because she didn't tolerate that, as she shouldn't from a 14-year-old.

My childhood, I wouldn't say it was bad. It helped me grow up. I stayed out of trouble. My parents taught me what's wrong and right, and knowing that I had a little brother following me, I had to make sure I was doing the right thing so he knows what's right, too. I was in the house nine days out of 10. There wasn't nothing good outside for me.

My relationship with my mom is really bad.

The trouble is that, while my parents were great when they were apart, they were terrible together.

As a teenager, I ached to grow up even more than I dreaded to. I craved escape from my parents' impositions on what I believed.

People feel very ashamed to admit that they have in-law problems. They think it's something petty. But it's not petty at all. It hits deep emotions.

My childhood had much clarity. I didn't see abuse. I didn't see my parents bickering. I didn't live in a dysfunctional family.

I had a very difficult father. I lived in a war zone. My parents were very unhappy, and I lived through my mother's pain. Throughout my childhood, I was constantly trying to protect her from my father.