Aaron McGruder Quotes

I hated that the soldier doll had my name. I mean, please. I didn't play with him much. He was another Christmas present from my clueless grandparents. One time when they were visiting, my grandpa asked me if G.I. Joe had been in any wars lately. I said, "No, but he and Ken got married last week." Every Christmas since then, my grandparents have sent me a check.

That's the privilege of being a grandparent - they can indulge the children while parents have to be the bad guy. Grandparents can also be subversive and naughty with them.

One of the things that I really like about young adult fiction is that you can explore the relationships between teens and their parents. I definitely think that teens are a product of their parents. You either end up just like them or you consciously make the decision to be unlike them.

Grandparents who want to be truly helpful will do well to keep their mouths shut and their opinions to themselves until these are requested.

Your sons weren't made to like you. That's what grandchildren are for.

My father-in-law is so sensitive. Sometimes I think he displays too much love for my children.

There is a big age gap between my sisters Janice and Irma and myself so I didn't know them that well when I was younger although they have been very supportive in later life.

My father is a great grandfather. He's a wonderful grandfather, but he's a terrible husband.

One of the jokes among our family was that whenever Dad went to the movies, he insisted on getting his senior citizen's discount. It was laughable to view him as a traditional senior citizen; he was one of the most robust people I ever knew. Until, very suddenly, he wasn't.

I adore my family. I don't love their politics. I think they're wonderful parents. They were dreadful at parenting.

My mom had me at a young age, like 20, and she was the oldest child. All her brothers were seven and 10, so I was like a younger brother more so than the oldest child. I was the younger brother to all my uncles, so they were going through their childhood and their teenage years, and I was right there.

I got my way with my grandma. I used to get whoopings with my mom, but my grandma spoiled me.

A grandparent will tell you, "Have fun!" and a parent will tell you, "Be safe, do a good job, make me proud." You know what I mean? I try to grandparent myself now, because it's important to have fun, it's important to impart the fun in things to other people.

Our natural thing to do when we break away from our parents and our family is to decide in how many ways they were wrong and bad, and the older you get you start to realize, "By 'bad' I mean 'different'" and then you get a little bit older and you think, "And by 'different' I mean 'pretty awesome but just not like me.'"

when we are young our parents run our life; when we get older, our children do.

Why do our parents have the ability to make us feel like children even when our hair is graying and we have a mortgage that feels like a Third World debt? (135)

I do half the cooking, and by 'half' I mean three quarters," Dad pointed out. "And if you're going to turn up your nose at all my carnivorous delights, ingrate child, you can sit under the table and gnaw sadly on a raw Brussels sprout at mealtimes.

I needed to temper (my dad's) enthusiasm a bit (about attending Princeton), and so I announced that I would be majoring in patricide...My mom was actually jealous.

Since I've made it to 87 so far, obviously my two kids and my seven grandchildren haven't been too hard on me. On the other hand, the fact that I have an unlisted phone number and move a lot might have something to do with it.

Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past?

Children don’t require of their parents a past and they find something faintly unbelievable, almost embarrassing, in parental claims to a prior existence.

If your family - just because they're blood doesn't mean that they necessarily give you the best advice.

I always came away thinking "I'd like to see her more," you know? And then when [Parental Guidance] was ready to be cast, we thought - Bette [Midler]. So we called her.

Does Grandpa love to baby-sit his grandchildren? Are you kidding? By day he is too busy taking hormone shots at the doctor's or chip shots on the golf course. At night he and Grandma are too busy doing the cha-cha.

When we were all getting ready to leave, I walked up to my grandfather and gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek. He wiped my lip print off with his palm and gave me a look. He doesn't like the boys in the family to touch him. But I'm very glad that I did it anyway in case he dies. I never got to do that with my Aunt Helen.