Rachel Cusk Quotes

When I had a kid and I went through my drama and situation, I respected my father more because it kinda made me understand what he went through with me.

We mothers of grown-up daughters tend to view them with a mixture of love, exasperation, irritation and awe.

The kids are old enough now - I just want to let them be kids. I don't want to comment on them too much. They're at an age where I just want to let them be kids.

A boy becomes an adult three years before his parents think he does, and about two years after he thinks he does.

I think that parents grow up with an idea of what they want their kids to be like - and then their kids grow up to be people of themselves, of their own.

My mom sees her sons as baby boys. Well, I stopped being her baby boy a long time ago.

It's refreshing and weird when your kids get older and they're able to tell you how they feel and what they want.

We all have this moment, when your folks first see you as someone not growing up to be them.

Katie is like my calendar, watching her grow and change. She is growing up so fast, learning to have opinions of her own, learning that I don’t have the answers to everything. And the moment a child begins to understand that, you know you’re in trouble.

Parenting a pre-teen is quite something.

I have a daughter, she's twenty years old.

Once you've raised a child to adulthood, you can only be as demanding as your offspring allow.

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

I think Dad didn't really treat us like children; he treated us more like little adults. We were good kids.

When I was growing up in the '70s and '80s, by the time you were 16, you were kind of expected to be an adult. By the time we were 16 and able to drive, certainly by 17 or 18 and into college, you just had very little interaction with your parents.

I have four kids; three girls and a boy. The oldest girl is 13, and has her own social life now, so there's a bit of begrudging cooperation there. It's tough.

I think anybody over 30 plays parents because it happens in your thirties and so that's kind of a natural progression. But I'm definitely drawn to it. It's probably the most intense, passionate thing that happens to you as you get older.

I'd lose my mind if I heard my kid call the nanny Mommy.

Once you have a child, you change so much along the way, you don't even recognize yourself by the time they're ready to move out!

There were six kids in our family, and I grew up fast. I had to do a lot of things on my own. I was a rebellious teenager. That's why coming into the film business was good for me because it gave me some discipline. Once I became an actor, I had to grow up a little more.

I remember for my 18th birthday, I was going to get a tattoo, and I made the mistake of thinking I was a man and telling my father, and he was like, 'Oh yeah? You better tattoo a new address on your arm, because you're not living here!' And that was the end of that discussion.

I have three kids, and I'm a coach for a lot of their sports, so I'm around them a lot, but I see friends of mine with older kids and they don't really interact so much, other than giving them a place to live.

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.

My mother always said bringing me up was a tiring business, which I 'believe. For instance, when we lived in Singapore, the Chinese staff used to leave their slippers at the bottom of the steps. Every night, I used to go and remove their slippers. I stopped being tiresome at about 14.

Having kids certainly gets me to ask the question, 'Who is the adult here, and who is the kid?'