Alexandra Robbins Quotes

I set out to write an anti-parenting parenting book.

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land And don’t criticize what you don’t understand Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command

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.

My sister has three kids so I've spent a lot of time around children and I've always really liked them and wanted my own. It's cool because you think all babies are the same but they aren't at all. They all have such different personalities. It's crazy.

Children in a family are like flowers in a bouquet: there's always one determined to face in an opposite direction from the way the arranger desires.

I think having children in general is always very helpful for acting.

If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much.

You don't know your child until they get here; you don't know their personality.

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

I am sure that adolescents find it just as confusing and difficult to understand themselves as their elders find them difficult to understand.

One of the most important gifts a parent can give a child is the gift of accepting that child's uniqueness.

You discover two things when you're a teenager. One, that your parents are not the idols that you thought they were when you were growing up, if you had nice parents. And two, that you have power over them, and you can upset them and confront them and attack them.

There's no one right way to be a person, we're all just doing our best. So the same thing should apply to parenting and raising your children and the things you go through.

If you have many children, the first one is always different because you can only have one child who is the first. They have different natures and talents for you to love.

I am a family man, and I have children.

I'm a traditionalist, a family man. I love my kids. I believe I have brought them up the right way. They are all very different: they have different drives, different ambitions. They are never going to be me. They are going to be themselves.

So much of my work is about children and/or parenting; it's something I'm drawn to without being able to completely articulate why.

People always tell me I need to have a kid, and I say, No, I don't. Because I wouldn't have just one kid; I'd have six. I need a huge family. So I just kind of fill my house with tons of rejects and misfits so it feels like I have a bunch of children.

My kids are not interested in anything I do. And I mean that not in any dis to my children or dis to me. My kids have their own life, they could give a sh*t what I do.

For me, as much about being a parent as it is about being a child.

Our children give us the opportunity to become the parents we always wished we'd had.

All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent parents should accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves.

You can't make your kids what you want them to be. They are who they are and you have to help them to succeed in the world as best you can.

They say that parenting is like dancing. You take one step, your child takes another.

Make up your mind to this. If you are different, you are isolated, not only from people of your own age but from those of your parents' generation and from your children's generation too. They'll never understand you and they'll be shocked no matter what you do. But your grandparents would probably be proud of you and say: 'Theres a chip off the old block,' and your grandchildren will sigh enviously and say: 'What an old rip Grandma must have been!' and they'll try to be like you.