Kerby Jean-Raymond Quotes

In Chinese culture, it wouldn't occur to kids to question or talk back to their parents. In American culture, kids in books, TV shows and movies constantly score points with their snappy back talk. Typically, it's the parents who need to be taught a life lesson - by their children.

I grew up in a Caribbean family household, so the parents are always right. My father smacked me up til I was 20. It was a strict household.

The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.

If I didn't already sense that I was different, I certainly was reminded, whether by my parents or by the other school kids. Not just reminded. Told... I was made to believe it wasn't right. If I went a little bit too off - slap! It was Dad's upbringing and it was Victorian, and that's the way he was.

I wasn't rebellious. Other friends had far stricter parents and where there wasn't a relationship of respect and communication, they were usually the opposite; kids go to the other extreme.

My grandmother was a kind of Scarsdale, New York, society woman, best known in her day as the author of the 1959 book 'Growing Your Own Way: An Informal Guide for Teen-Agers' - this despite being a person whose parenting style made Joan Crawford's wire hangers look like pool noodles.

My mother was incredibly strict, especially when we moved to New York. Compared with most of the American parents, who seemed so relaxed with their children, my mother was virtually a dictator.

My mom could be pretty strict.

My father was very strict.

You don't ever want an African father to come to your school looking for you.

Years later, when I asked my father, I said 'Pop, why were you so much harder on me than my younger brothers?' he said, son, you plum wore me out.

We're living in a time when parenting is not at all mirroring the way I was parented. For me, I just followed my parents around on their errands; when they were busy on the phone, I was quiet. It's a different kettle of fish these days: They run the house, and you listen to their music, and you go to their appointments.

My mom was definitely very strict with me.

You don't want your children to look at you like you are anything special other than their dad.

Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore, and that's what parents were created for.

This whole head of the home thing has been blown way out of proportion. Some guys just take it way too far. Some parents take it way too far. Yet children need guidance. They need a parent to help and guide them. They also need a friend. They need a confidant.

There's no such thing as a teenager that listens to a single word their father says.

It's as though all the terms of a family were present at one time rather than his dad and his mum. Not just a present authority, but the resident memory of what qualifies what else is the case.

It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.

I'm not a tech-savvy parent. I communicate with my children via the old-media format called yelling.

My mom grew up in the Soviet Bloc, and she was a Tiger Mom. We didn't get away with much.

My parents did the whole good-cop/bad-cop thing - Dad was the bad cop, and Mom was the good cop. I remember my father saying, 'I'm his father, not his friend.' That kind of stuck with me.

I don't plan to take a formal, cold approach with my children, but I expect a lot. I don't want my children to view me as their best friend. I want to be their mom.

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.

Momma was the important woman in our home. She never let me forget that she was boss. I was always in the shadow. Every time I tried to step out on my own, I was in trouble with her.