Maryanne Wolf Quotes

I see that children fill the existential hollowness many people feel; that when we have children, we know they will need us, and maybe love us, but we don't have a clue how hard it is going to be.

Sometimes even the greatest joys bring challenge, and children with special needs inspire a very, very special love.

He didn't come out of my belly, but my God, I've made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I'm so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.

Oh, my goodness, when you're a mother and you just give birth to a child with spina bifida and - or Down's Syndrome or cerebral palsy, there's a bit of a shock you're going to have to go through, a bit of an adjustment curve.

Being a parent is about your survival. Surviving the terrible two's is the most important thing.

Once you have a Down's syndrome child, you can't conform. In a way, you're free.

Every woman's path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment: It is, sadly, true. An unhealthy mother's love is withering.

She discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them.

My children make me cry on a daily basis about everything. Tears of joy, tears of pain, tears of sadness - all the tears, all the time.

Down syndrome kids can learn. Like Corky. That's the way I feel about it... For those kids who have Down syndrome, to give them a chance.

We all want our children to be the best they can be; and one of the blessings of having an autistic child is that you notice every little achievement, and it becomes cause for celebration.

Any parent who says parenting came easily to them is not being honest with themselves. Parenting is hard.

I'm a mom... and I'm learning this being a parent, sometimes your child can be such a reflection of who you are. And I have to figure out when it is my ego that dictates how I parent and when it is what I think is best for my child.

No one tells you how hard being a parent is! We could have had a warning! It is literally the hardest thing I've ever done but I'm loving it.

I'll never get sick of raising my children, but other people might get sick of them.

It is our continuing love for our children that makes us want them to become all they can be, and their continuing love for us that helps them accept healthy discipline--from us and eventually from themselves.

The thing I like the best, especially being a parent of so many kids, Is that they're all so different. You love them all equally, but they're all so different from each other and that's the cool thing, to see their personalities start to develop and see how unique and different they all are and to be able to love them in their own unique ways. It's really, really, really special.

I felt like all of the work was training for just one central idea: Accept your child for who he is. I'm not saying that I've done a brilliant job with that. But I've done my best.

(About parenting:) ... all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.

Ha! Kids! You have no idea what you put your parents through, either. Wait till you have your own, you'll see. That's when you'll know what it really feels like." .. "What what feels like?"..."Love," said Angela.

I walked away from this movie thinking how important it is to have a genuine selfless love for your children. You can really mess kids up if you don't have the right kind of love for them.

Children can scarcely be fashioned to meet with our likes and our purpose. Just as God did us give them, so must we hold them and love them, nurture and teach them to fullness and leave them to be what they are.

I regard (parenting) as the hardest, most complicated, anxiety-ridden, sweat-and-blood-producing job in the world. Succeeding requires the ultimate in patience, common sense, commitment, humor, tact, love, wisdom, awareness, and knowledge. At the same time, it holds the possibility for the most rewarding, joyous experience of a lifetime, namely, that of being successful guides to a new and unique human being.

Affection can no more spoil a child than the sun could be put out by a bucket of gasoline.

Someone once told me that children are like heroin. You always want more. Yet first-borns are special because you'll never have your first child again.