Norman Douglas Quotes

Another very interesting chapter is the education of children: the victims of problems of the family are the children. The children. Even of problems that neither husband nor wife have a say in. For example, the needs of a job. When the dad doesn't have free time to speak to his children, when the mother doesn't have time to speak with her children.

I will never understand children. I never pretended to. I meet mothers all the time who make resolutions to themselves. 'I'm going to ... go out of my way to show them I am interested in them and what they do. I am going to understand my children.' These women end up making rag rugs, using blunt scissors.

There may be some doubt as to who are the best people to have charge of children, but there can be no doubt that parents are the worst.

Mothers, take time to be a real friend to your children. Listen to your children, really listen. Talk with them, laugh and joke with them, sing with them, cry with them, hug them, honestly praise them. Yes, regularly spend unused one-on-one time with each child. Be a real friend to your children.

The father spent his time talking and thinking of religion. He proclaimed himself an agnostic and was so absorbed in destroying the ideas of God that had crept into the minds of his neighbors that he never saw God manifesting himself in the little child that, half forgotten, lived here and there on the bounty of her dead mother's relatives.

Your daughter is your child for life.

The world's beginning is its mother. To have found the mother is also to know the children. Although you know the children, cling to the mother. Until your last day you will not be harmed.

Single mothers have as much to teach their children as married mothers and as much love to share--maybe more. Yet their motives are often labeled selfish and single-minded--never mind all the babies brought into the world to snag husbands, "save" faltering marriages or produce heirs.

Children always know when their mothers are crazy - they just never admit it, not out loud, to anyone.

That was a judicious mother who said, "I obey my children for the first year of their lives, but ever after I expect them to obey me.

To a mother, a child is everything; but to a child, a parent is only a link in the chain of her existence.

I was a welfare worker for the Indian Council for Child Welfare. I'll tell you a story. Rajiv was only four years old at that time, and was going to kindergarten. One day the mother of one of his little friends came to see us and said in a sugary voice, 'Oh, it must be so sad for you to have no time to spend with your little boy!' Rajiv roared like a lion: 'My mother spends more time with me than you spend with your little boy, see! Your little boy says you always leave him alone so you can play bridge!' I detest women who do nothing and they play bridge.

I think a child calling for his mother is the most beautiful sound in the world.

And in the same way, FDR's not much of a father. Although the children in all their memoirs really talk about what a fun-loving guy Dad was, and how brooding and unhappy Mom was. The children sort of blame it all on the mother. Well, this is kind of standard and typical, and aggrieved Eleanor Roosevelt that she was not a happier mother. She wanted to be a happier mother. And I must say, she was a happier grandmother.

In erotic love, two people who were separate become one. In motherly love, two people who were one become separate. The mother must not only tolerate, she must wish and support the child's separation.

The attempt to be an ideal parent, that is, to behave correctly toward the child, to raise her correctly, not to give to little ortoo much, is in essence an attempt to be the ideal child--well behaved and dutiful--of one's own parents. But as a result of these efforts the needs of the child go unnoticed. I cannot listen to my child with empathy if I am inwardly preoccupied with being a good mother; I cannot be open to what she is telling me.

Adorable children are considered to be the general property of the human race. Rude children belong to their mothers.

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

When children are little, they really need you in one way. When they're bigger, they need you as a friend. And balancing motherhood and career makes you both a better mother and a better businesswoman.

Because I don't have a child and as much as you can sort of imagine it it's always nice to hear from all different walks of life what motherhood is like and what that feels like. And particularly young mothers.

Honor your father and mother (this is the first commandment with a promise),.4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Some mothers need happy children; others need unhappy ones-otherwise they cannot prove their maternal virtues.

Fathers and mothers are too absorbed in business and housekeeping to study their children, and cherish that sweet and natural confidence which is a child's surest safeguard, and a parent's subtlest power.

I urge all children to listen to their mothers and fathers. My mom was helping out some kids and she didn't want to call me for all of the money; she only wanted to take care of some of the kids.