Muriel Spark Quotes

Parents are people who yell and they yell and they yell and they yell. And you already have the point... and they're still yelling.

I love my son, but my daughter has calmed me down.

You just don't understand humility until you have children and get divorced.

What I've learned about being a parent is how much you sort of secretly learn from everyone else and how valuable it is.

My older kids are fantastic people. It can't be the result of my influence on them.

Now I can look back and say I actually like the upbringing I had and my father was very attentive and a great educator.

My husband's a pediatrician, so he and I talk about parenting all the time. You can't raise children who have more shame resilience than you do.

I think it's easiest to teach by example. My dad didn't tell us to work hard; we just saw how hard he worked. I know I have shortcomings - like a short fuse - but I've learned you can't come home from a long day of work and snap at the kids.

Both of my sons used to coach high school football. When they started, I'd say things I shouldn't have. So I learned my lesson.

I think I've become more like my mom just because of what we're both interested in, children and teaching and writing.

I think having four children made me a good mentor. As a parent, you get to know young people as they mature and grow up and to also learn about some of the difficulties they face.

While I have always had a good relationship with my father, much of the time it has been a very limited relationship until I was older. So you can't really give him credit or blame for how I turned out.

Parenting makes us better in so many regards.

You never know how your kids are going to turn out. You can raise them with all the best intentions, and then they're own people, and they have their own inner conflicts. You just hope you've given them some good stuff to navigate with.

I want to be a better parent than I had. Even though my mom was absolutely amazing. Her and I are still best friends to this day. I think that the next generation should always be better and better.

Parenthood offers many lessons in patience and sacrifice. But ultimately, it is a lesson in humility. The very best thing about your life is a short stage in someone else’s story.

It's good to learn early that every show is a family - -complete with dysfunctional relationships, tough love, and plenty of occasion for forgiveness.

As a father of seven kids, and been a kid myself at one point, I realize you don't always make the best decisions every time out. And life is a learning experience.

The lessons we learn from patience will cultivate our character, lift our lives, and heighten our happiness.

However global I strove to become in my thinking over the past twenty years, my sons kept me rooted to an utterly pedestrian view,intimately involved with the most inspiring and fractious passages in human development. However unconsciously by now, motherhood informs every thought I have, influencing everything I do. More than any other part of my life, being a mother taught me what it means to be human.

Train your mind the same way you’d train a puppy: Be patient, be consistent, and have some fun along the way.

Though energy and inspiration diminish, experience grows - the theme of parents and kids, for instance.

Children teach you so much. You take another look at life when you have a child. Everything is new again for you. They ground you.

I'm not crazy, but it's a crazy life. I was raised in a crazy family and it took 31 years to get the crazy out of me.

Our children change us... whether they live or not.