Phyllis Theroux Quotes

Folks that has brought up children know that there's no hard and fast method in the world that'll suit every child. But them as never have think it's all as plain and easy as Rule of Three—just set your three terms down so fashion, and the sum'll work out correct.

Raising children is like making biscuits: it is as easy to raise a big batch as one, while you have your hands in the dough.

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

One has very little influence upon one's children. Their characters are what they are and one can do nothing to change 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.

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.

I realize the differences between my children and use what works for each of them individually.

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

It's harder for me, never having brought up a child, to enter the universe of the child.

Of children as of procreation -- the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable

It's sad but true that if you focus your attention on housework and meal preparation and diapers, raising children does start to look like drudgery pretty quickly. On the other hand, if you see yourself as nothing less than your child's nurturer, role model, teacher, spiritual guide, and mentor, your days take on a very different cast.

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.

The fact is that child rearing is a long, hard job, the rewards are not always immediately obvious, the work is undervalued, and parents are just as human and almost as vulnerable as their children.

Bringing up children is not a real occupation, because children come up just the same, brought or not.

Since civilizing children takes the better part of two decades--some twenty years of nonstop thinking, nurturing, teaching, coaxing, rewarding, forgiving, warning, punishing, sympathizing, apologizing, reminding, and repeating, not to mention deciding what to do when--I now understand that one wrong move is invariably followed by hundreds of opportunities to be wrong again.

Parenthood is an endless series of small events, periodic conflicts, and sudden crises which call for a response. The response is not without consequence: it affects personality for better or for worse.

If it is to be done well, child-rearing requires, more than most activities of life, a good deal of decentering from one's own needs and perspectives. Such decentering is relatively easy when a society is stable and when there is an extended, supportive structure that the parent can depend upon.

In my opinion, the teaching, rearing, and training of children requires more intelligence, intuitive understanding, humility, strength, wisdom, spirituality, perseverance, and hard work than any other challenge we might have in life.

I’ve noticed that one thing about parents is that no matter what stage your child is in, the parents who have older children always tell you the next stage is worse.

I always say that a successful parent is one who raises a child so that they can pay for their own psychoanalysis.

When you wake up one day and say, "You know what? I don't think I ever need to sleep or have sex again." Congratulations, you're ready (to have children).

There are so many common occurrences in raising children that people just can't seem to figure out.

Anyone who has brought up children knows that consistency has absolutely nothing to do with discipline.

Maybe I had three children in the first place so I wouldn't ever have to play board games. In my religion, martyrs die.

I think the main thing is trying to be fair, sometimes there has to be a little bit of discipline, maybe even punishment involved in trying to make your child understand, learn from bad experiences and make sure they don't happen again.