Ann Patchett Quotes

When I travel with my kids abroad, I am not myself, but I'm more a father who wants to protect them. Sometimes, I am even aggressive about certain things and get surprised seeing myself like that: for instance, when people want to take pictures of them. I am fine if they want to take my pictures, but they are not public property.

We all, as parents, are laughing at ourselves and helicopter parenting and saying, 'This isn't the way we were parented; we were allowed to run free.' When I talk to my friends, we are all fascinated by what we are doing, but we can't seem to stop ourselves.

I'm worried about parents who aren't parenting.

Ultimately, very few people parent their kids in ways that strike anybody else as reasoned, appropriate or sane.

The proper care and rearing of a child is integral to their development. It breaks my heart to know that some children's futures are being destroyed within their own homes.

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.

We perhaps protect our pets better than our children.

In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on …. I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange jumpsuit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12 … and where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is?

I think it's probably a universal experience that all parents think they're not hovering, but perhaps we all are.

The way I was parented did affect my parenting - probably in the reverse. My dad was pretty strict, and the next generation probably wants to be less strict.

I just wasn't cut out to be a Chinese Tiger Mom. I'm more of an Irish Setter Dad.

America's parenting customs can shock foreigners.

Parents, you need to watch who you let loose your girls around. If you're so desperate that you want your kids to be stars, and you're going to unleash your daughters to the world, you better watch what you get.

I've got letters from all over the world saying what you're describing as American parenting is Chilean middle-class parenting, or it is Finnish middle-class parenting, or it is Slovak middle-class parenting.

Liberals don't think parents can be left to their own devices when it comes to raising our children.

Kids are great. They are endlessly fascinating and bizarre. But I also think that if I had left them on their own for long enough, one of them would have been eaten.

This party is just full of children, and someone needs to leave them in a hot car.

I saw...a kid on a leash. You seen these people? Kid on a leash? How horrible. Put him in the pound where he belongs.

I wanted to stay close enough so mom could see me play - where I could go home if I needed to.

Children are like sponges; they start to smell after a little while.

It might suprise you to know I think I raised them too much, too

If you have kids and stuff what kind of dad do I wanna be for my kids, and what kind of mom do I want them to have

Just stick with your kids. There's no set of rules on how to be a parent. No handbook. Just hang around your kids and ask them a lot of questions. You have to stay involved in your children's lives and monitor everything they're doing whether they like it or not. You're not in the job of making them like it. You're there to protect them in a world that can be troubling.

We can say with some assurance that, although children may be the victims of fate, they will not be the victims of our neglect.

A mom and dad found an S&M magazine under their 10-year-old son's bed, and the dad said, 'Well, we sure can't spank him.'