Tony Parsons Quotes

What is a normal childhood? We weren't rich, we were pretty middle-class. My dad survived from job to job; with him taking care of so many relatives, he couldn't save any money.

Raising kids these days is hard. I'm the second to last child in my family. I think it's tough; I have two kids, I see them and I feel like I see things in them; they awaken the inner child in you.

There was a long time where I was an 'artist' in quotes, who had no money. But I guess back then I also never had a girlfriend.

When families are strong and stable, so are children - showing higher levels of wellbeing and more positive outcomes. But when things go wrong - either through family breakdown or a damaged parental relationship - the impact on a child's later life can be devastating.

I think it's a pity for him that my father didn't have the pleasure of seeing me grow up. I think he missed out on something. But it doesn't matter. It's boring. I don't have any anger about it.

Now we've got a little daughter; me and the missus won't talk about football as much.

My relationship with my first child was nonexistent. I was broke and I was a new rapper whose career was spiraling downward.

My first son Tony was born when I was only eighteen. I was a still a kid; I wasn't ready to be a dad, so he was put up for adoption and went off to live with a family that could care for him.

My little one's only 12 and I miss seeing him grow up and trying to form him and mould him the way I'd like him to him to turn out, which is something like his dad!

I dropped out of high school, and had this girlfriend, and we broke up, and it was this horrible crisis.

My father was in the coal and heating business, and he wanted me to take over his business, and I resented every moment of it. So I would never force my kids to do what I do.

I was actually very fortunate. I think I was actually the only kid in my class at one stage that actually had a father in the home.

I think kids are in your temporary care, and that they probably arrive with pretty much the personalities they're going to have. I grew up in a perfectly traditional family and turned out how I did. I'm not sure there's much that the family can do except lots of love and lots of care and lots of chances for them to develop the best they can.

I just feel that if you're going to have kids, you need to believe that, emotionally, you can give them a really good life.

I've always lived with my mom. My whole life.

My parents did their best - that earns a lot of forgiveness. But they say children grow up in spite of their parents, and I think I did.

It's always lovely for babies to grow up in a similar age gap and it's nice to have cousins be of a similar age.

If we could have seen through the televisions, we would probably have seen many a child grow up.

Parents tend to value their lives more highly than people without kids, but they're different in lots of ways: They're richer. They're better educated. They're healthier.

My father ruined me for men. Not many can live up to him.

Mazhar never wanted me to grow as an individual or as an artist. He always wanted me to be with the kids and be at home. During the very first year of marriage I realised I had made a huge mistake, but I decided to live by it and make it work. I tried to make it work for another 12 years.

Whether you work outside the home or not, never tell them [your children] that being a mommy is your 'job.' Being a mommy is a relationship, not a profession.

If a kid calls his grandma "Mommy" and his mama "Pam", he's going to jail!

I've always assumed he'd be around to be, you know, yelled at and taken for granted. And of course I was wrong. Nobody's going to put up with that forever.

Parenting changes your life, it changes how you hear yourself in relationship to others - which is part of the reason that a bunch of people in the rock community are sick of the goodwill and positive energy and love between these 45-year-old musicians who they preferred when they were 25 and taking stabs at each other.