Michael Gross Quotes

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.

And Grandmother Hall really imagines that she can raise Eleanor and her two brothers differently than these children were raised. And if she is very strict and everything is very regimented and ordered and disciplined, that they will become the perfect children who her own children did not become.

I always feel like the odd mom out, because trust me when I tell you I'm on my girls. And every time I am, I know from the outside it looks like I'm an overbearing, controlling parent. But I don't think we have any responsibility to anybody else but our kids and ourselves.

My own parents were very un-neurotic, so I never thought that I had to change enormously in order to become a parent.

The way I'm raising my kids is so different than the way I was raised.

There is a trend in child-rearing that I find abhorrent: "Whatever the kids want to do is fine." For me, the classic example of this is when someone has a visitor and says, "Go kiss Aunt Gertrude," and Aunt Gertrude says, "She doesn't have to kiss me if she doesn't want to." Well, I think that's wrong.

Most American children suffer too much mother and too little father.

If you've got a lot of children, I think you let the other children bring them up more and you just sort of step in and do stuff like every now and again.

Different parents have different standards for their children.

My kids would probably say that I'm too strict. They probably would say that, and I try not to be, but I'm probably more on the conservative end of that. At the same time, I know full well that ultimately I don't really have control over them.

It's difficult to keep that perspective, I think, as a parent: to know your boundaries as to what's good parenting or just projecting your own expectations on your kids. That's the hardest.

When I was a kid, I thought my dad was a little bit harsh with me at times. Sometimes I needed an arm around me instead of my dad telling me what I did wrong, but it obviously worked.

A kid never listens to what his parents tell him to do. The parents actually act as an example of what their kids themselves do.

I believed in raising my children as I had been raised.

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.

Mothers are not supposed to give guidance.

If you've never been hated by your child, you've never been a parent.

My mother was incredibly strict, especially when we moved to New York. Compared with most of the American parents, who seemed so relaxed with their children, my mother was virtually a dictator.

Before I married, I had three theories about raising children and no children. Now, I have three children and no theories.

I'm coming to that realization that I'm going to be seen as a mom to someone, and it makes you think about your own parents. You know, who were they?

I think there's different parenting styles.

You learn that there's no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. It's just what you feel comfortable with, to trust that, and don't let anybody box you in to a certain style of parenting or make you feel a certain way about what your kids do.

My parents have always had this philosophy that overindulging your children is one of the worst things you could do as a parent. It's something that was hammered into my head growing up. And while my mom and dad are not professional authorities on parenting, I can confirm from experience that they had a point.

People forget how the same children brought up with affection, effort, and love are the ones who later kick their parents.

Some parents want to be popular, but that's not their job.