Maria Semple Quotes

For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have.

Actually, I didn't start sweating until I had children.

I would define the new aspects of fatherhood like this: It is 75 percent amazing and 25 percent demoralizing. I think any new parent can understand exactly what I'm talking about.

No one tells you how hard being a parent is! We could have had a warning! It is literally the hardest thing I've ever done but I'm loving it.

Because you give birth, because you impregnate someone, that does not automatically give you that title of mother or father. You earn the title.

Parental anxieties: A timeline. Pre-1800s: Potato famine, death of entire villages. 1900s: Trying to keep dad's job through depression so entire family does not starve or have to sell off children to agribusiness. 2000: Infringement of Parenthood on sense of Personhood.

Being a parent is the hardest job ever in life.

I think the biggest change has been realizing I now have three children.

It is always fragile, being a parent.

My friends who have babies can't do anything. You can't go out at night. Having a baby is like a DUI from the universe.

I don't have children of my own so I can't say I know the plight of being a parent, but I can kinda understand some of the complexities of it.

Having children makes you see the world in a completely different way. When you're responsible for those little lives, you can't slough it off or forget about it until later.

Being a parent is too complicated and emotional a task for magical techniques and miracle cures.

Everyone says that when you have kids, you become crazy.

I think all parents have a double life.

I wrote the first draft of 'Tigerman' while my wife was pregnant - needless to say, I was relaxed and casual about her well-being during this tender time - and the novel clearly has its center in that panicked parental desperation that accompanies a first child and in the admittedly comedic extremes to which it drives us.

I think that being a parent has expanded my writing, expanded my understanding of my characters, and has added a depth and richness to my work. Having kids deepened my idea of parenting and all the anxieties that come along with it.

No one realizes how hard parenthood is. I am not saying going into the office is easy. It's not. But parenthood, as fun as it is, is not for the fainthearted.

Parenthood changes things a lot.

I really do believe that the experience of having a child is going to actually make me a much better cinematographer.

Your whole life is changed with that first child. Your social behaviors are all turned upside down, you're sleep deprived, but eight months in, my son had this seizure, and it just woke me up to the idea that, oh, no, this can end. And it can end in a way that will destroy you forever.

I don't think anything can prepare you for parenthood.

There's no better way to unplug than having children. Changing diapers is one of the most leveling things that has ever happened to me.

The fears and anxieties and obsessions wrapped up in being a parent.

Raising children changes everything. It's a complete cliché to say that, but it's really true.