Bill Cosby Quotes

Most of us have felt barriers between ourselves and our fathers and had thought that going it alone was part of what it meant to be a man. We tried to get close to our children when we became fathers, and yet the business of practicing masculinity kept getting in the way. We men have begun to talk about that.

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

Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

I used to believe my father about everything but then I had children myself & now I see how much stuff you make up just to keep yourself from going crazy.

It's easy enough to get along with a loved and loving child - at least till you try to get him to do something.

I would have made a terrible parent. The first time my child didn't do what I wanted, I'd kill him.

Each generation has been an education for us in different ways. The first child-with-bloody-nose was rushed to the emergency room. The fifth child-with-bloody-nose was told to go to the yard immediately and stop bleeding on the carpet.

That is the injustice of a woman's lot. A woman has to bring up her children; and that means to restrain them, to deny them things they want, to set them tasks, to punish them when they do wrong, to do all the unpleasant things. And then the father, who has nothing to do but pet them and spoil them, comes in when all her work is done and steals their affection from her.

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

There is no passion that so much transports men from their right judgments as anger. No one would demur upon punishing a judge with death who should condemn a criminal upon the account of his own choler; why then should fathers and pedants be any more allowed to whip and chastise children in their anger? It is then no longer correction bat revenge. Chastisement is instead of physic to children; and should we suffer a physician who should be animated against and enraged at his patient?

If you're a parent, the five worst words you can say to your children are, "When I was your age ..." You were never their age. You were older in the womb.

Having children is like living in a frat house - nobody sleeps, everything's broken, and there's a lot of throwing up.

Many a man spanks his children for things his own father should have spanked out of him.

A grown child is a dangerous thing.

Spanking doesn't lead to anything in the child, other than anger, a sense of frustration and humiliation. And parents can do better. I'm not saying it should be against the law but parents can do better.

For me, my lack of patience in real life - I have always had very little patience. It's been very much my downfall in life. But having a child puts it in perspective. Very quickly you're like, "Oh, I need to learn what patience is."

Single parents in particular may have trouble maintaining themselves as authority figures because of underlying guilt; they feel acontinuing sense that they have deprived their kids of the second parent, and so they tend to give in to the children's requests, even when unreasonable.

My kids used to do things to aggravate me, too. I'd take them to a game, and they'd want to come home with a different player.

One of the things I've discovered in general about raising kids is that they really don't give a damn if you walked five miles to school.

Whenever I hear about a child needing something, I ask myself, 'Is it what he needs or what he wants?' It isn't always easy to distinguish between the two. A child has many real needs which can and should be satisfied. His wants are a bottomless pit. He wants, for example, to sleep with his parents. He needs to be in his own bed. At Christmas he wants every toy advertised on television. He needs only one or two.

~We were on a family trip to Death Valley, and there were moments when my husband and I wanted to just leave the kids there - all the whining! You think that no other kid can do it as much as yours. When they're with friends, they're great; when they're in the car with just the family, it's maddening at times. But you adore them anyway.~

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).

Has it ever occurred to you that parents are nothing but overgrown kids until their children drag them into adulthood? Usually kicking and screaming?

When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.

I tried to be the greatest boxer in the world and a good parent, too. I had instant feedback on my success as a boxer. Often, parents don't really know if what they are doing is right or wrong until their child is grown and it is too late to change any of the decisions. Whatever my failings as a parent, I am very proud of all my children. It wasn't easy for them to make their own way with such a controversial and public father.