Mathew Knowles Quotes

When I was a kid, my mother's parenting style teetered between benign neglect and intense bouts of violence.

Any father whose son raises his hand against him is guilty of having produced a son who raised his hand against him.

I had my kids convinced it was a civics lesson rather than child abuse.

They'd rather see Scooby Doo or Spongebob than Daddy talking about the latest Wall Street Journal editorial. You do what you have to do to get your kids ready for school.

My father never raised his hand to any one of his children, except in self-defense.

Parents are trying to be friends with their kids rather than draw the line and tell them what proper public behavior would be.

I think I'm a much better father as an older man than I was with my first kids. Occasionally, I have to yell at the little guys, but they don't take me seriously. 'Listen to the old guy,' they say. 'Isn't he great? He's mad.'

Dad was a strict disciplinarian and would give us a wallop with a wooden spoon if we were out of order. But we really respected him - he didn't try to be our best friend.

The relation between parents and children is essentially based on teaching.

I'm a fun father, but not a good father. The hard decisions always went to my wife.

I'm a believer in the parent first, friend second philosophy, and trying to find that balance.

I try to be careful because technology changes so much over the years. But some things don't change. Kids and parents have disagreements, kids try to manipulate, parents try to sit down with rules and regs. That part never changes.

While they are kids, my children must do as I say.

My father taught me how to fight when I was 5.

We all want to raise our children well.

I say to my kids all the time - and this is absolutely true - I always say, 'Who's the boss?' and they go, 'You are.'

I think if I tried to be the stern parent, we would have slipped into Cinderella mode - with me as the evil stepmother!

We had an argument, and he told me to be home at midnight, and I said no. And so when I did come home, the door was locked. And I had gotten a set of luggage for graduation that day, and it was on the front porch, packed. He thought that he was going to prove a point and I was going to say, 'Oh, I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry'.

You don't need too much to have an agenda of how to father. You just have to be a good person. The interactions at home between you and your spouse and the way you deal with your kids in certain situations, that's what they take.

He's always been tough on me, but I've had to figure out when he's being a coach and when he's being a dad. Once I figured that out, it was much easier. It's definitely tough, something that took years to figure out. Just knowing he was looking for what's best for me, not just yelling at me as a parent. It took maturity.

I told my children, 'I don't like children.'

Kids are an extension of you and it is important to raise them well.

I hope all the kids out there who don't like listening to their mothers, who yell and scream at them, that moms are always right just so you guys know.

As a father of two children, I am used to seeing kids in the midst of a five-alarm meltdown over the choice of DVD or the necessity of broccoli.

Parenting is a learning process.