Competitive Parenting Quotes

An overzealous parent is just one example of the kind of Problem Mom or Dad who pops up at track meets, threatening to put a damper on the day.

My dad used to play every other weekend with me when I was young. I started getting better, but he could always beat me. Then one day, he realized the jig was up. And he stopped playing me just before I could beat him.

My dad never let me win. I didn't beat him at golf until I was 13. I didn't beat him at basketball until I was 15. When we played each other, he was big and mean.

Some people take the spelling bee very seriously. These people are called "parents of children in the spelling bee." They're trying to make up for their own childhood of crushed dreams and misspelled words.

I used to go to my kids' soccer games and I was the only parent who wasn't screaming, because I'd have to do a show that night. It was hard. Moms and dads get more emotional at those soccer and Little League games than at a professional game.

When I was a young woman, my looks attracted a lot of compliments. My mother, however, could not share attention with any other human being.

I never let any of my sons beat me at videogames.

Whether it's pool or Ping Pong, I can't stand to have my kids beat me. Especially Ping Pong! And when they beat me, they just needle the devil out of me. That's fine. I'd rather have that than let them win a shallow victory.

When my children were little, I would chat with my husband or my mum friends about how we were superior parents to other people, or that so-and-so was lying about how their children slept through the night.

Don't take up a man's time talking about the smartness of your children; he wants to talk to you about the smartness of his children.

Fathers who compete hard with their kids are monstrous. The father, for a throw-away victory, is sacrificing the very heart of hischild's sense of being good enough. He may believe he is making his son tough, as he was made tough by a similarly contending father, but he is only making his child desperate and mean like himself. Fathers must let their sons (and daughters) have their victories.

My parent are very proud, but Dad ripped into me for throwing a club on the 11th. He's happy with the way I played, but he always has to have something to moan about!

My mom played every sport possible. My dad is 'extremely' competitive. You can't even play Ping-Pong with him.

If you just got enough expertise and enough special techniques and read up enough, then you could shape a child into the kind of adult you wanted. There's almost this kind of competitive enterprise. That picture is the picture I think people often imply when they use the word "parenting".

Soccer was the first sport that my parents put me in, and ultimately, all the parents kind of came over to my mom and were, 'We think Channing would be better at football.... We love him, he's really great, but he's kind of hurting our children.' I was just a little wild.

Nobody is excused from the excellence trend. Babies are not excused. Starting right after they get out of the womb, modern babies are exposed to instructional flashcards designed to make them the best babies they can possibly be, so they can get into today's competitive preschools. Your eighties baby sees so many flashcards that he never gets an unobstructed view of his parents' faces. As an adult, he'll carry around a little wallet card that says "7x9=63," because it will remind him of mother.

A deep river of must-have school mania runs through the chattering classes. There is, of course, the parental adrenaline rush at suburban cocktail parties that comes from announcing one's son or daughter as an Ivy Leaguer.

The competitive nature of most mums and dads is astounding. The fear they instil in our promising but sensitive Johnny is utterly depressing. We need a parental cultural revolution.

You're always asking yourself, are you doing the best for your child? And other parents let you know if you're not, just not in a direct way. There's a sense of competition, which is ridiculous because you know deep down you're all suffering.

The only time my records are going to be broken is by my own spawn. I'm going be training that child out the womb.

The new upper class devotes incredible amounts of effort to raising their kids but that also includes incredible amounts of effort in getting their kids into the right preschool in some elite communities which I think is going a little bit too far.

When we were playing chess in the house, she would never let me win until I was good enough to beat her. It was always a competition. She was also always there for me. She was a very caring, loving mom, and the sacrifices she made to allow me to get to where I am today, I'll be forever in debt.

In Los Angeles, parenting is a competitive sport. From Beverly Hills baby boutiques to kids' yoga classes, L.A. fuses high style, industrial-strength materialism, and parental outsourcing into our own unique version of child-rearing.

I'm going to be the most competitive birth-giver ever.

I think any activity you have your kids in, you're all trying to live vicariously through them. And you're jealous of the kid that's naturally more talented or has the facility, the body, the genes, or the God-given talent. People get jealous of that.