Emotional Nurturing Quotes

Every child has a legitimate narcissistic need to be noticed, understood, taken seriously, and respected by his mother. In the first weeks and months of life he needs to have the mother at his disposal, must be able to use her and to be mirrored by her.

When I became a mother, there was no doubt in my mind that it would be the most vital and important job I would ever have because I knew firsthand what it was like not to have a mother.

I always knew I wanted a family because of the way I grew up. Family has always been the most important thing.

The very best relationship has a gardener and a flower. The gardener nurtures and the flower blooms.

Elie Wiesel says that the greatest evil in the world is not anger or hatred, but indifference. If that is true, then the opposite is also true: that the greatest love we can show our children is the attention we pay them, the time we take for them. Maybe we serve children the best simply by noticing them.

The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.... In any case, the giving of love is an education in itself.

Many mothers make the mistake of forever looking for the bad in the child, trying to . . . uproot and drive it out. This is like trying to eject the darkness from a room without opening the shutters and letting in the light. As John Newton said, 'I cannot sweep the darkness out, but I can shine it out.'

I am convinced that nine out of every ten persons seeing a psychiatrist do not need one. They need someone who will love them with God's love...and they will get well.

It's like a mother, when the baby is crying, she picks up the baby and she holds the baby tenderly in her arms. Your pain, your anxiety is your baby. You have to take care of it. You have to go back to yourself, to recognize the suffering in you, embrace the suffering, and you get a relief.

I used to spend time in my great grandfather’s [Leon Trotsky’s] study. My relatives used to tell me stories about all the meetings with writers, painters, intellectuals, about the relationship between Leon and Natalya and his friendship with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and her sister Cristina. We grew up surrounded by an atmosphere of support and love. Our parents instilled in us social compromise, sensitiveness and a sense of respect for others

I have nothing maternal in me, and men want to be mothered a lot of the time.

I need to be looked after. I'm not talking about diamond rings and nice restaurants and fancy stuff - in fact, that makes me uncomfortable. I didn't grow up with it, and it's not me, you know. But I need someone to say to me, 'Shall I run you a bath?' or 'Let's go to the pub, just us.'

Everything I do as a mother builds on a foundation of love and compassion.

By giving children lots of affection, you can help fill them with love and acceptance of themselves. Then that's what they will have to give away.

The person who received maximum affection from mother, that person also sort of cultivated the potential showing affection to others.

Children long to know that they are lovable. And there are ways that technology can help with that. But ultimately it's their relationships with their parents, their grandparents, their peers, and their teachers that help them to know that for sure. A child can learn the word "hug" and the letters h-u-g through a computer, but a computer can never give the child a hug.

I've got a big mummy heart.

What if all the forces of society were bent upon developing [poor] children? What if society's business were making people insteadof profits? How much of their creative beauty of spirit would remain unquenched through the years? How much of this responsiveness would follow them through life?

All my life, she gave to me a shovel and said, Fill these holes inside of me, Pari.

Affection can no more spoil a child than the sun could be put out by a bucket of gasoline.

There is no one on earth who knew you from the day you were born; who knew why you cried, or when you'd had enough food; who knew exactly what to say when you were hurting; and who encouraged you to grow a good heart. When that layer goes, whatever is left of your childhood goes with her.

I'm trying to be a loving and caring mother, a loving and caring wife-to-be, a loving and caring daughter, a loving and caring friend, a responsible person. And every day is another opportunity for me to be successful at that.

Every woman's path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment: It is, sadly, true. An unhealthy mother's love is withering.

Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life.

When I say I'm going to take care of a woman, I don't just mean physically or sexually or romantically. I'm going to take care of her emotionally and spiritually. I'm going to take care of her in all ways. I take a lot of pride in that today.