Empathy for Children Quotes

Before I had Toma, I was one of those people who had no interest in other people's kids. I was. 'Don't hand me that baby!'

If someone criticizes my child it's gonna hurt me a little bit, but it's my child, you know, and I love it regardless.

I do like children, but only as people. Not as if they're a special category.

Loving our own children is an exercise for the imagination.

Children make that big a difference to you? He asked. I nodded. Yeah, they do. I never figured you as the maternal type. I'm not, but kids are people, Edward, little people trapped by the choices the adults around them make.

If you become a father, you're not doing things for yourself anymore. You're thinking about someone else. And that is not a burden.

What makes me cry? Anything bad related to my kids. The world.

A lot of what children go through is because you adults don't carry the burden yourself.

Being a dad, I certainly know what it feels like to give lots of love and understanding, and I also know what it feels like to be antagonized or to have my buttons pushed, at midnight when one of my kids just will not go to sleep. You've gotta just let them be what they are, ultimately.

My plea...is a plea to save the children. Too many of them walk with pain and fear, in loneliness and despair. Children need sunlight...They need kindness and refreshment and affection. Every home, regardless of the cost of the house, can provide an environment of love which will be an environment of salvation.

He could not construct for the child's pleasure the world he'd lost without constructing the loss as well and he thought perhaps the child had known this better than he.

Say of him what you please, but I know my child's failings. I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my little child. How should you know how dear he can be when you try to weigh his merits against his faults? When I must punish him he becomes all the more a part of my being. When I cause his tears to come my heart weeps with him. I alone have a right to blame and punish, for he only may chastise who loves.

A child's cry touches a father's heart.