Being made to feel like an irrelevant child was probably an asset. Benign negligence is not a bad parental attitude or at least a cross between a benevolent dictator and benign negligence - you should just let kids crack on with it.
My parents were never condescending to us. They treated us like adults from a very young age.
I don't think my parents would be shocked about anything I did, because they're so laid-back.
We approach people the same way we approach our cars. We take the poor kid to a doctor and ask, What's wrong with him, how much will it cost, and when can I pick him up?
Don't underestimate your kids. Don't be condescending, because they're children but they're not stupid.
Although my dad's a writer, we grew up in a telly-watching household. I never found him disparaging about television.
I don't believe in playing down to children, either in life or in motion pictures. I didn't treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers, and I think no parent should.
I, for certain, don't mind my son doing music.
The attitude you have as a parent is what your kids will learn from more than what you tell them. They don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.
I'm sick of the ignorance that lack of funding has generated, of the fathers who apporach me at dinner parties with their four-year-old girls clasped to their pant legs and say, "Yeah, but studies say kids can buy drugs more easily than they can buy alcohol." To which I always respond, "I guess that means you keep heroin in your liquor cabinet?
When your mother starts using the word "party" as a verb about her kid, that's absolutely crazy.
Children are not a burden.
I'm lucky. My parents are, like, super hippies. They were just happy I was going to school and I wasn't getting in trouble.
My parents are super chilled-out.
My parents were very relaxed about music.
When parents see their children's problems as opportunities to build the relationship instead of as negative, burdensome irritations, it totally changes the nature of parent-child interaction. Parents become more willing, even excited, about deeply understanding and helping their children. . . . This paradigm is powerful in business as well.
Other kids' parents wouldn't let them read magazines like 'Weird Tales,' but my folks were big readers themselves, so they didn't mind.
Some friends of mine had parents who made school a treat, a gift - not something to be endured.
I used to go to church when I was younger. My parents didn't go to church, but my friends all went to church and I loved going to church - I would go every Sunday with somebody. My parents used to think it was funny.
My mother was not what anyone would call sweet, and she wasn't conventional. When my brother couldn't find his shoes one morning, she said, 'Oh, for God's sake, it won't kill him not to have shoes for a day,' and sent him to school without them.
My parents were so relaxed by the time I was growing up that I got away with a lot more.
Neither of my parents has been very sensitive about my writing.
In my own case, my folks didn't actually object to comics, as many parents did, but they pretty much felt the things were a waste of time.
My parents weren't stereotypical and pressuring me to go to college. They mentioned it a lot and constantly, but it wasn't a do or die thing, like, 'You have to do this or you're done.'
Daddy was like a lot of people who kind of turn their noses up when you say the word 'organic.'
