Parental Dilemma Quotes

Happy is it to place a daughter; yet it pains a father's heart when he delivers to another's house a child, the object of his tender care.

I don't know if I'm a strict parent or a pushover.

A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.

As a parent, all you want is for your kids to be safe but you don’t want to be over-protective and so you know that at some stage, they’re going to make their own mistakes and get hurt emotionally when all you want to do is protect them from that.

I was shamed.My son, Bill, who was 14 come to me and said: "Mother, you've been professing that you're an atheist for a long time now. Well, I don't believe in God either, but every day in school I'm forced to say prayers, and I feel like a hypocrite. Why should I be compelled to betray my beliefs?" I couldn't answer him.

It's a difficult position. Do you endanger your child to fight for the right thing, or do you keep your mouth shut and let your child grow up in a world where their natural rights are stripped away from them?

I had a lovely, feral, free childhood - out and then come back when you're hungry or it gets too dark. I feel slightly cruel that I'm not offering my children the same.

As a parent, you want to protect your children, but the fact of racism in this country, of inequality, that is still a lesson my children are going to have to learn. I can't protect my kids from that.

A mom and dad found an S&M magazine under their 10-year-old son's bed, and the dad said, 'Well, we sure can't spank him.'

This is the big question that we all have about our children: How much, how soon, do we tell our children the less comfortable facts about the world they're going to inherit?

I think every mother feels that the best place for their child is with their mum, but you want things for yourself, too. So, you're either at work feeling guilty, or you are at home feeling frustrated.

When a parent has two children, it is difficult to pick one favourite.

There is a tension between our desire to get our kids to turn out a particular way versus letting them develop to be their own person. If there were a pill that would make my child turn out the way I wanted, I'm not sure I'd take it.

Industrialization created the Father's Catch-22: a dad loving his children by being away from the love of his children.

My choice was to ruin my son's life by giving him money or giving 90-plus percent to charity. Not much of a choice.

I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.

If a parent knows that their kid is suddenly becoming infatuated with ISIS, they face a very difficult choice, which is, you know, do I - what do I do?

I'm damned if I do what I need to do with the media to support my kids, and I'm damned if I don't. If I don't, I can't take care of them.

Parents bobble between a nostalgia-infused yearning for their children to play and fear that time spent playing is time lost to more practical pursuits.

You want to have a loving, safe relationship with your child, but you can't because you have to do these things to protect them or protect them from themselves - or try to make sure they don't become a vampire! Your desires and your needs are in opposition, and that's always fun to play.

I got extreme street credibility from my high school-aged son. He's like, 'Dad, the fact that you're in 'American Horror Story' is absolutely cool!' I was like, 'Okay, but I'm not sure if it's appropriate for you.' And he was like, 'Dad, come on! I'm a New York City kid - in high school.'

Annie turned away, her eyes glittering. 'Here's what no one tells you,' she said. 'When you deliver a fetus, you get a death certificate, but not a birth certificate. And afterward, your milk comes in, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.' She looked up at me. 'You can't win. Either you have the baby and wear your pain on the outside, or you don't have the baby, and you keep that ache in you forever. I know I didn't do the wrong thing. But I don't feel like I did the right thing, either.

With a parent, it's always guilt. You want to be there, but you kind of also want to be here.

~My instinct is to protect my children from pain. But adversity is often the thing that gives us character and backbone. It's always been a struggle for me to back off and let my children go through difficult experiences.~

I'm in a no-win situation. If I have my kids in the show, I'm exploiting them. If I don't, people will think I'm not a hands-on mom.