Becoming a father made me a lot more sentimental than I ever was before. I never cried at movies before I became a parent. I feel music more intensely. I think of my political ideas as ideas about how I want to interact with other human beings as opposed to abstract theories about how the world should be.
I cried at my son's sports day, for God's sake. I'm a huge baby
When we leave our child in nursery school for the first time, it won't be just our child's feelings about separation that we will have to cope with, but our own feelings as well-from our present and from our past, parents are extra vulnerable to new tremors from old earthquakes.
A parent can seem very kind and gentle, but as any child knows, as soon as that parent gets stressed, they can suddenly turn and get a bit angry.
People make a lot of jokes about the empty nest. Let me tell you, it is no laughing matter. It is really hard.
This is the pain-pleasure of having newly adult children; they're innocent and ruthless in forgetting their sweet old dependence.
As a parent, you experience the most of everything. The most love, the most fear, the most hurt and the most tired, the most of every emotion.
When mothers talk about the depression of the empty nest, they're not mourning the passing of all those wet towels on the floor, or the music that numbs your teeth, or even the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down the shower drain. They're upset because they've gone from supervisor of a child's life to a spectator. It's like being the vice president of the United States.
As Lacy waited for her turn to speak on Peter's behalf, she thought back to the first time she realized she could hate her own child.
I can't tell you, as a parent, how it feels when the doctor tells you your child has diabetes. First off, you don't really know much about it. Then you discover there is no cure.
It's really difficult seeing your role model or your parent cry.
I don't do well with my children leaving the nest.
A father who sees his daughter leave in the arms of another man does not feel the same as a mother. It is heartrending for her, too. But it is not the same.
'm really proud of 'Sad, Sad World' because it manages to state a very complex paradox of an emotion that I experienced when I had children, which is this great happiness and this great intensity, but with that intensity comes a deeper understanding of the world.
Unlike my mother, my father does not cry quietly. His wails roll out like a wave of pain, and I scramble to roll up my window. My mother cannot hear that. I cannot bear to hear it myself. I am not used to my father's crying. I've had no time to harden my heart against him.
The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.
Baby smiled, mother wailed, Earthward while the sweetling sailed; Mother smiled, baby wailed, When to earth came Viola.
If you have kids, you feel everything stronger. It's like someone turning the lights on in your inner room.
If you are agitated, children tend to think that they have done something wrong.
Having a baby can be a scream.
If fathers are sometimes sulky at the appearance of the destined son-in-law, is it not a fact that mothers become sentimental and, as it were, love their own loves over again.
Hatred of the mother is familiar, but the mother's hatred still comes as a surprise.
My birth neither shook the German Empire nor caused much of an upheaval in the home. It pleased mother, caused father a certain amount of pride and my elder brother the usual fraternal jealousy of a hitherto only son.
It's a great experience. Every time I see the belly getting bigger, and I see the sonogram and I hear his heartbeat, I'm like 'Oh, man.'
I think a lot of parents are afraid to express certain emotions about children who are different, because they think that it's wrong to feel chained sometimes, to feel anger, to say to yourself, "I never wanted this." I think it's natural.
