The only jobs kids have are to do well in school, to be charming and polite, and be thankful. That's it. I'll house you, protect you, I'll even give my life for you, and in return, you will behave.
It's tough working as a single parent, but I'm lucky enough to have chunks of time when I'm at home and a huge circle of friends and family, although my biggest extravagance is child care.
So much is asked of parents, and so little is given.
This is not to say that becoming a father automatically makes you a good father. Fatherhood, like marriage, is a constant struggle against your limitations and self-interests. But the urge to be a perfect father is there, because your child is a perfect gift.
You seem to think that everyone can save money if they have the character to do it. As a matter of fact, there are innumerable people who have a wide choice between saving and giving their children the best possible opportunities. The decision is usually in favor of the children.
My father was desperately trying to be a legal contributor to this society.
I've been thinking a lot about the journey of my parents - just seeing the sacrifices they've made to allow me to do what I do. How much of a difference their sacrifices have made through the generations.
My father wanted me to have all the educational opportunities he never had... so he sent me to a girls school.
Again, with two small children it's incredibly hard to commit yourself to anything because you're just getting interested in it and someone comes along and goes I want Thomas The Tank Engine on, and screams the place down until you put it on.
I think for all the women who are working parents it's difficult to balance your work-life and your home-life. You make obvious sacrifices because you really just want to be with your family.
The duty of motherhood, which the vast majority of woman will always undertake, requires the qualities which men need not possess.
I would have liked having children to some degree, but frankly I haven't got the time to take the kids to the goddamn ballgame. So it would have had more disadvantages than advantages for them.
We must make choices that are outside of the familial expectations of us, or we'll just be repeating the mistakes. Our parents came here to give us better choices.
Once you are a parent, everything takes a back seat. It ceases to be a role. It is a reality. Once I had Ranveer, I realised that I was cracking under the pressure and that I cannot be a superwoman. I had to open myself to learning.
Raising kids may be a thankless job with ridiculous hours, but at least the pay sucks.
It seems to me that the most fundamental mistake most parents make with children is to expect them to be grateful. Children are never grateful. ... The 'sacrifices' you made were not for them, they were for you.
It's such a stress always trying to get bigger houses and larger cars and better schools. Of course, parents want to give their children the best opportunities in life, but sometimes that can stifle them.
When you're a child, you take things for granted. For instance, my mum didn't have a lot of money, but I went to piano, ballet and gymnastics lessons, and tae kwon do.
Good mothers make all kinds of choices. Making a decision that might sound selfish does not make a woman a bad mother.
When one has children one has no privacy. They take it for granted that what is yours is theirs, personal things and the secrets of your heart, as well as possessions.
The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul.
First your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life.
The most unacknowledged spending expectation among women is the amount of time spent by single mothers caring for children, not only physically, but psychologically. It is my feeling that only a small percentage of a mother's time is normally compensated for by child support, given what a woman could make adding these hours to workforce hours. It is why women who have never been married and never had children earn so much more in the workplace than women who have had children.
Looking after a very sick child was the Olympics of parenting.
I want to be the perfect child. I owe so much to my parents and the way I was brought up.
