Parenting Identity Quotes

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

I don't want my son to have to collect a bunch of 'New York Times' articles to see what I was like.

I think you need something to take care of in order to figure out who you are as a person, and in that way, being a dad has levelled me out more than anything. You've just got to be good for that person no matter what's going on in your head that day.

My work makes me a better mom. It gives me a little door to step out of my parenting and bring the excitement from my day back home.

I don't think America knows what a gay parent looks like. I am the gay parent.

Motherhood, in the sense of an intense, reciprocal relationship with a particular child, or children, is one part of female process; it is not an identity for all time.

Launching a kid into college is about more than having the money to pay for it. Parents invest so much of their time and identities in the process that it can feel like a part time job. For many parents, the college your child ends up attending becomes a parenting grade.

For some people, becoming a parent does change them, but it never changed me.

People still ask my husband and me which of us is the mom - which, as one lesbian friend pointed out to me, is like asking which chopstick is the fork. This pressure on us to embody normative traditions can be paralysing.

Yes, I'm writing about motherhood, but I bristle a little bit, especially living with someone whose parenting falls between the cracks of what the culture is ready to recognize as mothering or fathering, but who most certainly is an excellent parent.

No matter what circumstances, it's hard to be a parent and maintain a sense of self and identity in the world.