Parenting Wisdom Quotes

Don't listen to anyone's advice. Listen to your baby ... There are so many books, doctors, and well-meaning friends and family. We like to say, 'You don't need a book. Your baby is a book. Just pick it up and read it.'

There's no encyclopedia or book about parenthood. You learn on the fly.

Everything that happens to me in a day enhances my parenting.

As you get older, all the things your parents said to you when you were younger ring true, but when you're younger, you reject them.

You need more than your own wisdom in rearing [your children]. You need the help of the Lord. Pray for that help and follow the inspiration which you receive.

My mother had always told her kids: if you're about to do something, and you want to know if it's a bad idea, imagine seeing it printed in the paper for all the world to see.

"What is the greatest mistake a parent can make?" she asked. "To believe that your children will be just like you."

The only effective way to help well-intentioned, intelligent persons to do the best they can in raising children is to encourage and guide them always to do their own thinking in their attempts at understanding and dealing with child-rearing situations and problems, and not to rely blindly on the opinions of others.

Children, when they are little, they make parents fools; when great, mad.

The thing about parenting rules is there aren't any. That's what makes it so difficult.

It is a pity that, commonly, more care is had--yea, and that among very wise men--to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children.

What good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is usually best after all.

You know the only people who are always sure about the proper way to raise children? Those who've never had any.

After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I'd read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers--especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.

In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck - and, of course, courage.

Talking to the parents of older kids was helpful for me, since parents of kids the same age as yours won't admit how horrible their children are.

If we never have headaches through rebuking our children, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up.

Growing up, in church we had the homily; at home it's what I call the 'momily' - the inspirational and instructive mom-isms that every family has.

Let me tell you about the nap. It's absolutely fantastic. When I was a kid, my father was always trying to tell me how to be a man. And he said - I was maybe nine - he said, 'Philip, whenever you take a nap, take your clothes off and put a blanket over you, and you're going to sleep better.' Well, as with everything, he was right.

I aint such a mug as to put up my children to all I know myself.

Children grow out of childhood, but parents never grow out of parenthood.

...alas, raising a young lady is a mystery even beyond an enchanter's skill.

She told me that she would support me regardless of what I decided, but I'm so glad that I actually got to be a kid before having to grow up. My mom knows best about this kind of thing.

You learn stuff from your kids, every day.