“I admired how she knew, well before I did, that the point of a child is not what you hope he will accomplish in your name but the pleasure that he will bring you, whatever form it comes in, even if it is a form that is barely recognisable as pleasure at all - and, more important, the pleasure that you will be privileged to bring him.” ChildrenPurposeParentPleasureMarriageParenthoodChild Book:A Little Life Source: A Little Life
“We all say we want our kids to be happy, only happy, and healthy, but we don't want that. We want them to be like we are, or better than we are. We as humans are very unimaginative in that sense. We aren't equipped for the possibility that they might be worse. But I guess that would be asking too much. It must be an evolutionary stopgap - if we were all so specifically, vividly aware of what might go horribly wrong, we would none of us have children at all.” ChildrenImaginationParentingNatalism Book:A Little Life Source: A Little Life
“[He] cries for the shame and joy of finally getting to be a child, with all of a child's whims and wants and insecurities, for the privilege of behaving badly and being forgiven [...].” ChildrenDepression Book:A Little Life Source: A Little Life
“We all say we want our kids to happy, only happy, and healthy, but we don't want that. We want them to be like we are, or better than we are. We as humans are very unimaginative in that sense. We aren't equipped for the possibility that they might be worse.” ChildrenFamily Book:A Little Life Source: A Little Life
“Their world is governed by children, little despots whose needs - school and camo and activities and tutors - dictate every decision, and will for the next ten, fifteen, eighteen years. Having children has provided their adulthood with an instant and nonnegotiable sense of purpose and direction: they decide the length and location of that year's vacation; they determine if there will be any leftover money; and if so, how might it be spent; they give shape to a day, a week, a year, a life. Children are a kind of cartography, and all one has to do is obey the map they present to you on the day they are born. But he and his friends have no children, and in their absence, the world sprawls before them, almost stifling in its possibilities. Without them, one's status as an adult is never secure; a childless adult creates adulthood for himself, and as exhilarating as it often is, it is also a state of perpetual insecurity, of perpetual doubt.” ChildrenChildAdulthood Book:A Little Life Source: A Little Life
“..what is a child for? Is he to give me comfort? Is he for me to give comfort to? And if a child can o longer be comforted, is it my job to give him permission to leave?” ChildrenDeathPurposeParentComfortParentsParenthoodChildPermission Book:A Little Life Source: A Little Life
“Without them, one’s status as an adult is never secure; a childless adult creates adulthood for himself , and as exhilarating as it often is, it is also a state of perpetual insecurity” ChildrenAdulthoodFFa Book:A Little Life Source: A Little Life