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Parenting Quotes

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Parenting Quotes

“Even if you had a rough start to life, even if you had parents who were emotionally unavailable, just like every other baby who has ever come into this life you affected people so deeply as the embodiment of love.”

“What children and teens need most in stressful situations, especially when they make mistakes, ‘misbehave,’ experience ‘failure,’ or cry for any reason (including what we might call a ‘temper tantrum’), is a hug and being told, “You matter to me, I love you so much. I’m here for you. Let’s figure this out together.”

“If ever a child makes a mistake, no matter how big, they need to hear in words and loving actions, “Even though you made a mistake you are loved. There are consequences to your actions, and I’m here for you. I know you are just learning how to be in life. Let me help you navigate through life.”

“You can choose to let go of the need for your parents or family to be conscious or to know how to meet your needs. They could not and may never be able to meet some of your needs due to their own limitations.”

“If you had been born as your parents, you would have made the same choices that they did and had been as stuck as they were. Forgive them for being born into a time of relative darkness without the resources and consciousness that you have today.”

“A few hours later, the five-year-old girl who'd presented with diarrhea, weight loss, and terrible stomach cramping was throwing up a foot-long worm into a bucket and looking very pleased with herself. She spoke not a word of English but kept pointing to herself then the worm then herself and grinning. Her mother, who also spoke not a word of English, was doing the same, gesticulating wildly back and forth between daughter and worm, but her face wore the opposite expression. She was not screaming in a language Rosie knew, but she understood clear as lagoons anyway the mother's horror of his worm that had lately come out of her little girl. If they'd spoken the same language, Rosie would have laid her hand on the woman's shoulder to commiserate: Oh the things that hide secretly in our children, lying in wait, doing untold damage, yearning to be free. Alarming us beyond all measure.”

“These are the things they don't tell you about motherhood. How after a lifetime of struggling to love yourself it will be an absolute miracle to love these babies so wholly and unconditionally, sure. But also how they will love themselves the same way, at least at first, and in that maybe you will find a level of healing that all the therapy and self-help in the world couldn't get you to because you will realize at some point you must have loved yourself the very same way. Or how seeing the way they are so comfortable in their own skin, the way they strut around so confident in the fact that they are the masterpiece we too believe them to be, will make all the wok we've done trying to suck it all in or hide it or simply avoid looking at it in the mirror seem kind of silly. Because of course it is. It's against everything we were born knowing.”

“Like a loving parent who watches their child learning to walk, the Divine is the ultimate parent letting us experiment, fall down, hurt ourselves, cry, get back up, and try again. God allows us to learn even when it may hurt, yet we are never abandoned.”

“Nina bobo, ni ni bobo," he was singing in his deep, beautiful voice, an Indonesian lullaby, much older than Magnus himself. He rocked their child in his arms. Max was waving his hands as though to conduct the song, or to catch the firefly-bright and cobalt-blue sparks of magic floating around the room. Magnus was smiling down at Max, a small, tender, and impossibly sweet smile, even as he sang. Alec meant to let them be and return to bed, but Magnus paused in his song and tossed Alec a glance as though he knew he'd been watching. Alec leaned in the doorway of the bedroom, resting his hand over his head against the doorframe. "Is that your bapak?" he said to Max. After some consideration, Max said, "Bapak." The look Magnus gave Alec was golden as a coin, as Nephilim wedding cloth, as the morning light through the windows of home.”

“For a moment, Layla glanced at Amar's journals, but she could barely make sense of his handwriting. Each deciphered sentence threatened to unravel her understanding of him and carried with it the threat of more secrets. It did not matter that she was his mother. What she could ever hope to know of him was just a glimpse -- like the beam of a lighthouse skipping out, only one stretch of waves visible at a time, the rest left in the unknowable dark.”

“If you want to leave something for your children, leave a better world, not heaps of money, because at the rate our ancestors screwed up this world and at the rate we are sustaining their stupidity in our pursuit of limitless productivity, soon all the money in the world will not be enough to save our children from imminent disaster.”

“Yes, this... Urcheon... speaks the truth. Roegner did swear to give him that which he did not expect. It looks as if our lamented king was an oaf as far as a woman's affairs are concerned, and couldn't be trusted to count to nine. He confessed the truth on his death-bed, because he knew what I'd do to him if he'd admitted it earlier. He knew what a mother, whose child is disposed of so recklessly, is capable of.”

“Perhaps you, too, have children, in which case you'll know that you're frightened the whole time, frightened of not knowing everything and of not having the energy to do everything and of not coping with everything. In the end we actually get so used to the feeling of failure that every time we *don't* disappoint our children it leaves us feeling secretly shocked. It's possible that some children realize this. So every so often they do tiny, tiny things at the most peculiar times, to buoy us up a little. Just enough to stop us from drowning.”

“As we were talking about our families, we got to talking about parenting teenagers and he [Andre Agassi] said something that really stuck with me: "We raise our children for about fourteen years, and then we just mitigate risk." We only have a dozen or so years to instill in our children the core values we hope will guide them through the rest of their lives. After that, our influence wanes and their independence blossoms. We never really ever stop parenting, but our years of intense influence eventually fade . . .”

“For some kids, the classroom setting is the place where their genius is hardest to see and their challenges are easiest to see. And since they spend so much time in the classroom, that’s a tough break for these little guys. But if we are patient and calm and we wear our perspectacles and we keep believing, we will eventually see the specific magic of each child.”

“Thinking about adults putting on a happy face for children, or worse, being unable to put on the happy face, is devastating. That we maintain this dishonesty with them, that we must. I have a longing to protect the kids from coming into some consciousness of the fact that taking care of them is difficult. I always imagined that keeping that fact from them was an essential part of good mothering.”

“our child will learn A LOT about how to love themselves from the way you love yourself. Yes, they will learn parts of how to have self-worth from how you love them. But most of what they will do in the way of self-love will be what YOU DO in terms of LOVING YOURSELF”

“Remember to distinguish the behavior from the child, because here isn't a bad child, just bad behavior.”

“If we change the way we see our children, the way they see themselves will change. Always look for the good.”