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Parents Quotes

“I realized that the childish impression I had always had of my father, as Just Lawgiver, was entirely wrong. We were utterly dependent on this man, who was not only deluded and ignorant, but incompetent in every way. What was more, I knew that my mother was incapable of standing up to him. It was like walking into the cockpit of an airplane and finding the pilot and co-pilot passed out drunk in their seats. And standing outside the Lyceum, I was struck with a black, incredulous horror, which in fact was not at all unlike the horror I had felt at twelve, sitting on a bar stool in our sunny little kitchen in Plano. Who is in control here?> I thought, dismayed. Who is flying this plane?”

TraumaParentsChildhood MemoriesChildhood TraumaAbusive Parent
Book:The Secret History
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“If you think you are so enlightened," Ram Dass said, "go and spend a week with your parents." That is good advice. The relationship with your parents is not only the premordial relationship that sets the tone for all subsequent relationships, it is also a good test for your degree of Presence. The more shared past there is in a relationship, the more present you need to be; otherwise you will be forced to relive the past again and again.”

RelationshipsConsciousnessParentsPresence
Book:A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
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“پدر و مادر من آدمهای خوبی هستن. برای هیچ کدوم از ماجراهای زندگیم اونها رو مقصر نمی دونم (شاید قبلاً آره، ولی الان دیگه نه). و من خیلی دوست شون دارم. اونها قصه ها و سرگذشت ها و مشکلات خودشون رو داشتن، همون طور که ننه بابای اونها هم داشتن، و برو تا آخر. و البته مثل همه ی پدر و مادرهای دنیا، پدر و مادر من هم، با نیتِ بهترین ها برای بچه هاشون ، بعضی از مشکلاتشون رو به من منتقل کردن، همونطور که احتمالاً من هم به بچه هام منتقل خواهم کرد.”

ParentsParents And ChildrenParental LoveParents Quotes
Book:The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
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“Ky laughed, felt the tingling warmth that bloomed within her whenever she talked to someone for whom she didn't need to fill in the blanks - someone who understood that the act of complaining about her parents was not an invitation to troubleshoot her problems, because there was no solving the problem of refugee parents; someone who could commiserate without casting judgment; someone who accepted the contradiction of the things that annoyed her most about her family being the same things that signaled to her that they cared.”

ParentsImmigrants
Book:All That's Left Unsaid
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“Now that she was twenty-two, the words were there in her head, jumbled. The feeling was still too hot to approach but was slowly beginning to make sense. If she would just give herself the time and space to think about it, to examine the thing she’d spent her whole life avoiding, she would realize that what she wanted to say to her mother was that she was the one who had no idea—no idea how badly Ky and people like Ky needed a break. No idea how speaking perfect English and having an office job and being born in Australia didn’t mean what any of them thought it would mean. No idea how hard it was to walk the narrow path where everyone expected her to be quiet and smart and hardworking and good—a narrow path not even laid out by her or people like her. No idea how it felt to suffer the slow death of a thousand cuts: from the things people said, from the way people looked at her. The looks she got when she knocked on doors, walked into a room, boarded a flight; the way they saw her skin before they saw her, wanted her to shut up and be grateful, expected her to take a joke when she was the joke. The way she was expected to feel lucky, so lucky, like her life was abundant and full, when all she felt was depleted and diminished. It made her feel crazy to be called lucky, and her mother had no idea.”

ParentsImmigrantsDaughters
Book:All That's Left Unsaid
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“Emotionally stable parents share their children’s joy and quiet their fear. But caretaking roles are reversed for children of borderlines whose mothers are chronically upset. Children repress their fear in order to calm their mother. Situations that should frighten children may not because they have learned not to feel.”

MotherParentsChild AbuseEmotional AbuseBorderlineAbusive ParentsBpdAbusive MotherAbusive Women
Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother
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“During the months of winter and spring King Casmir looked only twice at the infant princess, in each case, standing back in cool disinterest. She had thwarted his royal will by coming female into the world. He could not immediately punish her for the act, no more could he extend the full beneficence of his favor. Sollace grew sulky because Casmir was displeased and, with a set petulant flourishes, banished the child from her sight. Ehirme, a raw-boned peasant girl, and nice to under-gardener, had lost her own infant son to the yellow bloat. With an amplitude of both milk and solitude she be came Suldron's wet-nurse”

FemaleParentsRoyaltyDissapointment
Book:Suldrun's Garden
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“But Ky understood. She hated how well she now understood. After all, hadn’t she kept every hurt she’d ever experienced from her own parents? Hadn’t she hidden the bullying, the name-calling, the cruel acts of strangers, the times she’d been told to go back to where she came from, the ching-chongs, the pulled-back eyelids, the blondies with the Cabbage Patch Kids, the way she was forced to play the monster, the way she was asked why she couldn’t just take a joke, the times she was told that Asian women were ugly, kinky, docile, crazy, nerdy, unworthy, the way she was dismissed by men, the way she was dismissed by white men, their comments about what Asian women were and weren’t, what Asian women could or couldn’t be, the way she smiled with her tongue pressed against her teeth even as an ache beat in tandem with her heart—hadn’t she hidden all of that? And hadn’t she lived her own ambitious, exciting, anxious, uncompromising life while knowing that she could never, ever, ever, ever tell her parents about what she had been through? Because knowing would break their hearts. Because she had to help them believe that their sacrifices had paid off. Because she had to help them believe that moving to a country where they didn’t speak the language and weren’t seen as individuals had been worth it. Because she had to convince them that they’d done right by their children, that no one had failed, that no one had been let down, that they were one of the lucky ones who’d followed the path and found success. It made perfect sense. You lied to protect. You lied because of love.”

ParentsImmigrants
Book:All That's Left Unsaid
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“Amal, it's naïve to think that because somebody is ignorant they are a bad person. I feel so much for Leila because I know that she understands that she can be all she wants to be, not in spite of Islam, but because of it." "It's her mum's stupid fault." "Amal, Gulchin's just trying to bring up Leila in the only way she knows how. She married young. She never had the opportunity to gain an education. She can't read. She can't write. Her world has always been about raising her children and looking after her home. There's nothing wrong with that, if that's what she chooses." "Yeah, but she's forcing it on Leila!" "Which is wrong. But try to expand your mind and think about things from other people's perspectives. Everything is relative, If you want to understand a problem you look at its cause. You don't look at its manifestation." "How is that supposed to make Leila feel better?" She sighs, playing with my hair. "God knows... Sometimes, Amal, people are paralysed by their traditions and customs It's all they know, so you can't judge them for following and believing what they know." "Come off it, Mum! Any moron would realize that she following her village's culture, not Islam. So for her to g around and tell the world it's Islam when it's the exact opposite is so dumb!" "Yes, I know that. But from her point of view I believe she thinks she is simply trying to protect Leila." "Protect her from what? It's a crappy shopping spree" "Everybody's scared of what they don't know, Amal.”

CultureFearParentsChoiceOver Protectiveness
Book:Does My Head Look Big in This?
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“To be candid, things hadn’t been good in our house since I’d turned thirteen and, as Mom put it, lost my mind overnight. Which meant I’d changed from an obedient child who never gave anyone a second’s trouble into an obnoxious teenager who left wet towels on the bathroom floor and dirty dishes in front of the television, played loud music and argued about everything from politics to curfews.”

LifeParentsChildTeenagersCynda BennettLook For Me By Moonlight
Book:Look for Me by Moonlight
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“The mortals no longer want you.' Wren shook her head, because that couldn't be true. Her mother and father loved her. Her mother cut the crusts off her sandwiches and kissed her on the tip of her nose to make her giggle. Her father cuddled up with her to watch movies and then carried her to bed when she fell asleep on the couch. She knew they loved her. And yet the certainty with which Lord Jarel spoke plucked at her terror”

LoveLyingMotherFatherParentsHolly BlackThe Stolen HeirSurenWrenLord Jarel
Book:The Stolen Heir
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“I wondered if maybe you and I could spend some time together," I asked, "just the two of us?" "Steph, I just don't think that would be appropriate." "Why?" I asked, straightening. "I mean if you want to spend some time with me, then you'll have to accept that William will be there too," she said. ~~~~~ This visit, I wished to gain back the lost relationship with my mother, but not just as someone who could help care for Mia. I craved a Mom, someone I could trust, who would accept me unconditionally despite my living in a homeless shelter. If I had a mom to talk to, maybe she could explain what was happening to me, or make it easier, and help me not see myself as a failure. It was hard, admitting that level of desperation, vying for the attention of your own mother.”

ParentsParenthoodAdulthood
Author:Stephanie Land
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“You're nimble on your feet.' 'I took dancing lessons as a girl.' 'Really?' 'We weren't always poor. Until I was fourteen, my father was as rich as a king. They called him the Prince of Merchants.' He gave her a tentative smile. 'And you were his princess?' Ice cracked through her. 'No, Elain was his princess. Even Feyre was more his princess than I ever was.' 'And what were you?' 'I was my mother's creature.' She said it with such cold it nearly froze her tongue. Cassian said carefully, 'What was she like?' 'A worse version of me.”

RichParentsSarah J MaasFeyre ArcheronPrincessCassianNesta ArcheronNestaA Court Of Silver FlamesElain Archeron
Book:A ​Court of Silver Flames
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“Later these thoughts would come back to haunt me, though I could not have anticipated that your compulsion to manhandle your unruly, misshapen experience into a tidy box, like someone trying to cram a wild tangle of driftwood into a hard-shell Samsonite suitcase, as well as this sincere confusion of the is with the ought to be—your heartrending tendency to mistake what you actually had for what you desperately wanted—would produce such devastating consequences.”

WantParentsDesiresHindsight
Book:We Need To Talk About Kevin
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