All Quotes By Tag: Parenthood
“My mother delayed my enrollment in the Fascist scouts, the Balilla, as long as possible, firstly because she did not want me to learn how to handle weapons, but also because the meetings that were then held on Sunday mornings (before the Fascist Saturday was instituted) consisted mostly of a Mass in the scouts’ chapel. When I had to be enrolled as part of my school duties, she asked that I be excused from the Mass; this was impossible for disciplinary reasons, but my mother saw to it that the chaplain and the commander were aware that I was not a Catholic and that I should not be asked to perform any external acts of devotion in church. In short, I often found myself in situations different from others, looked on as if I were some strange animal. I do not think this harmed me: one gets used to persisting in one’s habits, to finding oneself isolated for good reasons, to putting up with the discomfort that this causes, to finding the right way to hold on to positions which are not shared by the majority. But above all I grew up tolerant of others’ opinions, particularly in the field of religion, remembering how irksome it was to hear myself mocked because I did not follow the majority’s beliefs. And at the same time I have remained totally devoid of that taste for anticlericalism which is so common in those who are educated surrounded by religion. I have insisted on setting down these memories because I see that many non-believing friends let their children have a religious education ‘so as not to give them complexes’, ‘so that they don’t feel different from the others.’ I believe that this behavior displays a lack of courage which is totally damaging pedagogically. Why should a young child not begin to understand that you can face a small amount of discomfort in order to stay faithful to an idea? And in any case, who said that young people should not have complexes? Complexes arise through a natural attrition with the reality that surrounds us, and when you have complexes you try to overcome them. Life is in fact nothing but this triumphing over one’s own complexes, without which the formation of a character and personality does not happen.”
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“I have come to realise that discipline is not about rules. Discipline is about respect.”
“Parents expect only two things from their children, obedience in their childhood and respect in their adulthood.”
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“Being a bad parent is a sign of not having learned from experience.”
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“Those who achieve the extraordinary are usually the most ordinary because they have nothing to prove to anybody. Be Humble.”
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“It’s in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.”
“One of the main functions of a push-up bra is to lower the number of mothers who seem like mothers.”
“When (The World According To) Garp was published, people who’d lost children wrote to me. ‘’I lost one, too,’’ they told me. I confessed to them that I hadn’t lost any children. I’m just a father with a good imagination. In my imagination, I lose my children every day. (afterword)”
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“Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.”
“And one thing you would never want to do is keep your children away from any Tree of Knowledge. How could you punish someone for learning right from wrong, especially when they didn’t know right from wrong when they did it? It is a sin to punish someone for learning, and that is something only an imaginary God would do. Instead, your people should grow an orchard of those trees, and eat of that fruit as a staple of their diet. Because whether as a God or simply as a parent, your greatest hope for your children would be that they will know right from wrong, and rather than worship you, and remain under you, you want them to surpass you. You want them to ascend above you, and achieve wisdom beyond the gods.”
“Shannon thought about all the childhood diseases that had been eradicated, but what good did it do? A child’s life could still be wiped away in an instant. Why did modern people presume that they would die only in old age? Previous generations hadn’t made such a presumption. She also thought about the opportunities of motherhood that were now lost to her. She wished she had said and done more to confirm Marzieh’s positive sense of self. She wondered if Marzieh understood how much her mother loved her. On the fifth day things began to improve. Hope was a tiny red fish wiggling through a wide, black, slow-moving river under a dark sky. Shannon leaned over the bow of an old, splintered rowboat adrift in the water in order to greet it.”
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“In the midst of the affliction He counsels, strengthens confirms, nourishes, and favors us…. More over, when we have repented, He instantly remits the sins as well as the punishments. In the same manner parents ought to handle their children.”
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“Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.”
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“Both joy and sorrow serve as gauges for love: our love for others, and their love for us.”
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“It wasn’t right that you could only understand your parents’ pain once you’d experienced the things they had, and by then they were gone.”
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