Parents Quotations

I'm one of those people who had Christmas and my birthday always combined, and generally, my birthday was pretty much ignored. But my parents are always good about making some kind of special effort to make me feel like I also have a birthday that exists.

I grew up on a farm in Oregon, an adopted child, with one sibling, and parents the age of all my peers' grandparents. We lived in isolation from the people around us, and it was always a struggle to cope with as a child. The heart can really expire under those conditions. I always felt like I was looking at the world from the outside.

I have been a frequent air traveler since I was a few months shy of my sixth birthday, when my parents packed me off to boarding school two plane rides away from home. Those days of being willingly handed from air hostess to air hostess as an 'unaccompanied minor' made me blase about the rigors of air travel.

I wish to thank my parents for making it all possible... and I wish to thank my children for making it necessary.

I thought boxes were the best toy. When my parents got a new car, I ran to my mother and said, 'Did it come in a box?'

When I was five years old, I told my parents that I wanted to take ballet. So, ballet was the focus of my life... until puberty. Then I discovered boys and started dating a guy with a mohawk who'd come to my ballet class and freak everybody out. Shortly after that is when I quit.

The courts don't remove children from their home because the child underperformed at school or required extra long walks or a game of basketball in order to blow off the steam all 5-year-olds have. It's because the parents were unfit, not the kids.

My parents lived a modest life, and their main concern was the education of their children. My father was a self-taught man but had a great intellectual curiosity, not only for biblical and talmudic texts, but also for philosophy, psychoanalysis and history.

On the morning of Thanksgiving, I would wake up to the home smelling of all good things, wafting upstairs to my room. I would set the table with the fancy silverware and china and hope that my parents and grandmother wouldn't have the annual Thanksgiving fight about Richard Nixon.

I had Hallowe'en parties every year, as it was my birthday five days before. My parents would actually put prosthetic noses on, and my dad would wear a top-hat and tails, put on a fake curly moustache, and hold a pipe.

Ask any parent what we want for our children, and invariably we say 'a better life.' To that end, we give our time, our sleep, our money, and our dreams, much as our parents did before us. We all want a better life for our children. But what we want for them ceases to matter if we leave them an unlivable world.

I understand them. I understand where they came from, what their lifestyle was there. But my parents didn't push us to be like them. They said do whatever you think right, but remember the important things in life.

I had no work after 'Gangster' for two years, and my sister Rangoli met with an accident that destroyed her looks. My struggle with my parents combined with the industry not accepting me made me feel alienated.

Parents are working more than ever before and unable to monitor what kids are eating at home, and schools are selling astronomical amounts of junk food in order to supplement shrinking budgets. It's a ticking time bomb, and America's children are exploding.

Michael and I had great role models. Though his father has passed away, his parents had an amazingly strong marriage, as do mine. Both weathered really tough times. For us it has been normal to stay together through difficulties. We grew up witnessing that firsthand.

We need sex education in schools, but we need it at home first. We need parents to learn the names of the teachers who are teaching their children. We need families to question day-care centers, to question other children and their own as to what goes on.

I grew up thinking of myself as an American but also, because of my parents and the Iranian culture that was in our home, as an Iranian. So if there's any such thing as dual loyalty, then I have it - at least culturally.

I wanted to get into films, and my parents were against it. I convinced my mom, and finally she convinced my dad. My dad then felt, who best to launch his son than him? So he launched me, and here I am.

My parents waited to have me and my sister - my dad was 43 when my mother had me, and my mom was 38. They purposefully waited until they had had their adventures in life so that we wouldn't represent the end of their freedom.

My giving story started with my parents - my late mother, Frances Arrillaga, who dedicated her life to philanthropic and community service, and my father, John Arrillaga, whose daily generosity of heart, mind, and hands-on contributions make him one of the most extraordinary philanthropists I know.

As a young child, I suffered from poor health. My parents encouraged me to swim, which really improved my condition.

There is no question in the world that educating a girl is good for her country and good for her. The challenge is, is it good for her parents who are living in extreme poverty, who need the girl's help to take care of getting firewood, water, taking care of young children?

I had a sister who was killed in a motorcycle wreck when I was around 4 years old. My parents adopted her son, and so my nephew became my brother. He was three years older than me, so through him, I was exposed to hip-hop.

My parents emigrated from Poland in 1924 with my brother, who was a few months old. They were from a simple family of Polish Jews. They were looking, I suppose, for a better economic life and were escaping from an anti-Semitic environment.

The biggest misconception people have about me is that when they see how young I am, they think, 'Oh, this guy must have always wanted to be in politics; his parents must have been politically connected.' I'm a finance major and always intended to go into business.

Music was massive from an early age. My parents were huge music fans, especially soul, and they played records in our house all the time, and me and my brother and sister would dance and sing about the living room.

Parents who neglect their children, who don't know where they are, who don't know what they're doing, who don't know who they're hanging out with, you're gonna find yourselves spending some quality time with your kids, in jail, together.

A boy becomes an adult three years before his parents think he does, and about two years after he thinks he does.

I come from a really poor family, and when I started doing campaigns, it changed everything for my family. I am not complaining; I had a beautiful childhood - we didn't have a lot of money, but there was always food on the table, and my parents saved money so that in the holidays we would all get in the car and drive to the mountains.

Teachers don't tell us the truth about historical people. If we knew the truth, parents couldn't hold their lives up as examples.

The four of us enjoyed a most wonderful family atmosphere filled with love and reciprocal devotion. Both parents were highly cultured and instilled in us their high appreciation of intellectual pursuit. It was, however, a typical Victorian style of life, all decisions being taken by the head of the family, the husband and father.

It's been a lot of fun getting to work with Tracy Middendorf, who plays my mom. As an actor, it's always fun to have different parents and to create different familial dynamics than you have in your real life.

I had one year of struggle. My parents were always there, but I didn't want to rely on them. Now it's moving pretty fast. I'm not rich, but obviously this is fantastic. All I know to do with money is put it in a shoebox anyway.

Society needs both parents and nonparents, both the work party and the home party. While raising children is the most important work most people will do, not everyone is cut out for parenthood. And, as many a childless teacher has proved, raising kids is not the only important contribution a person can make to their future.

I grew up in Queens, and on Sunday evenings, my parents would drive my brother and me past the factory. We could smell the week's supply of bread baking. I always connected the 59th Street Bridge with that scent. Who woulda thunk, years later, I'd be there, directing and producing a hit TV show?

If both parents must work, I think it is more important that the mother has proximity to the child to therefore establish a childcare situation at the big corporations not once a day, but many times a day.

When we lived in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, my sister and I did a local play. My whole family got involved. My mom did the makeup. My sister and I were being homeschooled, and my parents wanted us to be socialized. We had a lot of fun with the other kids hanging out backstage.

My family kept its history to itself. On the plus side, I didn't have to hear nightmarish stories about the Holocaust, the pogroms, terrible illnesses, painful deaths. My elderly parents never even spoke about their ailments.

I am not complaining; I had a beautiful childhood - we didn't have a lot of money, but there was always food on the table, and my parents saved money so that in the holidays we would all get in the car and drive to the mountains. I have amazing parents.

'Game of Thrones' cares about children. Children are heirs. There's no hemming and hawing about how they're desensitized to violence or they cost too much to send to college. They're a blessing - in many ways the only blessing - and even the evil ones have parents who love them.

It's bad timing, but a lot of kids become teenagers just as their parents are hitting their mid-life crisis. So everybody's miserable and confused and seeking that new sense of identity.

As you know, I'm a black girl out of the projects of New York City, raised in a single parent home because my parents divorced very very young... welfare and homeless at four and then again at 16 and just not having the things or the necessary tools that society would say I needed to have in order to be any kind of success in life.

I started when I was three, and on some courses they wouldn't let me play because they said I was too little. They wouldn't accept that a child could play. So my parents had to argue at times with some people at golf courses so I could.

I was fortunate to grow up in a middle-class home with two hardworking parents who enjoyed both reading and mathematics.

I've got a pretty close bond with everyone in my family. I've got a brother and a sister whom I'm very close to, and my parents have always been the world's best parents.

I think in any relationship, even in the healthiest of relationships, we are all parents to each other at times. I think that's a normal, healthy sort of relationship. I think there are times when we're each a mother and a father when we need to be.

When I was six, my best friend's parents bought him a piano. My mother noticed that every time I would go to his house, the first thing I would say to him was 'Levester' - His name was Levester - I said, 'Levester, can I go play your piano?' So, on my 7th birthday, my parents bought me a piano.

When I retired from the circus at the grand old age of 11, my parents thought it would be best to focus more on the challenges ahead, and so I started at Methodist College Belfast.

My mom is in the navy and my dad works for the army, but I never called them 'sir' or 'ma'am' or anything like that, and we never really moved around a lot because both my parents were stationed in D.C.

When I was sixteen I started acting, and I also started to embrace my tradition and culture. I had a young medicine man interpret for me what it is to be an Indian. He really caught me at a good time because I was really vulnerable after the loss of my parents with all of the feelings of abandonment.

I would love to be a professional athlete. When I was living in Mexico as a teenager, I did seven years of gymnastics and went to the Junior Olympics. I was getting to the level of going to the international competitions, but I was only 14, and my parents were really worried because they did not want that to be my life.

The moment kids start to lie is the moment storytelling begins. They are talking about things they didn't see. It's amazing. It's a wonderful moment. Parents should celebrate. 'Hurray! My boy finally started to lie!' All right! It calls for celebration.

I've got the best parents you could ever ask for. My parents are from New Jersey, and they met in Vermont in college. My Dad grew up listening to heavy, psychedelic music. He's my biggest fan.

My parents were in short street, so they had to go abroad to economize.

Since I was a kid, music has been a huge part of my life. My parents had a pretty solid vinyl collection and exposed me to some amazing artists.

I was born in Canada for a reason. It was because my parents wanted me to have the freedoms that this country offers.

Both my parents were amateur badminton players. My father is a scientist and wanted me to be a doctor. But my mom was very aggressive and loved badminton. She pushed me right from the age of nine to take up the sport.

The good news is that parents are the leading influence on kids' decision not to drink alcohol.

Both of my parents are actors and directors and whatnot. My dad loves really solid, old school, Broadway musicals, and one of them is 'Assassins' by Stephen Sondheim. All of the successful or non-successful assassins that have ever existed in the United States come together, and they talk about their killing or attempts through songs.

Before it was decided that I was going to be adopted, my mother was going to abort me. I was born with tangled legs; they never thought I'd be able to dance... without knowing it, as a child I overcame a lot thanks to really doting, loving parents and a great family and a hard work ethic on my part.

I've always loved playing tennis. When I was 12, my parents decided that I should try to do it seriously. My father started to travel with me, and as a family, we tried to make it work.

Up until the age of 9 or so, I was an incredibly happy, pretty well-adjusted, funny kid who made my parents laugh all the time. I was a bit of a clown, and I was really happy. And then my parents divorced, and I kind of turned into a different person.

I haven't actually spoken to my parents since the hurricane.

My parents wanted me to be a teacher. Because I could work most of the year and pursue the things that I love to do during the summer. It just seemed like a good plan.

Going to school at home saved my life as far as education went. My parents were able to give me the attention I needed.

My parents always encouraged us to get an education and establish a profession. However, my brothers and I grew up with considerable freedom, whether it was saving or spending our tips from the restaurant or our career choices.

If you count my childhood appearances in a few TV shows and being the son of two well-known actor parents in the U.K., plus three years of drama school, you could say that I've been pretty much surrounded by the business of acting and performing my entire life.

There are a lot of things that you don't realize that your parents are going through when you're a kid.

The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills.

My parents being Bengali, we always had music in our house. My nani was a trained classical singer, who taught my mum, who, in turn, was my first teacher. Later I would travel almost 70 kms to the nearest town, Kota, to learn music from my guru Mahesh Sharmaji, who was also the principal of the music college there.

I wanted to emulate my parents - Mum captained India in basketball, and Dad won a bronze in hockey in 1972 Olympics. My focus has always been to achieve excellence whether in the field of tennis, in the corporate field, in the art of acting or in motivating youngsters.

We don't like what we don't know or understand. Parents don't like the thought of their kids embracing social media because they don't fully understand the benefits and dangers.

My parents were distrustful of the outside world. They didn't think much good came out of it... The outside world was this strange place that was not so much dangerous as not as interesting as what went on in the house.

I grew up off the grid in Vernon, and I saw my parents work hard every day, as teachers but also while farming and building a log home. So from a young age I knew the value of hard work.

So long as procreation stems from parents of the same race, appearance and lineage are typically congruent. Interracial unions give rise to added complexity. Interracial amalgamation will produce some individuals whose features diverge from those commonly ascribed to the races of their ancestors.

I was writing full time after quitting a job as a high school English teacher, and I hadn't been able to sell anything, and my bank account was down to zero, and all of my friends were like 'What are you doing in the basement, when are you going to get a real job?', and my parents thought I'd completely lost it.

I was a very imaginative child, and my parents were very encouraging of that. My sister and I would put on plays; I would write my own stories.

My parents are a bedrock. And I have three complex, strong, and funny sisters who inspire and sustain me.

The childhood poverty of both my parents and their minimal education did much to influence me and my two younger brothers in our education and career choices. One brother became a dentist and the other, a professor of anthropology with a Ph.D. degree.

My son, who is five, was adopted from Ethiopia. My daughter was adopted from Guatemala. Her parents died of typhoid and malaria. We got her from an orphanage. They are the lights of my life.

I DJ'd for years. I DJ'd in high school, and I think my parents thought it was a passing thing. And then when I was in my second year of college, I was like, 'Yeah, you guys don't need to send me money anymore. My DJ gigs are good enough. I'm selling music; I think I'm gonna have a record deal. I can pay my tuition.'

My parents were self-made people, and they were a team.

I understood from a very young age that school was important and that my parents were making great sacrifices for me. Every morning I saw my father get up and go to a job that he didn't really like. They came to France for the same reasons all immigrants move to another country - so their kids could have a better way of life.

I was born in Faridabad but brought up in Delhi and Mumbai. My father had been living hand-to-mouth and literally slept on railway platforms when he came to Mumbai for the first time to become a film singer. My parents were both singers; they sang together and fell in love due to their singing.

I'm sort of a Southerner because those are my roots, but my parents are from Iowa.

Soccer was the first sport that my parents put me in, and ultimately, all the parents kind of came over to my mom and were, 'We think Channing would be better at football.... We love him, he's really great, but he's kind of hurting our children.' I was just a little wild.

I come from good stock. Both of my parents are big - my dad is a big guy; my mom is a big lady.

My brother Robert wanted to act from a very early age, and there was always a part of me that said we couldn't have two actors in the family because our parents would go mental. So I became a runner for the Robert Stigwood Organisation and, one way or another, worked my way up to movie publicist.

I don't have a regular happy family like most people. My parents are separated; my dad married someone else and so did my mom. All my siblings are from my parents' other marriages. So yes, it is complicated, and I don't like talking about it or explaining this to everybody. But all this doesn't stop us from being close to each other.

Since my brother died in 1982, my parents and I had formed a shaky tripod of a family; now that I'd lost my father too, it was too easy for me to glimpse a future point where I alone was the keeper of not just my own childhood memories, but of my family lore.

I grew up in a house my parents built together on a mountain in Tennessee. When we moved in, the walls were still going up, we didn't have hot water, and we turned it into an amazing adventure.

Getting a family into work, supporting strong relationships, getting parents off drugs and out of debt - all this can do more for a child's well-being than any amount of money in out-of-work benefits.

My parents have influenced my fashion choices. I inherited many of their older garments, and I like their style. I love my mother's elegant and dramatic couture dresses and the feeling for colour my father has.

Is advertising a profession, like law or medicine? How many new parents clutch their baby to their breast and declare, 'I want this child to grow up to be a media planner'?

My parents had a gardener when I was growing up, and he and I would dig in the dirt together - my mom and dad were definitely not digging with me! When I was 5, he helped me plant some corn in our backyard, and I remember how fascinating it was to watch it grow. Little did I know that 50 years later I'd be growing corn in a different way.

We're all comedy fans in my family. My parents mainly wouldn't let me watch stuff that was either annoying to them, or just garbage. My dad wouldn't let us watch 'The Flintstones' if he was home, because he said it was a rip-off of 'The Honeymooners'. But he would let us stay up really late in the summer and watch old 'Honeymooners'.

My parents had job jars because my father would say, 'Kids today have too much time, too much money and no responsibility. You're going to have no time, no money and a lot of responsibility.'

Migration is the story of my life: my parents and grandparents journeyed across four continents to flee war and find jobs, eventually finding their way to the U.S.

I knew from the time I was 6 or 7 that music was something I had to do. Growing up, my parents did everything they knew how to do to support me. My dad was always kinda my roadie; he drove me from gig to gig. But I got my own gigs. I was this 12-year-old kid, shuffling business cards, calling people, telling them I wanted to play.

My parents weren't very sporty, and football wasn't part of my everyday life. I was never a massive football fan either, but, like everyone else, I used to watch matches on TV.