Parenting is not easy, it's sometimes inconveniencing and discouraging... At every point in the journey of parenthood we make decision which could either make or break our children in the long run. Parenting is lot more than just providing basic necessities for our kids, they look up to us as role model. Now, lemme ask you, if you're a child would you want to be like you when you grow up?
While I wait for your answer, I have compiled some parenting quotes to inspire, encourage and challenge you to be an ideal parent to your kinds. Please, read and share with your friends so that we can together raise noble armies.
“If we never have headaches through rebuking our children, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up.” ― Charles Haddon Spurgeon
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” ― James Baldwin
“There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children.” ― Marianne Williamson
“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.” ― Anne Frank
“Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness. For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.” ― Kahlil Gibran
“Sadie," he said forlornly, "when you become a parent, you may understand this. One of my hardest jobs as a father, one of my greatest duties, was to realize that my own dreams, my own goals and wishes, are secondary to my children's.” ― Rick Riordan, The Red Pyramid
“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” ― Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
“If you can control your behavior when everything around you is out of control, you can model for your children a valuable lesson in patience and understanding...and snatch an opportunity to shape character.” ― Jane Clayson Johnson, I Am a Mother
“Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you've done will have mattered as much.” ― Lisa Wingate
“I mean, when the world comes for your children, with the knives out, it's your job to stand in the way.” ― Joe Hill, Horns
“I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway... let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves.” ― C. JoyBell C.
“The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them.” ― Frank Clark
“What it's like to be a parent: It's one of the hardest things you'll ever do but in exchange it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love.” ― Nicholas Sparks, The Wedding
“In a culture which holds the two-parent patriarchal family in higher esteem than any other arrangement, all children feel emotionally insecure when their family does not measure up to the standard. A utopian vision of the patriarchal family remains intact despite all the evidence which proves that the well-being of children is no more secure in the dysfunctional male-headed household than in the dysfunctional female-headed household. Children need to be raised in loving environments. Whenever domination is present love is lacking. Loving parents, be they single or coupled, gay or straight, headed by females or males, are more likely to raise healthy, happy children with sound self-esteem. In future feminist movement we need to work harder to show parents the ways ending sexism positively changes family life. Feminist movement is pro-family. Ending patriarchal domination of children, by men or women, is the only way to make the family a place where children can be safe, where they can be free, where they can know love” ― Bell Hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
“We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris- ing generation. I am an oldster myself and might be expected to take the oldsters' side, but in fact I have been far more impressed by the bad manners of par- ents to children than by those of children to parents. Who has not been the embarrassed guest at family meals where the father or mother treated their grown-up offspring with an incivility which, offered to any other young people, would simply have termi- nated the acquaintance? Dogmatic assertions on mat- ters which the children understand and their elders don't, ruthless interruptions, flat contradictions, ridicule of things the young take seriously some- times of their religion insulting references to their friends, all provide an easy answer to the question "Why are they always out? Why do they like every house better than their home?" Who does not prefer civility to barbarism?” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” ― Emilie Buchwald
“Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them.” ― Bill Ayers
“Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit—Will Travel
“To be in your children's memories tomorrow, You have to be in their lives today.” ― Barbara Johnson
“Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were.” ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“Perhaps it takes courage to raise children..” ― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.” ― Plato
“If you are a parent, open doors to unknown directions to the child so he can explore. Don't make him afraid of the unknown,give him support. ” ― Osho
“No occupation in this world is more trying to soul and body than the care of young children. What patience and wisdom, skill and unlimited love it calls for. God gave the work to mothers and furnished them for it, and they cannot shirk it and be guiltless.” ― Isabella MacDonald Alden
“Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?” ― Jane Nelsen
“The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.” ― Peter De Vries
“We spend the first 12 months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next 12 months teaching them to sit down and shut up.” ― Phyllis Diller
“By loving them for more than their abilities we show our children that they are much more than the sum of their accomplishments.” ― Eileen Kennedy-Moore, Smart Parenting for Smart Kids: Nurturing Your Child's True Potential
“It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.” ― L.R. Knost, Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages
“There is nothing that moves a loving father's soul quite like his child's cry.” ― Joni Eareckson Tada
“In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults. ” ― Thomas Szasz
“Mother is a verb. It's something you do. Not just who you are.” ― Cheryl Lacey Donovan, The Ministry of Motherhood
“One reason we have children I think is to learn that parts of ourselves we had given up for dead are merely dormant and that the old joys can re emerge fresh and new and in a completely different form.” ― Anne Fadiman
“Dads. It’s time to show our sons how to properly treat a woman. It’s time to show our daughters how a girl should expect be treated. It’s time to show forgiveness and compassion. It’s time to show our children empathy. It’s time to break social norms and teach a healthier way of life! It’s time to teach good gender roles and to ditch the unnecessary ones. Does it really matter if your son likes the color pink? Is it going to hurt anybody? Do you not see the damage it inflicts to tell a boy that there is something wrong with him because he likes a certain color? Do we not see the damage we do in labeling our girls “tom boys” or our boys “feminine” just because they have their own likes and opinions on things? Things that really don’t matter?” ― Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
“Our greatest duty to our children is to love them first. Secondly, it is to teach them. Not to frighten, force, or intimidate our children into submission, but to effectively teach them so that they have the knowledge and tools to govern themselves.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
“The worst thing in life is having parents that always stand against you and never with you. They discourage you, instill fear in you, hold you back, push you down and never encourage you to fly forward. When I have kids, they'll already be born with propellers with added wings. Even if one tells me they want to go learn how to ride lions in Africa, if their heart is driving that desire, I'd say "DO IT". If we throw blankets over our children's dreams, we darken their world and extinguish their desire to live. I'd rather my kid die with a wild fire in his/her heart than with a malfunctioning or drained out fuse. Always allow your kids to keep humming with dreams and ideas that fuel their passions. Never tell them something is impossible. If you have a really strong determined kid, they'll go out there killing themselves trying to do the unachievable just to prove you wrong. And if you have a weak kid, they'll give up on life and settle for bagging Cokes and potato chips at your local grocery store.” ― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
“A father has to be a provider, a teacher, a role model, but most importantly, a distant authority figure who can never be pleased. Otherwise, how will children ever understand the concept of God?” ― Stephen Colbert, I Am America
“Parenthood...It's about guiding the next generation, and forgiving the last.” ― Peter Krause
“The real questions for parents should be: "Are you engaged? Are you paying attention?" If so, plan to make lots of mistakes and bad decisions. Imperfect parenting moments turn into gifts as our children watch us try to figure out what went wrong and how we can do better next time. The mandate is not to be perfect and raise happy children. Perfection doesn't exist, and I've found what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.” ― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
“Parents who discipline their child by discussing the consequences of their actions produce children who have better moral development , compared to children whose parents use authoritarian methods and punishment.” ― Simon Baron-Cohen, Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty
“If you want to be treated like a mother, act like one.” ― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses
“No one is ever quite ready; everyone is always caught off guard. Parenthood chooses you. And you open your eyes, look at what you've got, say "Oh, my gosh," and recognize that of all the balls there ever were, this is the one you should not drop. It's not a question of choice.” ― Marisa de los Santos, Love Walked In
“It's a long haul bringing up our children to be good; you have to keep doing that — bring them up — and that means bringing things up with them: Asking, telling, sounding them out, sounding off yourself — finding, through experience, your own words, your own way of putting them together. You have to learn where you stand, and make sure your kids learn [where you stand], understand why, and soon, you hope, they'll be standing there beside you, with you.” ― Erik Erikson
“Your children need your presence more than your presents.” ― Jesse Jackson
“To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.” ― Josh Billings
“We know – it has been measured in many experiments – that children with strong impulse control grow to be better adjusted, more dependable, achieve higher grades in school and college and have more success in their careers than others. Success depends on the ability to delay gratification, which is precisely what a consumerist culture undermines. At every stage, the emphasis is on the instant gratification of instinct. In the words of the pop group Queen, “I want it all and I want it now.” A whole culture is being infantilised.” ― Jonathan Sacks
“Children are gifts. They are not ours for the breaking. They are ours for the making.” ― Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
“It still remains unrecognised, that to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society; and that if the parent does not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to see it fulfilled, at the charge, as far as possible, of the parent.” ― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
“What do we say to a guest who forgets her umbrella? Do we run after her and say "What is the matter with you? Every time you come to visit you forget something. If it's not one thing it's another. Why can't you be like your sister? When she comes to visit, she knows how to behave. You're forty-four years old! Will you never learn? I'm not a slave to pick up after you! I bet you'd forget your head if it weren't attached to your shoulders." That's not what we say to a guest. We say "Here's your umbrella, Alice," without adding "scatterbrain." Parents need to learn to respond to their children as they do to guests.” ― Haim G. Ginott, Between Parent and Child: The Bestselling Classic That Revolutionized Parent-Child Communication
“So much is asked of parents, and so little is given.” ― Virginia Satir
“The French believe that kids feel confident when they're able to do things for themselves, and do those things well. After children have learned to talk, adults don't praise them for saying just anything. They praise them for saying interesting things, and for speaking well.” ― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
“It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.” ― Joyce Maynard
“what I want you to be - I don't mean physically but morally: you are very well physically - is a firm fellow, a fine firm fellow, with a will of your own, with resolution. with determination. with strength of character that is not to be influenced except on good reason by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you to be. That's what your father, & your mother might both have been” ― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
Click here to view more quotes about parenting.