Quotes about Children

Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.

I don't see kids smiling around here no more. You look at 'em listen to 'em… they seem worried all the time, mad about something. They got nothing they trust. Not their parents. Not God. Not themselves. And that's not right. That just ain't the way things supposed to be… kids not smiling

Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behaviour in children, and medicate it in adults?

I said probably they were just scared he was going to put ideas in our heads. She smiled. "Imagine that. A teacher, putting ideas in kids' heads.

When push comes to shove, a mother takes care of her children from the bottom up.

Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.

At age five I raised my good left hand in Sunday school and used a month's ration of words to point out this problem to Miss Betty Nagy. Getting born within earshot of a preacher, I reasoned, is entirely up to chance. Would Our Lord be such a hit-or-miss kind of Saviour as that? Would he really condemn some children to eternal suffering just for the accident of a heathen birth, and reward others for a privilege they did nothing to earn?

If Doc Homer found out, he would construct some punishment to cure us of superstition. We agreed with him in principle—we were little scientists, born and bred. But children robbed of love will dwell on magic.

Golden children ran wild over a field of dead great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers, and the bones must have wanted to rise up and knock together and rattle with joy. I have never seen a town that gave so much—so much of what counts—to its children. More than anything else I wished I belonged to one of these living, celebrated families, lush as plants, with bones in the ground for roots. I wanted pollen on my cheeks and one of those calcium ancestors to decorate as my own.

If we do not teach our children, societ will. And they-and we-will live with the results.

Many families are managed on the basis of crises, moods, quick fixes, and instant gratification—not on sound principles. Symptoms surface whenever stress and pressure mount: people become cynical, critical, or silent or they start yelling and overreacting. Children who observe these kinds of behavior grow up thinking the only way to solve problems is flight or fight.

See many parents, particularly mothers with small children, often frustrated in their desire to accomplish a lot because all they seem to do is meet the needs of little children all day. Remember, frustration is a function of our expectations, and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values and priorities.