How much easier things would be if there weren’t hundreds of parenting books and listserves and experts that purport to have the answers, when the truth is, there is no single fullproof recipe for raising a child.
– Physiologist Lori Gottlieb, quotes in The Atlantic
We’ve heard about slow parenting, attachment parenting, and tiger moms. However, over my past 30 years as a pediatrician, I have learned that there is a single truth that applies to any parenting philosophy. Your children need to spend meaningful time with you.
Harley A. Rotbart, M.D.,quoted in Parents
The American tendency to overfocus on kids may explain a large part of why parents report so much distress surrounding a child-rearing.
– Lauren Sandler, quoted from Psychology Today
When you give too much to your children you’re not allowing them to feel the satisfaction that comes from making life better for themselves. Some struggle is good. Encouraging out kids to earn their privilege through hard work is one of the greatest gifts we can give them.
– Cristine Carlson
In these days of assumed meritocracy where children can be turned into anything, we admire them as displays of remarkable engineering, to be tweaked and fine-tuned into bilingual perfection. What we’ve lost, perhaps, is a sense that there may be things about them we can’t know or understand, and that that mysterious quality, separate from us, is what we should marvel at.
– Hanna Rosin, quoted from the Atlantic
The original sin of parenting is the baggage we drag into it. Too often, rather than accepting our brilliantly unique children, we reshape them.
-Ron Fournier, quoted from his book Love That Boy