Some authority on parenting once said, "Hold them very close and then let them go." This is the hardest truth for a father to learn: that his children are continuously growing up and moving away from him (until, of course, they move back in).
Anyone who has brought up children knows that consistency has absolutely nothing to do with discipline.
All Children Have Brain Damage!
Public education is a good foundation on which to build a better life for each of us. And if we want to prove to these children who never made the mess in the first place that education is worth the trouble, our schools have to inspire them so they can do what they ought to do.
A person with no children says, "Well I just love children," and you say "Why?" and they say, "Because a child is so truthful, that's what I love about 'em - they tell the truth." That's a lie, I've got five of 'em. The only time they tell the truth is if they're having pain.
Fatherhood is helping your children learn English as a foreign language.
A grandchild is God's reward for raising a child.
What is it about grandparents that is so lovely? I'd like to say that grandparents are God's gifts to children.
When I was a child, I was living in the housing projects of Philadelphia. I didn't even have a Christmas tree.
In spite of the seven thousand books of expert advice, the right way to disciplne a child is still a mystery to most fathers and...mothers Only your grandmother and Genghis Khan know how to do it.
If you're a parent, the five worst words you can say to your children are, "When I was your age ..." You were never their age. You were older in the womb.
If you listen carefully to what a child is saying to you, you'll see that he has a point to make. So I listen. And I answer them just as seriously as possible. And if I don't know the answer, I'll tell them I don't know.
It doesn't make any difference how much money a father earns, his name is always Dad-Can-I.... Like all other children, my five have one great talent: they are gifted beggars. Not one of them ever ran into the room, looked up at me, and said, "I'm really happy that you're my father, and as a tangible token of my appreciation, here's a dollar.
Our children are trying to tell us something. And we are not listening.
Our children are angry. The profanity is out in the street. It's on the buses and in the subway. Our children are trying to tell us something, and we are not listening.
I'm not sure if my parents had me because they loved me, or because they wanted someone to watch their other children.
What best defines a child is the total inability to receive information from anything not plugged in.
My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own fatherhood, but it didn't because parenting can only be learned by people who have no children.
When the child is twelve, your wife buys her a splendidly silly article of clothing called a training bra. To train what? I never had a training jock. And believe me, when I played football, I could have used a training jock more than any twelve-year-old needs a training bra.
There are no absolutes in raising children. In any stressful situation, fathering is always a roll of the dice. The game may be messy, but I have never found one with more joys and rewards.
My dad came over to the house... went into his pocket and pulled out a handful of money, and began to pass it out to the children... This was the same man who, when I was his child, I would ask him for 50 cents, this man would tell me his life's story.
We spoke to God about the children, and we were afraid to ask God for specific things. We thought that it might be too much. So we said to God 'Please give us a healthy child' and left it at that, not knowing that God is a generous God, but also has a sense of humor. And if you leave that much open for God, some wonderful jokes are going to come about.
I was a physical education major with a child psychology minor at Temple, which means if you ask me a question about a child's behavior, I will advise you to tell the child to take a lap.
When you're a father you censor yourself. You get just as angry with a child but you don't want to say, "What the filth and foul and I'll filth and foul, filth and foul and, yeah, ya filth and foul face, and I'll filth and foul, foul, filth!" You don't want to say that to a child so you censor yourself and you sound like an idiot: "What the... Get your... I'll put a... Get out of my face!"
The mother may be doing ninety percent of the disciplining, but the father still must have a full-time acceptance of all the children. He never must say, "Get these kids out of here; I'm trying to watch TV." If he ever does start saying this, he is liable to see one of his kids on the six o'clock news.
