Abusive Parent Quotes

A lot of people feel like they're victims in life, and they'll often point to past events, perhaps growing up with an abusive parent or in a dysfunctional family. Most psychologists believe that about 85 percent of families are dysfunctional, so all of a sudden you're not so unique. My parents were alcoholics. My dad abused me. My mother divorced him when I was six ... I mean, that's almost everybody's story in some form or not. The real question is, what are you going to do now? What do you choose now? Because you can either keep focusing on that, or you can focus on what you want. And when people start focusing on what they want, what they don't want falls away, and what they want expands, and the other part disappears. (Jack Canfield) ~ Rhonda Byrne

Many television weather-women were one abusive parent away from prostitution. ~ Dov Davidoff

As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of father-daughter incest will prevail. ~ Judith Lewis Herman

Sexual abuse of children now presents society with the ultimate crisis of patriarchy, when children refuse to protect their fathers by keeping secrets. ~ Beatrix Campbell

Many survivors have such profound deficiencies in self-protection that they can barely imagine themselves in a position of agency or choice. The idea of saying no to the emotional demands of a parent, spouse, lover or authority figure may be practically inconceivable. Thus, it is not uncommon to find adult survivors who continue to minister to the needs of those who once abused them and who continue to permit major intrusions without boundaries or limits. Adult survivors may nurse their abusers in illness, defend them in adversity, and even, in extreme cases, continue to submit to their sexual demands. ~ Judith Lewis Herman

my parents Oedipal fakers ~ Lidia Yuknavitch

And unlike most of our kin, he did not stay angry and blame white folk for his shortcomings like an adult child blames his once abusive parent. ~ Noel Anenberg

I wanted my mother to love me. Despite all the torture and brutality. ~ Wendy Hoffman

Because adoption meets the needs of children so successfully, and because there have long been waiting lists of couples hoping to adopt babies and children, it would seem that the solution for abused or neglected kids was obvious. But not to the do-gooders. To remove a child from an abusive parent, sever the parent's parental rights, and permit the child to be adopted by a couple who would give the child a loving home began to seem too 'judgmental.' ~ Mona Charen

For many people, the shock of sexual abuse pales before the shock of this mother's statement, "I wish the fuck I never had her." So thoroughly is motherhood sentimentalized that the mother who wishes to be rid of her child is considered a monster. In reality, women have always greeted the burden of motherhood ambivalently, even in the best of circumstances, and many women bear children involuntarily. But the approbrium which attaches to any woman who willing gives up her child is so great that some mothers will keep and mistreat their children rather than admit that they cannot care for them. Sometimes, the revelation of maternal neglect constitutes a plea for outside intervention, signaling the fact that a mother wants to be relieved of the duty to care for her child. ~ Judith Lewis Herman

Because the child does not have the power to withhold consent, she does not have the power to grant it. ~ Judith Lewis Herman

My sister only has one side of the story but she is sure that she knows the whole story because that is how the dysfunctional system works. We don't question everyone or even consider that there may be another side to the story but instead automatically believe the one who has the most power in the relationship. ~ Darlene Ouimet

From the sexual, or amatorial, generation of plants new varieties, or improvements, are frequently obtained; as many of the young plants from seeds are dissimilar to the parent, and some of them superior to the parent in the qualities we wish to possess ... Sexual reproduction is the chef d'oeuvre, the master-piece of nature. ~ Erasmus Darwin

Not that I have any little kids running around I need to keep away from the guns. I had any kids I'd get rid of the guns. Nothing more dangerous to the life of a child than a house full of firearms. Nothing more dangerous except maybe a parent. ~ Charlie Huston

Every parent is wondering, how do we keep our kids safe? We need a commander in chief who does what Ronald Reagan did with communism, which is he set out a global strategy to defeat Soviet communism. ~ Ted Cruz

There is nothing intrinsically better about a child who happily bounces off to school the first day and a child who is wary, watchful, and takes a longer time to separate from his parents and join the group. Neither one nor the other is smarter, better adjusted, or destined for a better life. ~ Ellen Galinsky

In Europe the parents are included as with children. All three generations are together. I'm thinking of Italy. You go out on a Sunday afternoon and the whole family is there. ~ Dana Delany

Obviously, at this age, I've lost people in my life. But with a parent, it's just different. I was very attached to my father and had this naive little-girl notion that he'd always be around. So I'm finding acceptance of my father's death is the hardest thing to accept. ~ Carol Leifer

Being a parent is very important to me. ~ Diana Ross

There are times when one is tempted to say that the great, sprawling, lethargic sin of Sloth is the oldest and greatest of the sins and the parent of all the rest. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Most African women are taught to endure abusive marriages. They say endurance means a good wife but most women endure abusive relationship because they are not empowered economically; they depend on their husbands. ~ Joyce Banda

The lesson in my friend's observation is that the line moves. What had once seemed unendurable to an aged parent, and still does to us, the adult children, changes. They come to tolerate the formerly intolerable and to surprise us with their forbearance. Diapers, it turned out, were not the end of the world. Nor was a wheelchair, despite initial resistance. Millimeter by millimeter the line was moving, as it would many times more. ~ Jane Gross

If the parent represses the girl's anger not just once but over and over again, a deeper injury occurs: the girl will eventually dismantle her anger response. Ultimately, it's safer for her to cut off a part of her being than to battle the person on whom her life depends. ~ Patricia Love

My first strong musical memory is of the Villa-Lobos Sixth Quartet which my parents were rehearsing. I remember that it reminded me of big teddy bears dancing around. ~ Leonard Slatkin

Any parent wants what is best for their children. I am not going to make a choice for my child on the basis of what is the politically correct thing to do. ~ Tony Blair

I leave my parents here behind
And all my friends to love resigned
'Tis grief to go, but death to stay
Farewell
I'm gone with love away. ~ George Moses Horton

Schools and schoolmasters, as we have them today, are not popular as places of education and teachers, but rather prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parent. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Spanking doesn't lead to anything in the child, other than anger, a sense of frustration and humiliation. And parents can do better. I'm not saying it should be against the law but parents can do better. ~ Sean Hannity

Parents sometimes think of newborns as helpless creatures, but in fact parents' behavior is much more under the infant's control than the reverse. Does he come running when you cry? ~ Sandra Scarr

Knowledge is the parent of knowledge. He who possesses most of the information of his age will not quietly submit to neglect its current acquisitions, but will go on improving as long as means and opportunities offer; while he who finds himself ignorant of most things, is only too apt to shrink from a labour which becomes Herculean. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

For heaven's sakes, every parent in America is checking social media and every employer is as well, but our government can't do it. ~ Carly Fiorina

Imagine what it must be like for teenagers who don't feel they have room to breathe in their own homes. If you are a parent reading this book, you care about your child. If she is quirky, unusual, or nonconformist, ask yourself whether you are doing everything you can to nurture her unusual interests, style, or skills, or whether instead you are directly or subtly pushing her to hide them. ~ Alexandra Robbins

I'm their sole parent, and there is nothing more important than being the best father I can be. ~ John Edwards

The streets was basically my parents. ~ Bernard Hopkins

Jo tried to think about her suspicion that Lynn liked her. She figured that Lynn was nice to her because she was a patient. Jo's mother had shown her what it meant to have a professional mask. The times Jo saw her mother at work in the lab, busy and efficient as she drew blood and marked vials. Nancy smiled warmly at the patients, ready with a sympathetic comment. If a patient or a doctor called Nancy at home, she immediately became the caring professional, no matter what had been happening before the phone rang. When Lynn hung up after an evening phone call from Missy, Jo suspected that Lynn resumed screaming at her husband or kids. ~ Joan Frances Casey

When free from the confines of our normal identity, we are able to look at life, and the often repetitive stories we tell about it, with fresh eyes. Come Monday morning, we may still clamber back into the monkey suits of our everyday roles - parent, spouse, employee, boss, neighbor - but, by then, we know they're just costumes with zippers. ~ Steven Kotler

What did my parents say when I told them I wanted to be an actor? 'Be a plumber.' ~ Samuel West

Parents, it seems, have an almost Olympian persistence when it comes to suggesting more secure and lucrative lines of work for their children who have the notion that writing is an actual profession. I say this from experience. ~ Susan Orlean

We need to recognize the incredible challenges that so many parents face, especially working moms. We need to join the rest of the advanced world. ~ Bernie Sanders

Becoming a parent has just completely changed me, and made life so beautiful and given me such a center and a focus and such joy. ~ Angelina Jolie

I did everything in my power to give my brokers brand identity and clout in the market. I saw my job as parent to build them up and if I took care of them, then they would take care of their customer. ~ Barbara Corcoran

When faced with choosing between attributing their pain to "being crazy" and having had abusive parents, clients will choose "crazy" most of the time. Dora, a 38-year-old, was profoundly abused by multiple family perpetrators and has grappled with cutting and eating disordered behaviors for most of her life. She poignantly echoed this dilemma in her therapy:
I hate it when we talk about my family as "dysfunctional" or "abusive." Think about what you are asking me to accept - that my parents didn't love me, care about me, or protect me. If I have to choose between "being abused" or "being sick and crazy," it's less painful to see myself as nuts than to imagine my parents as evil. ~ Lisa Ferentz

My parents' biggest thing was that they just wanted me to graduate high school and go to college. They couldn't fathom me acting for the rest of my life. ~ Mila Kunis

One of the misconceptions about BlackBerry is that it's your parents' smartphone. ~ Thorsten Heins

My parents were lenient. My mother believed God was another word for nature. I took up Satanism not out of desperation, but out of logic. I rebelled, not but because of a religious or repressive childhood. I wanted to join the French Foreign Legion. ~ Anton Szandor LaVey

Give a man a mask, and he'll tell you deeper and darker truths. But he'll also be more abusive, unaccountable, and demonic. ~ Cory Duchesne

However pragmatic you are, it is very demanding being a new parent. ~ Robert Winston

I support people having a gun in public full stop, not just in your home. We don't have the right to bear arms because of burglars. We have the right to bear arms to resist the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government. It's not about duck hunting, it's about the ability of the individual. It's the same reason we have freedom of speech, ~ Vince Vaughn

Domestic violence rarely affects only those directly involved in the abusive relationship. ~ Asa Don Brown

The mere existence of an additional child or children in the family could signify Less. Less time alone with parents. Less attention for hurts and disappointments. Less approval for accomplishments ... No wonder children struggle so fiercely to be first or best. No wonder they mobilize all their energy to have more or most. Or better still, all. ~ Adele Faber