Parental Guidanceuidance Quotes

The role of the parents is not to become the child, but to provide guidance to it, to walk it through the same abyss the parents walked through but with the help of a light called parental guidance. - On Parenting. ~ Lamine Pearlheart

Because children are totally dependent on their parents for their physical and emotional survival, their need for parental love is absolute. The normal need for bonding with the parent becomes more intense if the parent withdraws love and becomes a figure of fear and anxiety. The more frightening the parent, and the more he threatens to pull away, the more fiercely the child will cling to him in an effort to regain the parent's goodwill. To the confused child, the angry parent, who both loves and hurts, is a giant. This giant controls the child's life through the use of fear and the manipulation of love. The child must be constantly designing her behavior either to avoid the parent's wrath or to get the parent's approval. ~ Susan Forward

The most basic parental bond is maternal. Equal parenting is great--it has forced men to get off their duffs--but women, from breast to cradle to cuddle, can nurture in ways that men cannot. ~ Charles Krauthammer

Monarchies have some good features beyond their star qualities. They can reduce the size and parasitic nature of the management bureaucracy. They can make speedy decisions when necessary. They fit an ancient human demand for a parental (tribal/feudal) hierarchy where every person knows his place. It is valuable to know your place, even if that place is temporary. It is galling to be held in place against your will. This is why I teach about tyranny in the best possible way - by example. ~ Frank Herbert

I would like to devote myself to the cause of parental alienation. ~ Alec Baldwin

A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. There is no word for a parent who loses a child. That's how awful the loss is. ~ Jay Neugeboren

All social orders command their members to imbibe in pipe dreams of posterity, the mirage of immortality, to keep them ahead of the extinction that would ensue in a few generations if the species did not replenish itself. This is the implicit, and most pestiferous, rationale for propagation: to become fully integrated into a society, one must offer it fresh blood. Naturally, the average set of parents does not conceive of their conception as a sacrificial act. These are civilized human beings we are talking about, and thus they are quite able to fill their heads with a panoply of less barbaric rationales for reproduction, among them being the consolidation of a spousal relationship; the expectation of new and enjoyable experiences in the parental role; the hope that one will pass the test as a mother or father; the pleasing of one's own parents, not to forget their parents and possibly a great-grandparent still loitering about; the serenity of taking one's place in the seemingly deathless lineage of a familial enterprise; the creation of individuals who will care for their paternal and maternal selves in their dotage; the quelling of a sense of guilt or selfishness for not having done their duty as human beings; and the squelching of that faint pathos that is associated with the childless. Such are some of the overpowering pressures upon those who would fertilize the future. These pressures build up in people throughout their lifetimes and must be released, just as everyone m ~ Thomas Ligotti

I am trying to imagine under what novel features despotism may appear in the world. In the first place, I see an innumerable multitude of men, alike and equal, constantly circling around in pursuit of the petty and banal pleasures with which they glut their souls. Each one of them, withdrawn into himself, is almost unaware of the fate of the rest….

Over this kind of men stands an immense, protective power which is alone responsible for securing their enjoyment and watching over their fate. That power is absolute, thoughtful of detail, orderly, provident, and gentle. It would resemble parental authority if, fatherlike, it tried to prepare charges for a man's life, but on the contrary, it only tries to keep them in perpetual childhood. It likes to see the citizens enjoy themselves, provided that they think of nothing but enjoyment. It gladly works for their happiness but wants to be sole agent and judge of it. It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasure, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, makes rules for their testaments, and divides their inheritances. Why should it not entirely relieve them from the trouble of thinking and all the cares of living?

Thus it daily makes the exercise of free choice less useful and rarer, restricts the activity of free will within a narrower compass, and little by little robs each citizen of the proper use of his own faculties. Equality has prepare ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

In the world of animals, pain serves an equivocal role. Parental nips and swipes are common tools in upbringing. And socially, pain is sometimes used to maintain hierarchies of dominance. But this animal use of pain seems somewhat restrained, at least in contrast with the human situation. Here the capacity for pain is often used to systematically exploit and oppress at intensities often far beyond those seen in the behaviour of our nearest primate relatives. At the same time, at least in western culture, pain is rarely used for pleasure. Is it little wonder that all pain is viewed as intrinsically evil? Or that the pain-pleasure of leatherspace has been labelled torture? ~ Geoff Mains

Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong. ~ Richard Dawkins

I think that the path that I took was normal in the American society where young women and men are not trained as to how to make the transition from being a girl to being a woman, from being a boy to being a man. And so I think that most young people in America live by trial and error, and not by parental instruction, community guidance. ~ Sister Souljah

Miss Blanche, having given through her tears a complete account of this event, assured me that, to maintain our own parental love and enjoy our beautiful family life, we, the cat-race, must engage in total war upon all humans. We have no choice but to exterminate them. I think it is a very reasonable proposition. ~ Soseki Natsume

After having so nobly disentangled themselves from the shackles of Parental Authority, by a Clandestine Marriage, they were determined never to forfeit the good opinion they had gained in the World, in so doing, by accepting any proposals of reconciliation that might be offered them by their Fathers – to their farther trial of their noble independence however they never were exposed. ~ Jane Austen

Even the humblest mammal's strong sexual, parental, and social instincts give rise to 'do unto others as yourself' and 'love thy neighbor as thyself'. ~ Charles Darwin

You and I. Hand in hand. An endless story of love. A love that grew in me for 9 months and only grows bigger each day.

You and I. Hand in hand. An endless journey. Countless steps. One destination - your happiness.

You and I. Hand in hand. My heart and blood. I'll share it all - take it - my whole life is you. ~ Veronika Jensen

Thus bound together, they sheltered the child from the cold, dark night, enveloping him in warmth. ~ Seth Adam Smith

… Looking at her, I think I know better what romantic love is."

… she asked, "What is it?"

"It is parental love," he answered thoughtfully. "Wanting to protect and keep the other person safe. As well as the love of friendship - esteeming the other person, even desiring each other's company beyond all others. And it is lust," he said, meeting her eyes, and was rewarded with seeing them darken, her breath becoming slightly unsteady, one little word jerking her out of her clinical assessment. He smiled, a predatory, seductive grin. "The physical needing of the other person, the quickened pulse, the sweaty heat." His hand, which still rested on hers, began slowly moving, his fingers dancing over her skin. "Combining them makes the result greater than its individual parts. Because it produces something else. It creates … a steadiness. A strength. I can't explain it well - being only an outside observer - but I only know that out of my friends' relationships, my sister's marriage is the epitome of grace. ~ Kate Noble

Attachment. A secure attachment is the ability to bond; to develop a secure and safe base; an unbreakable or perceivable inability to shatter to bond between primary parental caregiver(s) and child; a quest for familiarity; an unspoken language and knowledge that a caregiver will be a permanent fixture. ~ Asa Don Brown

If you look at any superior athlete, you will find a strong parental influence. Parents introduce their children to a sport, and then they support them. ~ Ivan Lendl

She will not plant the seed in their mind, that a parent is capable of abandoning her children, of saying to them You are not enough. For Pari, the children and Eric have always been enough. They always will be. ~ Khaled Hosseini

Many of us think in terms in parental determinism: 'If I push all the right buttons my kids are going to turn out OK.' I want to instill in myself and my people a wonderful dose, not of carelessness, but of God's sovereignty. He knows the hairs on your kids' heads. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The parental, and filial affections seem to be as ardent, their sensibility and attachment, as active and faithful, as those observed to be in human nature. ~ William Bartram

I couldn't prevent my own child from becoming a casualty of war, but I may be able to help prevent another child from becoming one. I'd rather fail at the attempt than not try at all. ~ Dawn Willson

College students' bizarre actions are incomprehensible until scrutinized under the lens that they are simply defying their mortality. A person learns how to live by contemplating death, because when a person faces death, it strips everything superfluous away, revealing the sterling qualities of life. University students newly freed from parental restraints desire to ascertain the essence of their life, but they lack the maturity and life experiences meaningfully to contemplate the weighty subjects of life and death. Realizing their immaturity and resultant angst, collegiate students act recklessly in order to loudly proclaim that they do not care if fate demands that they die will, when in fact they are terrified of both living and dying. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Mr. and Mrs. Hankshaw were summoned from the waiting room where Saturday Evening Post fantasies had clouded their instinctive parental concern the way that Norman Rockwell's sentimental ideas cloud the purity of a blank canvas. ~ Tom Robbins

For me, my 'X' replaced the white slave master name of 'Little' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed on my parental forebears. ~ Malcolm X

Tony then explained how 'fucking stupid' most people are and believe anything as long as you liberally apply the words 'I Love You'. He then said, "The best ones are the ones who didn't get any love as kids; parents were a bit cold and so on. People from these families will do anything if you tell them you love them. They are like addicts or something. they never had, you know, parental affection and love as kids. It's a bit weird, alright, but you can spot these a mile away. ~ Thomas Sheridan

A method of child-rearing is not
or should not be
a whim, a fashion or a shibboleth. It should derive from an understanding of the developing child, of his physical and mental equipment at any given stage, and, therefore, his readiness at any given stage to adapt, to learn, to regulate his behavior according to parental expectations. ~ Selma Fraiberg

It is not difficult for an unwise mother quite unintentionally to centre the heterosexual feelings of a young son upon herself, and it is true that, if this is done, the evil consequences pointed out by Freud will probably ensue. This is, however, much less likely to occur if the mother's sexual life is satisfying to her, for in that case she will not look to her child for a type of emotional satisfaction which ought to be sought only from adults. The parental impulse in its purity is an impulse to care for the young, not to demand affection from them, and if a woman is happy in her sexual life she will abstain spontaneously from all improper demands for emotional response from her child. ~ Bertrand Russell

I've seen middle grade books criticized by adult readers for leaving things for the reader to figure out, for not having perfect happily-ever-after endings. They get knocked for being too depressing, for using too many big words, for featuring parental characters who are too clueless. Girl protagonists are "too angry" or "too self-absorbed." The issues raised are "too heavy," the books "too earnest," "too quiet," "too hard," "too far-reaching," "too strange," and it is all too too much for the reader.

Except it's never the readers themselves saying these things.

Our critical discourse in middle grade is sometimes much more about what the reviewer believes children's books should be rather than about engaging with the book itself and the literature as a whole. When we say a book is "too sad," "too scary," "too complicated;" when we demand that endings are perfectly happy and all tied up; when we demand that the themes not be too weighty or the characters not face too much hardship; we are projecting our own biases onto the book, and using them to prescribe what books for this age range can or cannot do. This is nannying, not literary criticism - and it doesn't give kids much credit. ~ Anne Ursu

I did not want to raise a genetically compromised child. I did not want my children to have to contend with the massive diversion of parental attention, and the consequences of being compelled to care for their brother after I died. I wanted a genetically perfect baby, and because that was something I could control, I chose to end his life. ~ Ayelet Waldman