Parents Growing Older Quotes

When my mama was twenty-five she already had an old woman's hands, and I feared them. I did not know then what it was that scared me so. I've come to understand since that it was the thought of her growing old, of her dying and leaving me alone. I feared those brown spots, those wrinkles and cracks that lined her wrists, ankles, and the soft shadowed sides of her eyes. ~ Dorothy Allison

When I was young and growing up in New York, my parents took me to children's theater quite often - elaborate presentations of 'Goldilocks' and 'Rapunzel' for Upper East Side kids. As I grew older, they took me to adult theater, mostly musicals. ~ Peter Coyote

It's no accident that most ads are pitched to people in their 20s and 30s. Not only are they so much cuter than their elders...but they are less likely to have gone through the transformative process of cleaning out their deceased parents' stuff. Once you go through that, you can never look at *your* stuff in the same way. You start to look at your stuff a little postmortemistically. If you've lived more than two decades as an adult consumer, you probably have quite the accumulation, even if you're not a hoarder...I'm not saying I never buy stuff, because I absolutely do. Maybe I'm less naive about the joys of accumulation. ~ Roz Chast

When a child first catches adults out
when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just
his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing. ~ John Steinbeck

When I was growing up, I wanted to adopt, because I was aware there were kids that didn't have parents. ~ Angelina Jolie

Intensity of belief is diluted with age. But perhaps wisdom is in seeing our own failures, how we misdirected our energies? Nothing is entirely pure or sacred or certain as we grow older. ~ Adib Khan

Most of the time you are growing up, people tell you what's wrong with you. Your coach tells you, your parents tell you, the teachers tell you when they grade you. I think that's very good in the early stages, because it helps you then develop skills. But at some point in your career, generally I think when you are in your teens, you look in a mirror and you have to say, despite all the bumps and warts, "I like that person I'm looking at, and let's just do our best." ~ Robert Ballard

We stopped at a door that read GUIDANCE. I always found that term wonderfully vague. The dictionary definition of the word is "advice or information aimed at resolving a problem." In short, an attempt to help. But to us students, the word - this office - is far more frightening. It conjures up our college prospects, growing older, getting a real job - our future. Guidance seemed more like a term for cutting us loose. Spoon ~ Harlan Coben

Growing up with three older brothers and being the youngest and the only girl, my mom always made me tough. She's taught me over the years how to be a strong, independent woman, how to carry yourself in a positive way and anything that my brothers can do, I can do. ~ Diana Lopez

I think that's the lesson you learn in life. As you get older you realize you're never going to grow up and you're never going to be ready. And you may, as well, do things now, don't wait ~ Hugh Laurie

She blew a stream of smoke up at the empty clotheslines. 'These silly dreams you have when you're young. I mean, what, Katie and Brendan Harris were going ot make a life in Las Vegas? How long would that little Eden have lasted? Maybe they'd be on their second trailer park, second kid, but it would have hit them sooner or later - life isn't happily ever after and golden sunsets and shit like that. It's work. The person you love is rarely worthy of how big your love is. Because no one is worthy of that and maybe no one deserves the burden of it, either. You'll be let down. You'll be disappointed and have your trust broken and have a lot of real sucky days. You lose more than you win. You hate the person you love as much as you love him. But, shit, you roll up your sleeves and work - at everything -because that's what growing older is. ~ Dennis Lehane

I loved my family so much when I was growing up, my parents, my sister. I wanted to be able to give them everything they ever dreamed of. ~ Andrew Dice Clay

It is rare, I think, for parents to let their children
of any age
grow up and become peers. ~ Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

It's okay to grow up, it's just slowing down that's the scary part. Running out of time. It's okay to grow up, but it doesn't mean you have to become like your parents. ~ Billie Joe Armstrong

The real evidence of growing older is that things level off in importance ... Days are no longer jagged peaks to climb; time is a meadow, and we move over it with level steps. ~ Gladys Taber

If asked how much money one requires in life, the answer should be so much as to maintain the parents lifestyle growing the way it has been as long as they are alive. ~ Sandeep Sahajpal

Children need parents who will let them grow up to be themselves, but parents often have personal agendas they try to impose on their children. ~ Harold S. Kushner

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty. ~ Coco Chanel

Strangely enough, when you get older the things you didn't understand when you were a child start to make sense. "When this happened, I should have done that." "When that happened, I should have said this." those types of things. You start to understand rather than regret. It may be closer to repentance. So it may be that I do want to repent and erase the ignorant self from my childhood. ~ Natsuki Takaya

Muoth was right. On growing old, one becomes more contented than in one's youth, which I will not therefore revile, for in all my dreams I hear my youth like a wonderful song which now sounds more harmonious than it did in reality, and even sweeter ~ Hermann Hesse

What seemed delicacy in him was usually a way of avoiding trouble; what seemed like sympathy was the instinct to prevent trouble before it started. It was hard to see what growing older would mean to such a person. His emotions, from lack of exercise, had disappeared almost altogether. Adaptability and curiosity, he had found, did just as well. ~ Penelope Fitzgerald

As a kid, I was growing up in an era of celebration of the Civil War centennial, with a lot of 'Lost Cause' emphasis on the Confederacy. I used to play Civil War soldiers with my brothers as a child, and my older brother always insisted that he got to be Lee, and I got be Grant. I never knew that Grant won until quite some time had passed. ~ Drew Gilpin Faust

A while back a young woman from another state came to live with some of her relatives in the Salt Lake City area for a few weeks. On her first Sunday she came to church dressed in a simple, nice blouse and knee-length skirt set off with a light, button-up sweater. She wore hose and dress shoes, and her hair was combed simply but with care. Her overall appearance created an impression of youthful grace.

Unfortunately, she immediately felt out of place. It seemed like all the other young women her age or near her age were dressed in casual skirts, some rather distant from the knee; tight T-shirt-like tops that barely met the top of their skirts at the waist (some bare instead of barely); no socks or stockings; and clunky sneakers or flip-flops.

One would have hoped that seeing the new girl, the other girls would have realized how inappropriate their manner of dress was for a chapel and for the Sabbath day and immediately changed for the better. Sad to say, however, they did not, and it was the visitor who, in order to fit in, adopted the fashion (if you can call it that) of her host ward.

It is troubling to see this growing trend that is not limited to young women but extends to older women, to men, and to young men as well. . . .

I was shocked to see what the people of this other congregation wore to church. There was not a suit or tie among the men. They appeared to have come from or to be on their way to the golf course. It was har ~ D. Todd Christofferson

People who have experienced war have learned to accept the trials and sufferings of life. Among many wise, older citizens in American society, there is no desperate flight from suffering. Instead, there is a recognition that it is a part of life that can have some benefit. Yet among those in the post-World War II generation, a wisp of happiness is the goal, and suffering must be avoided at all costs. If there are hardships in a relationship, end it. If there is an unpleasant emotion, medicate it. It is a generation that perceives no value to any hardship. Like a pampered child who never experienced the regular storms of life, we lack the skill of growing through our trials. ~ Edward T. Welch

When I was about nine, my siblings and I fell out of our moving van at an intersection. My dad didn't notice for about five blocks. It was back before seat belts. It was also back before parents used any sort of common sense whatsoever. It was a time when you didn't raise your children. You just fed them and they got bigger. ~ Dina Kucera

I think the way I approach things has something to do with growing up and seeing my parents go to work every day. ~ Kristen Stewart

Lively once, expansive and affectionate, in growing older she had become (after the fashion of wine that, exposed to air, turns to vinegar) ill-tempered, grumbling, irritable. She ~ Gustave Flaubert

Life is not stationary. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years all tick away at the same clip for everyone. No age-group can be isolated. None of us can settle into infancy, youth, middle age, or old age. We all grow older, and, incidentally, it is an exciting thought if the accent is on growing. "Though our outward man perish," said Paul, "yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16; italics added). ~ Hugh W. Pinnock

She's amazing."
That comes out a bit gooier than I mean it to, and my cheeks burn. My whole head practically bursts into flames when I notice my parents. My mom's grinning her my little boy is growing up smile and my dad looks like he wants to pat me on the back and call me "slugger."
Parents: perfecting ways to humiliate their children since the dawn of time.
"Well, it's very nice to meet you," my mom whispers, her voice thick.
If she starts crying, I'm going to smother myself with my pillow.
Audra steps forward, offering a sturdy hand to shake. "It's nice to meet you, too. Vane talks about you guys all the time."
My parents beam and I can't help grinning. She sure knows how to charm the parental units.
"I wish I could say the same," my mom says, shooting me a glare. "He told us he had a date, but you're the first girl he's brought home. He must really like you."
"Mom," I complain, ready to bean her with my pillow. Or maybe the bedside lamp. Especially when Audra blushes bright red. ~ Shannon Messenger

How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. ~ Joseph Heller

Mr. J.L.B Matekoni," she asked, "do you think that our souls grow as we get older?"
He did not answer immediately, but when he did, she thought his answer quite perfect. "Yes," he said. "Our souls get wider. They grow like the branches of a tree--growing outwards. And more birds come and make their homes in these branches. And sing a bit more." He stopped and looked a little awkward. "I'm talking nonsense, Mma."
"You're not," she said. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

My parents listened to music in our house all the time when we were growing up. It was everything from Dolly Parton to Paul Simon ... We packed in everything. ~ Clare Bowen

Youth is but the painted shell within which, continually growing, lives that wondrous thing the spirit of a man, biding its moment of apparition, earlier in some than in others. ~ Lew Wallace