The first half of our life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.

The first half of our life is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.

What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight read more

What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.

Every child is born a genius.

Every child is born a genius.

My mother loved children--she would have given anything if I had been one.

My mother loved children--she would have given anything if I had been one.

The best way to make children good is to make them happy.

The best way to make children good is to make them happy.

It might sound a paradoxical thing to say --for surely never has a generation of children occupied more sheer hours read more

It might sound a paradoxical thing to say --for surely never has a generation of children occupied more sheer hours of parental time --but the truth is that we neglected you. We allowed you a charade of trivial freedoms in order to avoid making those impositions on you that are in the end both the training ground and proving ground for true independence. We pronounced you strong when you were still weak in order to avoid the struggles with you that would have fed your true strength. We proclaimed you sound when you were foolish in order to avoid taking part in the long, slow, slogging effort that is the only route to genuine maturity of mind and feeling. Thus, it was no small anomaly of your growing up that while you were the most indulged generation, you were also in many ways the most abandoned to your own meager devices by those into whose safe-keeping you had been given.

Children are curious and are risk takers. They have lots of courage. They venture out into a world that is read more

Children are curious and are risk takers. They have lots of courage. They venture out into a world that is immense and dangerous. A child initially trusts life and the processes of life.

Children have more need of models than of critics.

Children have more need of models than of critics.

A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.

A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.