It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

I don't know any parents that look into the eyes of a newborn baby and say, How can we screw read more

I don't know any parents that look into the eyes of a newborn baby and say, How can we screw this kid up.

For many children, joy comes as the result of mining something unique and wondrous about themselves from some inner shaft.

For many children, joy comes as the result of mining something unique and wondrous about themselves from some inner shaft.

Give me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.

Give me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.

Don't take up a man's time talking about the smartness of your children; he wants to talk to you about read more

Don't take up a man's time talking about the smartness of your children; he wants to talk to you about the smartness of his children.

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.

The trouble with children is that they are not returnable.

The trouble with children is that they are not returnable.

A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die read more

A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.

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.