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.

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.

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.

Ah! what would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert read more

Ah! what would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before.

The child is father of the man.

The child is father of the man.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

Children have more need of models than of critics.

Children have more need of models than of critics.

Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death of a sparrow in the corner of read more

Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death of a sparrow in the corner of a barn. -Tom Savage.

things without defense: insects, kittens, small boys.

things without defense: insects, kittens, small boys.