Parenthood

If a parent pictures for a child that his or her value in life is low, that child will find it difficult to rise above these words.
~ William S. Appleton

Having children is a big responsibility and I don't want to make a mess out of it. I don't want my son thinking that I care more for booze than I care for him. If you have children, you don't want to have drugs and drinks in the house. You know they might reach it. It's just not good.
~ Billie Joe Armstrong, New York Rock magazine (April 1998). Interview with Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day

Don't demand respect, as a parent. Demand civility and insist on honesty. But respect is something you must earn -- with kids as well as with adults.
~ William Attwood, Making It Through Middle Age: Notes While In Transit (1982).

The most important financial bequest to your heirs will not be cold hard cash, but rather the ability to save, spend, and invest prudently.
~ William J. Bernstein, The Investor's Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between (2009). Chapter 6. Building Your Portfolio

The role of parent is unique. ... Affection without sentiment, authority without cruelty, discipline without aggression, humor without ridicule, sacrifice without obligation, companionship without possessiveness.
~ William E. Blatz, Understanding The Young Child (1944).

Becoming a father isn't difficult,
But it's very difficult to be a father.
~ Wilhelm Busch, Julchen (1877)

In attempting to raise children without two parents, we are seeing, on a massive scale, the voluntary breakup of the minimal family unit. This is historically unprecedented, an authentic cultural revolution and, I believe, socially calamitous.
~ William J. Bennett, The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family (2001). Chapter II: The Family in History

Before a son's dishonor, a father's love stands dumb.
~ William McKendree ("Will") Carleton, from Farm Festivals (1881). The Festival Of Reunion; Or, The Golden Wedding

Even though your kids will consistently do the exact opposite of what you're telling them to do, you have to keep loving them just as much.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986).

A baseball manager has learned a lot about his job from having played the game, but a parent has not learned a thing from having once been a child.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986). Chapter 1

And to those people with no children but who think they'd like to have them some day to fulfill their lives. Remember: With fulfillment comes responsibility.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986). Preface

Every father says the same thing: "Where's your mother?"
~ Bill Cosby, from Bill Cosby: Himself (1983 film, at the Hamilton Place Theatre in Hamilton, Ontario).

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986).

If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent change of being right.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986). Chapter 5

In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck -- and, of course, courage.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986). Chapter 1

My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own fatherhood, but it didn't because parenting can only be learned by people who have no children.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986).

No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986). Chapter 4

Parents aren't interested in justice -- they want quiet!
~ Bill Cosby, from Bill Cosby: Himself (1983 film, at the Hamilton Place Theatre in Hamilton, Ontario).

Poets have said that the reason to have children is to give yourself immortality. Immortality? Now that I have five children, my only hope is that they are all out of the house before I die.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986).

The childless experts on child raising also bring tears of laughter to my eyes when they say, "I love children because they're so honest." There is not an agent in the CIA or the KGB who knows how to conceal the theft of food, how to fake being asleep, or how to forge a parent's signature like a child.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986). Chapter 5

The mother may be doing ninety percent of the disciplining, but the father still must have a full-time acceptance of all the children. He never must say, "Get these kids out of here; I'm trying to watch TV." If he ever does start saying this, he is liable to see one of his kids on the six o'clock news.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986). Chapter 14

We were well prepared for natural childbirth, which means that no drugs can be given to the female during delivery. The father, however, can have all he wants.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood (1986).

But strive still to be a man before your mother.
~ William Cowper, in the Connoisseur (11 March 1756). No. 111. Billy Suckling

Can a woman's tender care
Cease, towards the child she bare?
~ William Cowper, from Olney Hymns (1779). Book I: On Select Passages of Scripture. Lovest Thou Me?

The son of parents pass'd into the skies.
~ William Cowper, from Poems (1798). On Receipt Of My Mother's Picture (written in 1790)

Parents are trying to do the best they can for their children, and that can lead to karate lessons and piano lessons and more and more lessons. But you can end up with a situation where there's no time left for the family, which isn't in anyone's best interest. ... Instead of asking yourself if you're depriving your kids of opportunities, ask yourself: "Am I depriving them of important time to hang out with me?"
~ William Doherty, Ph.D., quoted in Parenting magazine (February 2003). Slow Down, Be Happy

My lovely living Boy,
My hope, my hap, my Love, my life, my joy.
~ Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weekes and Workes (1578). Second Week, Fourth Day. Book ii

Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.
~ William James "Will" Durant

My mother is a fish.
~ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (1930).

The secret of a great parenthood is the habit of incarnation.
~ William Byron Forbush, The Coming Generation (1912). Book I. Betterment Through the Home. Chapter I: The General Confusion

We have scarcely gotten home ... when our children's sneezes greet us, skinned knees bleed after waiting all day to do so.
~ William H. Gass, from Habitations of the Word (1985).

What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?
~ William Godwin, Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries (1831). Essay XV. Of Love and Friendship

For great is that pain, pains, cost, and care, which parents must undergo for their children. But if love be in them, no pain, pains, cost, or care, will seem too much.
~ William Gouge, Of Domestical Duties (1622).

A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.
~ Billy Graham

Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children.
~ Billy Graham, from The Hour of Decision (May 1953). The Influence of a Christian Mother

Yes, a mother is one thing that nobody can do without. And when you have harassed her, buffeted her about, tried her patience, and worn her out, and it seems that the end of the world is about to descend on you, then you can win her back with four little words, "Mom, I love you."
~ William A. Greenbaum, II

Trendy is emulating your children while they emulate your parents.
~ Bill Greenwell

It matters not that Time has shed
His thawless snow upon your head, --
For he maintains, with wondrous art,
Perpetual summer in your heart.
~ William Hamilton Hayne, from Sylvan Lyrics and Other Verses (1893). Quatrains: To My Father

[T]he perfect parent is simply the one who knows a good many of the right things to do in raising a child, and who more than half the time does the right thing instead of the wrong.
~ William E. Homan, Child Sense: A Guide To Loving, Level-Headed Parenthood (1969).

A man never sees all that his mother has been to him till it's too late to let her know that he sees it.
~ William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham (1884).

If you're a dad, what kind of mark are you leaving on your children, especially your sons? Do you realize that your little boys are watching you like hawks? They're trying to figure out what maleness is all about, and you're their model.
~ Bill Hybels, Honest To God? (1990). Dad's Mark

While civilization is effecting a dysgenic counter-selection of a mischievous kind, sterilizing the good stocks and encouraging the multiplication of the bad, we must be willing to make some sacrifice of comfort for the sake of eugenics.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, in The Nation (7 December 1921). Control of Parenthood--Moral Aspects

D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915).

Things just worked out in my benefit to lead me into the astronaut program. I think parental influence is probably the biggest motivator behind everything.
~ William C. "Willie" McCool, in The New York Times (2 February 2003). Profile: WILLIAM McCOOL

There is a beauty particular to adoption -- the mystical joining of souls that in retrospect seems foreordained -- but the beauty lies in the bewitching normalcy of it all. We feel the same sense of awe and wonder as other new moms and dads; we buy the same toys; and we bore all our friends with the same repertoire of stories.
~ William McGurn, in Notre Dame Magazine (Autumn 1997). The Gift of a Child

Parents have to be sane. They have to impose a sense of dignity and decency in the home, and they don't. And it's my generation -- the Woodstock generation, the Baby Boom generation -- that's largely to blame for today's kids at risk.
~ Bill O'Reilly, FoxNews Channel, The O'Reilly Factor (December 2003).

Do you know if your child has a home page? Do you know what is on your child's home page, or whom they talk with on the Internet? If not, please find out.
~ Bill Owens (formal GOP response to Pres. Clinton's weekly radio address), quoted in USA TODAY (27 April 1999). Tradegy in Colorado: GOP calls for 'youth and culture' talk

And he that is taught to live upon a little, owes more to his Father's Wisdom, than he that has a great deal left him, does to his Father's Care.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part II. Of Being Easy in Living

If thou wouldst be obeyed, being a father; being a son, be obedient.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part I. Obedience to Parents

A father's interest in having a child -- perhaps his only child -- may be unmatched by any other interest in life.
~ William H. Rehnquist

If any of us had a child that we thought was as bad as we know we are, we would have cause to start to worry.
~ Will Rogers

Of course if you like your kids, if you love them from the moment they begin, you yourself begin all over again, in them, with them, and so there is something more to the world again.
~ William Saroyan, Here Comes There Goes You Know Who (1961).

What can I tell you, except the stupid little I know? The crazy little that was right for me, and worked for me? I don't know anything else. Do you dig anything I'm saying?
~ William Saroyan, in Madness in the Family (1988). Twenty is the Greatest Time in Any Man's Life

Good wombs have borne bad sons.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act I, scene ii

It is a wise father that knows his own child.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act II, scene ii

[T]he sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act III, scene v

Parents just don't understand.
~ Will Smith

There's so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I've got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids, and doing the right thing as a father -- and how come that's not as newsworthy?
~ Will Smith, Entertainment Tonight (19 June 2001). Just the Two of Us

Someone will have to weed and spread
The young sprouts. Sprinkle them in the hour
When shadow falls across their bed.
You should try to look at them every day
Because when they come to full flower
I will be away.
~ William De Witt (W.D.) Snodgrass, Heart's Needle (1959). Heart's Needle

There is a mighty power in a mother's hand. There's more power in a woman's hand than there is in a king's scepter. And there is a mighty power in a mother's kiss - inspiration, courage, hope, ambition, in a mother's kiss. ... One kiss will drive away the fear in the dark and make the little one brave. It will give strength where there is weakness.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday, Motherhood (Sermon)

It used to be believed that the parent had unlimited claims on the child and rights over him. In a truer view of the matter, we are coming to see that the rights are on the side of the child and the duties on the side of the parent.
~ William Graham Sumner

There is no such reward for a well-spent life as to see one's children well-started in life, owing to their parents' good health, good principles, fixed character, good breeding -- in general the whole outfit, that enables them to fight the battle of life with success.
~ William Graham Sumner, in The Cosmopolitan Magazine (March 1888). The First Steps Toward A Millennium

For the sake of those who bear your name, let no bad action sully it.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Adventures of Philip (1862).

[I]s not a young mother one of the sweetest sights which life shows us?
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Newcomes (1853-55). Chapter XIII

All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle,
Is the hand that rules the world.
~ William Ross Wallace, What Rules The World (1865)

Fatherhood is but a small achievement at the best.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Poems of Power (1901). Woman to Man

Oh my word, man. It just comes to life for you as a parent. My goodness, no wonder Christmas has hung in there all these years, 'cause all these parents dig it.
~ Dana Williams, in Diamond Rio's Dana Williams Lights Up At Christmas Time (25 December 2001).

That's my buddy. I don't have him anymore. I have him in spirit and memory, but I can't touch him.
~ Robert Williams (on his teenage son, Ernie, who was gunned down by gang members), The Associated Press (23 November 2002). Vigil Held for L.A. Gang Victim

Here is a great woman
on her side in the bed.
She is sick,
perhaps vomiting,
perhaps laboring
to give birth to
a tenth child. Joy! Joy!
~ William Carlos Williams, from Sour Grapes (1921). Complaint

Parent and child are one glory.
~ Nathaniel Parker (N.P.) Willis, Out-doors at Idlewild; or, The Shaping of a Home on the Banks of the Hudson (1855). Letter XII

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl Of Rochester

Announcement from the proud parents of a baby daughter. "We have skirted the issue."
~ Earl Wilson

For the parents of a Little Leaguer, a baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown into innings.
~ Earl Wilson

Today's accent may be on youth, but the stress is still on the parents.
~ Earl Wilson

The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard.
~ Sloan Wilson, What Shall We Wear to This Party? (1976)

O dearest, dearest boy! my heart
For better lore would seldom yearn,
Could I but teach the hundredth part
Of what from thee I learn.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798). Anecdote for Fathers

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love and thought and joy.
~ William Wordsworth, The Sparrow's Nest (1801).