100 Inspirational Quotes About Parenting to Guide and Uplift You

"But kids don't stay with you if you do it right. It's the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won't be needed in the long run."

- Barbara Kingsolver

"There is no such thing as a perfect parent. So just be a real one."

- Sue Atkins

"Parents are the ultimate role models for children. Every word, movement, and action has an effect. No other person or outside force has a greater influence on a child than the parent."

- Bob Keeshan

"The most precious jewels you'll ever have around your neck are the arms of your children."

- Cardinal Mermillod

"Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work."

- C.S. Lewis

"When you hold your baby in your arms the first time, and you think of all the things you can say and do to influence him, it's a tremendous responsibility. What you do with him can influence not only him, but everyone he meets and not for a day or a month or a year but for time and eternity."

- Rose Kennedy

"Being a parent means loving your children more than you've ever loved yourself."

- Drew Barrymore

"To be in your children's memories tomorrow, You have to be in their lives today."

- Barbara Johnson

"Your children need your presence more than your presents."

- Jesse Jackson

"The best kind of parent you can be is to lead by example."

- Drew Barrymore

"There is no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one."

- Jill Churchill

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Parenting is the easiest thing in the world to have an opinion about, but the hardest thing in the world to do."

- Matt Walsh

"The best thing to spend on your children is time."

- Louise Hart

"A child's mind is not a container to be filled but rather a fire to be kindled."

- Dorothea Brande

"There’s no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one."

- Jill Churchill

"A baby is born with a need to be loved — and never outgrows it."

- Frank A. Clark

"Children are great imitators, so give them something great to imitate."

- John Wooden

"The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to children."

- Elaine Heffner

"It's not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings."

- Ann Landers

"Parenting is about guiding your children to discover their own paths, not paving the way for them."

- Lisa Wingate

"It is one thing to show your child the way, and a harder thing to then stand out of it."

- Robert Brault

"Children do not need us to shape them. They need us to respond to who they are."

- Naomi Aldort

"Your children will become who you are, so be who you want them to be."

- David Bly

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

- Oscar Wilde

"A mother's love is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking. It never fails or falters, even though the heart is breaking."

- Helen Rice

"The most beautiful thing in the world is to see your children smiling, and knowing that you are the reason behind that smile."

- John Wooden

"Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger's touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body. But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child. That thing that says "I am," and forms the core of personality. In the second year, the bone hardens and the child stands upright, skull wide and solid, a helmet protecting the softness within. And "I am" grows, too. Looking at them, you can almost see it, sturdy as heartwood, glowing through the translucent flesh. The bones of the face emerge at six, and the soul within is fixed at seven. The process of encapsulation goes on, to reach its peak in the glossy shell of adolescence, when all softness then is hidden under the nacreous layers of the multiple new personalities that teenagers try on to guard themselves. In the next years, the hardening spreads from the center, as one finds and fixes the facets of the soul, until "I am" is set, delicate and detailed as an insect in amber."

- Diana Gabaldon

"It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless."

- L.R. Knost

"Perhaps it takes courage to raise children.."

- John Steinbeck

"Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil."

- Walt Disney

"My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me."

- Jim Valvano

"Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society."

- Benjamin Franklin

"It's right to talk about motherhood as a wonderful thing, but we also need to talk about its stresses and strains. It's OK not to find it easy. Asking for help should not be seen as a sign of weakness."

- Kate Middleton

"Children are not things to be molded, but are people to be unfolded."

- Jess Lair

"The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice."

- Peggy O’Mara

"The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them."

- Frank A. Clark

"The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family."

- Mother Teresa

"Raising a child is like planting a seed and watching it grow into a beautiful flower."

- Lisa Wingate

"The best part about being a parent is the moment you realize you wouldn't want your life any other way."

- John Wooden

"Children learn more from what you are than what you teach."

- W.E.B. Du Bois

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

- Elizabeth Stone

"Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands."

- Anne Frank

"Parenting is not a perfect journey, but a perfect opportunity to love and guide your child."

- Peter Krause

"Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you."

- Robert Fulghum

"The greatest gift a father can give his children is to love their mother."

- John Wooden

"Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression."

- Dr. Haim Ginott

"Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they're already asleep."

- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children."

- Charles R. Swindoll

"Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk."

- Carl Jung

"If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much."

- Jackie Kennedy

"We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves."

- Henry Ward Beecher

"Children are our second chance to have a great parent-child relationship."

- Laura Schlessinger

"Children should have enough freedom to be themselves - once they've learned the rules."

- Anna Quindlen

"My children are the reason I laugh, smile and want to get up every morning."

- Gena Lee Nolin

"Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws."

- Barbara Kingsolver

"The way that we talk to our children becomes their inner voice."

- Peggy O’Mara

"Parenting is about raising and celebrating the child you have, not the child you thought you’d have."

- Brené Brown

"Parenthood. It's about guiding the next generation and forgiving the last."

- Peter Krause

"Parenting is about raising and celebrating the child you have, not the child you thought you'd have."

- Brené Brown

"Making the decision to have a child — it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

- Elizabeth Stone

"When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions, it's our job to share our calm, not join their chaos."

- L.R. Knost

"Speak to your children as if they are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful and magical humans on earth, for what they believe is what they will become."

- Brooke Hampton

"Don't tell your kids, 'I'm proud of you.' tell them, 'You should be proud of yourself'."

- Kristen Welch

"There's no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one."

- Jill Churchill

"The moment you begin to actively discover the amazing personhood of your child, parenting starts to feel like less of a burden and more of an adventure."

- Angela Pruess

"It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings."

- Ann Landers

"Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them."

- Bill Ayers

"Parenting is the art of guiding a child to discover the world while rediscovering it through their innocent eyes, and in doing so, finding the magic in everyday moments."

- Diane Loomans

"It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours."

- Joyce Maynard

"The beauty of parenthood lies in the ability to witness your child's firsts and be a part of their every moment, creating a tapestry of memories that lasts a lifetime."

- Sharon Jaynes

"Parenting is a grand adventure, a journey of self-discovery, resilience, and the pure joy of witnessing a little soul blossom into its unique brilliance."

- Sarah Ban Breathnach

"There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child."

- Henry Ward Beecher

"Parenting is a dance between making memories and letting go, a delicate balance of holding on and encouraging your child to soar to new heights."

- Karen Salmansohn

"A mother's love is endless; it goes beyond words, time, and distance."

- Preeti Shenoy

"Parenthood is a sacred privilege, a profound responsibility, and a boundless wellspring of unconditional love that knows no bounds."

- Michael Josephson

"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do."

- Benjamin Spock

"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."

- James Baldwin

"Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness. For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable."

- Kahlil Gibran

"I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway... let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves."

- C. JoyBell C.

"Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you've done will have mattered as much."

- Lisa Wingate

"What it's like to be a parent: It's one of the hardest things you'll ever do but in exchange it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love."

- Nicholas Sparks

"Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did - that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that - a parent's heart bared, beating forever outside its chest."

- Debra Ginsberg

"We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents."

- Emilie Buchwald

"I don't remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don't even know exist until you love a child."

- Anne Lamott

"The best way to raise positive children in a negative world is to have positive parents who love them unconditionally and serve as excellent role models."

- Zig Ziglar

"Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation."

- Robert A. Heinlein

"Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were."

- Haruki Murakami

"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."

- Carl Sandburg

"If your kid needs a role model and you ain't it, you're both fucked."

- George Carlin

"Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder."

- Rumi

"The best parenting advice I can give: Do less. Seriously. Just stop — right now — and don't do a thing."

- Heather Wittenberg

"In raising my children, I have lost my mind but found my soul."

- Lisa T. Shepherd

"I feel very blessed to have two wonderful, healthy children who keep me completely grounded, sane and throw up on my shoes just before I go to an awards show just so I know to keep it real."

- Reese Witherspoon

"Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children."

- George Bernard Shaw

"There's really no point in having children if you're not going to be home enough to father them."

- Anthony Edwards

"It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding."

- Erma Bombeck

"Parenting is about guiding the next generation, and forgiving the last."

- Peter Krause

"You will always be your child's favorite toy."

- Vicki Lansky

"We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change."

- Henry Cloud

"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection."

- Sigmund Freud

"Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life."

- Sophocles

"Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence."

- Plato

"I don't think children's inner feelings have changed. They still want a mother and father in the very same house; they want places to play."

- Beverly Cleary

"I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less."

- Anna Quindlen

"No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement."

- Florida Scott-Maxwell

"How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted."

- Walter Scott

"A mother who is really a mother is never free."

- Honore de Balzac

"To be a good father and mother requires that the parents defer many of their own needs and desires in favor of the needs of their children. As a consequence of this sacrifice, conscientious parents develop a nobility of character and learn to put into practice the selfless truths taught by the Savior Himself."

- James E. Faust

"Childhood is a short season."

- Helen Hayes

"We set out to have a baby; what we get is a total take-over of our lives."

- Polly Berrien Berends

"Childhood obesity is best tackled at home through improved parental involvement, increased physical exercise, better diet and restraint from eating."

- Bob Filner

"Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process."

- John F. Kennedy

"Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them."

- P. J. O’Rourke

"Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth."

- Peter Ustinov

"I want to have children, but my friends scare me. One of my friends told me she was in labor for 36 hours. I don't even want to do anything that feels good for 36 hours."

- Rita Rudner

"My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it."

- Quentin Crisp

"Any kid will run any errand for you, if you ask at bedtime."

- Red Skelton

"To me luxury is to be at home with my daughter, and the occasional massage doesn't hurt."

- Olivia Newton John

"Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth."

- Erma Bombeck

"Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore."

- Ogden Nash

"To be in your children's memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today."