Carol Laspina > Carol's Quotes

“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.”
― Peggy O'Mara

“Even before i had children, I knew that being a parent was going to be challenging as well as rewarding. But I didn't really know.
I didn't know how exhausted it was possible to become, or how clueless it was possible to feel, or how, each time I reached the end of my rope, I would somehow have to find more rope.
I didn't understand that sometimes when your kids scream so loudly that the neighbors are ready to call the Department of Child Services, it's because you've served the wrong shape of pasta for dinner.
I didn't realize that those deep-breathing exercises mothers are taught in natural-childbirth class dont really start to pay off until long after the child is out.
I couldn't have predicted how relieved I'd be to learn that other peoples children struggle with the same issues, and act in some of the same ways, mine do. (Even more liberating is the recognition that other parents, too, have dark moments when they catch themselves not liking their own child, or wondering whether it's all worth it, or entertaining various other unspeakable thoughts).
The bottom line is that raising kids is not for whimps.”
― Alfie Kohn, Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason

“While it's certainly true that raising children is a big job and certainly has emotional resonance, it's really hard to intellectually justify the belief that you're adding something important to the world by adding more people to pollute the planet and compete for opportunities that become more precious as the number of people vying for a chance grows.”
― Amanda Marcotte

“Throughout history, the most brutal cultures have always been distinguished by maternal-infant separation.”
― Antonella Gambotto-Burke, Mama: Love, Motherhood and Revolution

“Children can be told anything—anything. I've always been struck by seeing how little grown-up people understand children, how little parents even understand their own children. Nothing should be concealed from children on the pretext that they are little and that it is too early for them to understand. What a miserable and unfortunate idea! And how readily the children detect that their fathers consider them too little to understand anything, though they understand everything. Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

“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

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”
― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

“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.

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“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

“To be in your children's memories tomorrow,
You have to be in their lives today.”
― Barbara Johnson

“The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.”
― Dorothy Parker

“That's the nature of being a parent, Sabine has discovered. You'll love your children far more than you ever loved your parents, and -- in the recognition that your own children cannot fathom the depth of your love -- you come to understand the tragic, unrequited love of your own parents.”
― Ursula Hegi

“Perhaps it takes courage to raise children..”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Be sure to lie to your kids about the benevolent, all-seeing Santa Claus. It will prepare them for an adulthood of believing in God.”
― Scott Dikkers, You Are Worthless: Depressing Nuggets of Wisdom Sure to Ruin Your Day

“stay strong through your pain
grow flowers from it
you have helped me
grow flowers out of mine so
bloom beautifully
dangerously
loudly
bloom softly
however you need
just bloom”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and honey

“Every time you
tell your daughter
you yell at her
out of love
you teach her to confuse
anger with kindness
which seems like a good idea
till she grows up to
trust men who hurt her
cause they look so much
like you.”
― Rupi Kaur

“you tell me to quiet down cause my opinions make me less beautiful but i was not made with a fire in my belly so i could be put out i was not made with a lightness on my tongue so i could be easy to swallow i was made heavy half blade and half silk difficult to forget and not easy for the mind to follow”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey

“i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautiful
before i’ve called them intelligent or brave
i am sorry i made it sound as though
something as simple as what you’re born with
is all you have to be proud of
when you have broken mountains with your wit
from now on i will say things like
you are resilient, or you are extraordinary
not because i don’t think you’re beautiful
but because i need you to know
you are more than that”
― Rupi Kaur

“most importantly love
like it's the only thing you know how
at the end of the day all this
means nothing
this page
where you're sitting
your degree
your job
the money
nothing even matters
except love and human connection
who you loved
and how deeply you loved them
how you touched the people around you
and how much you gave them”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and honey

“how is it so easy for you to be kind to people he asked milk and honey dripped from my lips as i answered cause people have not been kind to me”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey

“i have what i have and i am happy i’ve lost what i’ve lost and i am still happy - outlook”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey

“fall
in love
with your solitude”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and honey

“the world gives you so much pain and here you are making gold out of it
- there is nothing purer than that”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and honey

“apparently it is ungraceful of me
to mention my period in public
cause the actual biology
of my body is too real

it is okay to sell what's
between a woman's legs
more than it is okay to
mention its inner workings

the recreational use of
this body is seen as
beautiful while
its nature is
seen as ugly”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and honey