The loss of a child is my greatest nightmare.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

I want kids. I want a soccer team, and I want a husband.

I had to make a choice at one point in my life, of missing films or missing my children. It was a very easy decision to make because I missed my children so very much.

If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency.

He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.

I became the kind of parent my mother was to me.

See, people are watching you. Especially your children. They’re taking in every single thing you do. They are like video cameras with legs. And they are always in the record mode. They learn more from what you do than from what you say.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

Tell the children the truth.

What I tell my kids is, ‚I’m preparing you for college and for life. So, having independence, knowing how to set your own boundaries, figuring out how to make that balance. We still have screen-time rules.‘

One has children in the expectation of dying before them. In fact, you want to make damn sure you die before them, just as you plant a tree or build a house knowing, hoping that it will outlive you. That’s how the human species has done as well as it has.

I’m not great at bedtime stories. Bedtime stories are supposed to put the kid to sleep. My kid gets riled up and then my wife has to come in and go, ‚All right! Get out of the room.‘

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

As a father and now a grandfather to three wonderful grandchildren, I know how magical the first year of a child’s life is but also how much hard work it takes. Being able to spend as much time as possible with your loved ones is absolutely vital, especially early on.

I’m sure most parents read to their children to explain what certain things mean. So books are a good way to convey a message to anybody. Everybody reads.

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

I do not think that I am a natural born mother… If I ever wanted to mother anyone, it was my father.

The deep, personal material of the latter half of your life is your children. You can write about your parents when they’re gone, but your children are still going to be here, and you’re going to want them to come and visit you in the nursing home.

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

Giving responsibility is the key to success with boys, especially with the rowdiest and most difficult boys.

My daughter doesn’t even get my humor. She’s like, ‚Um, no. I don’t get it, Dad. Mmm, no, not that one, Dad.‘

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

My three children have brought me great joy.

If you’re the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I’m a parent. I have daughters.

When Clark Gable died, I cried for 2 days straight. I couldn’t eat or sleep.

Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.

When the people you love are gone, you’re alone.

I’ve always put everybody else’s child first before my own health, before my own outfit, before my own time frame.

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

I love being a dad. I just love it.

I’ve worked with children all my life.

In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced in television.

You send a boy to school in order to make friends – the right sort.

When we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children.

My son’s full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler, he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off.

I’ve told Billy if I ever caught him cheating, I wouldn’t kill him because I love his children and they need a dad. But I would beat him up. I know where all of his sports injuries are.

With the amount of money I have, it’s difficult raising children the way I was raised.

When your mother asks, ‚Do you want a piece of advice?‘ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.

Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children.

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

My children, to the extent that they have found religion, have found it from me, in that I insist on at least a modicum of religious education for them.

I don’t take pictures when I’m with my kids, for the sake of my kids. It’s important when you’re as busy as I am that you give your kids your time when you’re with them, and nothing compromises that. I’ve been lucky enough to have fans that understand that.

The kids are a big part of my schedule.

Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors, but we also want them to be around film and be a part of Mommy and Daddy’s life and for it not to be kept from them, either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it.

I have spent so much time and so much energy making other people’s children stars.

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.

The childcare tax credit makes some sense.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

If I were a woman, I would love to have lots of kids. But for men, I don’t believe in it.

You learn that there’s no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. It’s just what you feel comfortable with, to trust that, and don’t let anybody box you in to a certain style of parenting or make you feel a certain way about what your kids do.

I’m just wanting to make the proper breakfast and keep the house. That’s my passion. At the request of my kids, I’m taking cooking classes. As I go to sleep at night, I think, ‚Did I do a great job as a mom, or was that an average day?‘

I take my kids to school. And if I go to work, I go to work, and they visit me on set. I come home. I have dinner with my family. I have breakfast with my family. I have a very solid, very warm home.

We can’t form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

When I take my kid to school, all the parents stop and stare.

Your children will see what you’re all about by what you live rather than what you say.

When I’m around the kids I feel like I act the most grown-up just because you’re supposed to. And I say things, like every other day, that remind me of my own parents.

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.

Ultimately this issue is on us. We’re the ones who make the decisions about what our kids eat.