Family & Children

A child's life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark. (Chinese Proverb)

Children are in our lives to teach us about hanging in.

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. (Carl Sandburg)

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. (Harrry Truman)

Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child. (Mary MacCracken)

Making a decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. (Elizabeth Stone)

One hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in my bank account, nor what my clothes looked like, but the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child. (Audrey Jeanne Roberts)

And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Cor 6:18)

If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much. (Jackie Kennedy)

A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.

I learned about stress management from my kids. Every night after work, I drink some chocolate milk, eat sugary cereal straight from the box, then run around the house in my underwear screaming like a monkey. (Randy Glasbergen)

We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve years telling them to sit down and shut up. (Phyllis Diller)

Discipline your son, and he will give you peace, he will bring delight to your soul. (Proverbs 29:17)

A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it. (Frank A. Clark)

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap. (Barbara Jordan)

If you then, as earthly as you are, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask him? (Matthew 7:11)

There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience. (Anatole Broyard)

It is not giving children more that spoils them; it is giving them more to avoid confrontation. (John Gray, "Children Are From Heaven")

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. (Jane Howard, "Families")

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. (George Burns)

Kids are like Legos, lots of fun to make, but sooner or later, they only end up messing up the house.

Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your own children.

Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare. (Ed Asner)

There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. (Chinese Proverb)

A pat on the back will develop character if given hard enough, often enough, and low enough.

There are two lasting things we can give our children - roots and wings.

Hold your child's hand every chance you get.

Children tend to rise to the level of their parents' expectations.

Wrinkles are hereditary - parents get them from their children.

Nothing makes a child as smart as having grandparents.

It is not at his mother's knees, but across them, that a youngster learns his best lessons.

The best coaches are always in the stands.

Mothers hold their children's hands for just a little while... and their hearts forever.

God could not be everywhere and therefore He made mothers. (Jewish Proverb)

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. (Thackeray, "Vanity Fair")

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

Children are a poor man's wealth. (Danish Proverb)

A family is a unit composed not only of children, but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold. (Ogden Nash)

Father asked us what was God's noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are. (Louisa May Alcott)

Small children give you headaches; big children heartaches. (Russian Proverb)

Be nice to your kids; they'll choose your nursing home.

The things about my mother that I resented as a boy are the things that I am most grateful for as a man. (Andy Horner, founder of Premier Designs)

A family tradition is when you do the same old thing - only it's still fun.

Being a grandparent is vastly different from being a parent. I'm not raising these sweet babies - they have their own Mommy and Daddy who are doing an expert job. That leaves me free to just enrich their lives. In other words, I don't need to bake the cake, I can just apply the icing. (Suzanne Dale Ezell)

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.

The main purpose of holding children's parties is to remind you that there are children more awful than your own.

If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: "Take two aspirin" and "Keep away from children."

As a young mother, I asked the Lord to teach me of Himself and of myself through my children. He gave me eight children. Apparently, I had a lot to learn. (Helen Widger Middlebrooke, Lessons for A Super Mom)

We childproofed our homes, but they are still getting in.

Mothers of teens now undershand why some animals eat their young.

Lessons Learned From My Children:

1. A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 square foot house 4 inches deep.

2. If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and roll over them with rollerblades, they can ignite.

3. If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42-pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.

4. When you hear the toilet flush and someone says "uh oh," it's already too late.

5. Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it. (Please don't try to prove this at your house)

6. Most Legos can pass through the digestive tract of a 4-year old.

7. Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same sentence.

8. Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.

9. Always look in the oven before you turn it on.

10. Cats throw up twice their body weight when made dizzy by going through the spin cycle on the washing machine.

Mommy Test

I was out walking with my then 4 year old daughter. She picked up something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I asked her not to do that. "Why?"

"Because it's been laying outside and it is dirty and probably has germs."

At this point, she looked at me with total admiration and asked, "Wow! How do you know all this stuff?"

Uh," I was thinking quickly, "...all moms know this stuff. Um, it's on the Mommy Test. You have to know it, or they don't let you be a Mommy."

We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.

Oh...I get it!" she beamed,  "So if you flunk, you have to be the Daddy."