“Many parents make mistakes with their children, thinking they know what's best for them.”

“The beauty of “spacing” children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones — which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones.”

“Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.”

“Many parents as well as teachers refuse to place this responsibility upon children for fear of the mistakes that they will make. On account of this fear they make it as nearly as possible unnecessary for children to judge freely, by giving them arbitrary rules to follow, or by directing them exactly what they shall do each moment. This cultivates poor judgment by depriving children of the very practice that will make their judgments reliable; it prevents the school requirements from corresponding to those in life outside.”

“What is the greatest mistake a parent can make?' she asked. 'To believe that your children will be just like you.”

“We all know that parents do not make children but that children make parents…Authentic parenting is one long sacrificial act…parenting reveals the way that sacrifice at once diminishes our life as we knew it…while at the same time revealing to us larger and infinitely more fascinating forms of life…Parents know experientially that the very process which makes them suffer also makes them grow.”