Inspiring Parenting Quotes
Parents wrote these parenting quotes for parents.
As many of you know, and some will discover, being a parent can be hard and challenging work. Feedings in the middle of a sleepless night, tending to a sick child, the terrible twos, and more are just some of the challenges parents face.
It doesn’t get any easier as children age into teenagers and older. But the rewards are off the charts!
Parenting is one of those rare things that seems to get continually better with each passing day. Check out our quotes on parents and see if you find something you can relate to, either for your parents or your children.
Parenting Quotes For Those Days That Try Your Soul
There is no one like your parents. No one can take their place, and no one can love you like your parents. Only a parent can shower unconditional love on you.
They have the biggest impact on you. It is not the best schooling but great parenting that makes men and women great. The importance of parenting can’t be overstated. As you review this collection, you may have a greater appreciation for your own parents and other folks going through parenthood.
Quotes About Parents
Behind every young child who believes in himself is a parent who believed first.
Matthew Jacobson
We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.
Henry Ward Beecher
God blessed me with two unbelievable parents, and I am just like both of them. I have the smile and charisma of my mother and the big heart of my mom because she wants to save the world and help the world, so I am just like her.
Magic Johnson
My parents are my backbone. Still are. They’re the only group that will support you if you score zero or you score 40.
Kobe Bryant
Parental love is the only love that is truly selfless, unconditional, and forgiving.
Dr. T.P. Chia
Parents are like God because you wanna know they’re out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something.
Chuck Palahniuk
When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.
Mitch Albom
Treat your parents with loving care, you will only know their value when you see their empty chair.
Author Unknown
The depth of the love of parents for their children cannot be measured. It is like no other relationship. It exceeds concern for life itself. The love of a parent for a child is continuous and transcends heartbreak and disappointment.
James E. Faust

Parent Quotes
Never Complain About What Your Parents Couldn’t Give You. It Was Probably All They Had.
Author Unknown
No language can express the power, and beauty, and heroism, and majesty of a mother’s love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over wastes of worldly fortunes sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star.
Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Appreciate your parents. You never know what sacrifices they went through for you.
Author Unknown
A father’s goodness is higher than the mountain, a mother’s goodness deeper than the sea.
Japanese Proverb
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
At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child’s success is the positive involvement of parents.
Jane D. Hull
Love is giving your kids your undivided attention and time.
Kevin Heath
Parenthood…it’s about guiding the next generation and forgiving the last.
Peter Krause
Raising Kids
Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents.
Abraham Lincoln
By the time I realized my parents were right, I had kids that didn’t believe me.
Hussein Nishah
No matter how far we come, our parents are always in us.
Brad Meltzer
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
Parents were the only ones obligated to love you; from the rest of the world, you had to earn it.
Author Unknown
Parents face enormous pressure from the moms and dads around them and themselves. But don’t let it get to you.
Jane Goodall
There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.
Henry Ward Beecher
Parenting Quotes
A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.
Billy Graham
The best inheritance a parent can give to his children is a few minutes of their time each day.
M. Grundler
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
By loving them for more than their abilities, we show our children that they are much more than the sum of their accomplishments.
Eileen Kennedy-Moore
Parents must get across the idea that I love you always, but sometimes I do not love your behavior.
Amy Vanderbilt
We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Do not educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy. So when they grow up, they will know the value of things, not the price.
Author Unknown
A good father is a source of inspiration and self-restraint. A good mother is the root of kindness and humbleness.
Dr T.P.Chia
Educating Your Children Quotations
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity, there is beauty, and there is strength.
Maya Angelou
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
To be in your children’s memories tomorrow,
You have to be in their lives today.
Barbara Johnson
If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent, and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.
Brian Tracy
Teach your children to say you’re sorry and to forgive. Actions are greater teachers than words.
Andy Atticus
Funny Parenting Quotes
People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.
Leo Burke
I got a lot of support from my parents. That’s the one thing I always appreciated. They didn’t tell me I was being stupid; they told me I was being funny.
Jim Carrey
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
Having children is like living in a frat house – nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up.z
Ray Romano
Parenthood: The scariest hood you’ll ever go through.
Unknown
The first 40 years of parenthood are always the hardest.
Unknown
One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.
Jane Goodall
You might enjoy our hilarious jokes page.
Humorous
Hostage Negotiator: Another job that’s less stressful than being a parent.
Unknown
Parenting without a sense of humor is like being an accountant without a sense of math.
Unknown
You know you’re a mom when you understand why the mother bear’s porridge was cold.
Unknown
Patience: What parents have when there are too many witnesses.
Unknown
You know your life has changed when going to the grocery store by yourself is a vacation.
Unknown
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.
Franklin P. Adams
Step-Parent Quotes
Stepparents are not around to replace a biological parent, rather to augment a child’s life experience.
Azriel Johnson
Step-parenting and being a step-sibling present a lot of exciting opportunities. When families break up and re-form, there may be less order, less certainty, and a bit more trauma involved, but kids can end up having half-a-dozen parent figures.
Morris Gleitzman
If I could choose from all the stepdads in the world, I’d choose you!
Unknown
It takes a strong man to accept somebody else’s children and step up to the plate another man left on the table.
Ray Johnson
Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a stepdad.
Author Unknown
Step-parenting is like working at a late-night convenience store…all of the responsibility and none of the authority.
Valerie J Lewis Coleman
For better or worse, step-parenting is self-conscious parenting. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
Author Unknown
Single Parent Quotes
Being a single parent is twice the work, twice the stress, and twice the tears but also twice the hugs, twice the love and twice the pride.
Author Unknown
A single mom tries when things are hard. She never gives up. She believes in her family, even when things are tough – She knows that, above all things… a mother’s love is more than enough.
Deniece Williams
I’m a single parent, a working mother, an executive, and an author. My greatest accomplishment will be to raise three wonderful children.
Ivana Trump
Single moms: You are a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a maid, a cook, a referee, a heroine, a provider, a defender, a protector, a true Superwoman. Wear your cape proudly.
Mandy Hale
The best situation is being a single parent. The best part about is that you get time off, too, because the kids are with their mom, so it’s the best of both worlds. There’s a lot to be said for it.
Larry David
I didn’t plan on being a single mom, but you have to deal with the cards you are dealt the best way you can.
Tichina Arnold
I can understand why a single parent, working two jobs, would find it easier to stop at McDonald’s with the kids rather than cook something from scratch at home.
Eric Schlosser
Being a Parent Quotes
It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
Roald Dahl
One of the greatest titles in the world is parents, and one of the biggest blessings in the world is to have parents to call mom and dad.
Jim DeMint
Parenthood: That state of being better chaperoned than you were before marriage.
Marcelene Cox
Creating a child takes no love or skill; being a parent requires lots of both.
Michael Josephson
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
You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around — and why his parents will always wave back.
William D. Tammeus
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
There is no such thing as a perfect parent. So just be a real one.
Sue Atkins
No one is ever quite ready; everyone is always caught off guard. Parenthood chooses you.
Marisa De Los Santos
Growing Up Sayings
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
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
Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.
Robert A. Heinlein
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
Children don’t think about yesterday, and they don’t think about tomorrow. They just exist in the moment.
Jessalyn Gilsig
Guidelines for Parent-Child Relationships from the Child Development Institute
Parental Love
It is the sunlight of parental love and encouragement that enables a child to grow in competence and slowly gain mastery over his environment.
Felicity Bauer
Parenting is a lifetime job and does not stop when a child grows up.
Jake Slope
The point of parenting is not to have all the answers before we start out but instead to figure it out on the go as our children grow. Because as they do, so will we.
Bridgett Miller
Good parenting is subjective, and the same tips don’t work for all people.
Brandi Rossi
Raising Children Quotes
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 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
With the amount of money I have, it’s difficult raising children the way I was raised.
Adam Sandler
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
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
When you have brought up kids, there are memories you store directly in your tear ducts.
Robert Brault
As your kids grow, they may forget what you said, but won’t forget how you made them feel.
Kevin Heath
I think that enduring, committed love between a married couple, along with raising children, is the most noble act anyone can aspire to. It is not written about very much.
Nicholas Sparks
The Apple Doesn’t Fall From the Tree
Children don’t need more things. The best toys a child can have is a parent who gets down on the floor and plays with them.
Bruce Perry
Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.
John Wilmot
To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.
Josh Billings
So often, children are punished for being human. Children are not allowed to have grumpy moods, bad days, disrespectful tones, or bad attitudes, yet we adults have them all the time. None of us are perfect. We must stop holding our children to a higher standard of perfection than we can attain ourselves.
Rebecca Eanes
Raising children is an uncertain thing; success is reached only after a life of battle and worry.
Democritus
Inspirational Parenting Quotes
Don’t worry that children never listen to you: worry that they are always watching you.
Robert Fulghum
Parenting is not for sissies. You have to sacrifice and grow up.
Jullian Michaels
Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.
Charles R. Swindoll
The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.
Peggy O’Mara
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
James Baldwin
Positive Parenting Quotes
Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child’s life and it’s like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities.
Gary Smalley
Always kiss your children goodnight – even if they’re already asleep.
H. Jackson Brown
A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to.
Robert Brault
Parents need to fill a child’s bucket of self-esteem so high that the rest of the world can’t poke enough holes to drain it dry.
Alvin Price
You know more than you think you do.
Benjamin Spock
Amusing Parenting Quotes
If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?”
Milton Berle
Why don’t kids understand their nap is not for them but for us?
Alyson Hannigan
When your “mom voice” is so loud even the neighbors brush their teeth and get dressed.
Unknown
The quickest way for a parent to get a child’s attention is to sit down and look comfortable.
Lane Olinghouse
Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.
Phyllis Diller
Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.
Peter Ustinov
Becoming a mom to me means that you have accepted that for the next 16 years of your life, you will have a sticky purse.
Nia Vardalos
Parenting Quotes from Celebrities
It just occurred to me that the majority of my diet is made up of the foods that my kid didn’t finish.
Carrie Underwood
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
When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.
Nora Ephron
A 2-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it.
Jerry Seinfeld
I thought I’d never be the annoying person, but as soon as Winnie was born, I was showing iPhone snaps to a cab driver.
Jimmy Fallon
Parenting Rules
The Golden Rule of Parenting is do unto your children as you wish your parents had done unto you!
Louise Hart
Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.
Carl Jung
Do not worry that children never listen to you. Worry that they are always watching you.
Robert Fulgham
To be in your children’s memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today.
Barbara Johnson
Having a parent who listens creates a child who believes he or she has a voice that matters in this world.
Rachel Macy Stafford
Be the calm you want to see in your child.
Renee Jain
Too much love never spoils children. Children become spoiled when we substitute presents for presence.
Anthony Withman
By Mike O’Halloran
Mike is an author, editor of Greeting Card Poet, and the father to four daughters.
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