200+ Inspirational and Funny Quotes about Parents

Last Updated July 4, 2024

Parents’ day is meant to express your love, care, and gratitude for your parents. Being the essence of nostalgia, the parents are the beauty of your present life and dream of your future. They look after you from when you open your eyes in this world. Wrapping you in the blanket of love, affection, and care, the parents teach you how to survive most efficiently in this world of hustle and rustle. They shape your future by teaching you how to successfully set your goals and achieve your dreams. The parents are willing to sacrifice anything for you. They don’t even think a single second before making priceless efforts for you. They are undoubtedly the embodiment of love and affection. They are never tired of forgiving your biggest mistakes and blunders in life. Send Parents’ Day wishes and greetings to your parents and people who have been like a parent to you. If you want to make Parents’ Day truly memorable for your parents, show them your love with words that will melt their hearts. Read the best collection of inspiring and sometimes funny parenting quotes by famous authors, celebrities, and newsmakers and make your pick:

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An Amazing Collection of Inspirational and Funny Parenting Quotes

Famous Quotes about Parenting

Images with Quotes about Parenting

An Amazing Collection of Inspirational and Funny Parenting Quotes

The problem with children is that you have to put up with their parents. – by Charles DeLint
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 they are wonderful. – by Roald Dahl, Matilda
Parenting is a stage of life’s journey where the milestones come about every fifty feet. – by Robert Brault
Affection without sentiment, authority without cruelty, discipline without aggression, humor without ridicule, sacrifice without obligation, companionship without possessiveness. – by William E. Blatz
He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. – by Bible Proverbs 13. 24
If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent. – by Bette Davis
There are times when parenthood seems nothing but feeding the mouth that bites you. – by Peter de Vries
If you want a baby, have a new one. Don’t baby the old one. – by Jessamyn West
It is pleasant for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak that he has planted. – by Walter Scott
Simply having children does not make mothers. – by John A. Shedd
On my parents’ scale of values, the more Western something was, the more cultured it was considered. – by Amos Oz
Getting down on all fours and imitating a rhinoceros stops babies from crying. (Put an empty cigarette pack on your nose for a horn and make loud snort noises.) I don’t know why parents don’t do this more often. Usually, it makes the kid laugh. Sometimes it sends him into shock. Either way, it quiets him down. If you’re a parent, acting like a rhino has another advantage. Keep it up until the kid is a teenager, and he definitely won’t have his friends hanging around your house all the time. – by P.J. O’Rourke
Too often, give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. – by Roger Lewin
Children are a great comfort in your old age – and they help you reach it faster, too. – by Lionel Kauffman
You see much more of your children once they leave home. – by Lucille Ball
Civil rights happened because youth got involved. The youth stood up and helped break the pattern that their parents had gotten accustomed to. The next generation has to take that stand for whatever it is, socially, that they are involved in. – by Octavia Spencer

In her infinite wisdom, Mother Nature has instilled a powerful biological instinct to reproduce; this is her way of assuring that the human race will never have any disposable income. – by Dave Barry
If your parents don’t have any children, there’s a good chance that you won’t have any. – by Clarence Day
Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly. – by P. J. O’Rourke
I don’t look at Twitter between events because it’s a distraction, but I will ring my fiance and parents to tell them how it’s going. – by Jessica Ennis
The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bike needs both support and freedom for the first time. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard. – by Sloan Wilson
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. – by Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters
Insanity is hereditary – you get it from your kids. – by Sam Levenson
There may be some doubt as to who are the best people to have charge of children, but there can be no doubt that parents are the worst. – by George Bernard Shaw
Duke of Windsor “Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them. – by P. J. O’Rourke
When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out. – by Erma Bombeck
To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. – by Oscar Wilde
Instant availability without continuous presence is probably the best role a mother can play. – by Lotte Bailyn
It behooves a father to be blameless if he expects his child to be. – by Homer
A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful. – by Judith Martin
I don’t believe professional athletes should be role models. I think parents should be role models… It’s not like it was when I was growing up. My mom and my grandmother told me how it was going to be. If I didn’t like it, they said, Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Parents have to take better control. – by Charles Barkley
Yes, having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit. – by Bill Cosby, Fatherhood
These are my daughters, I suppose. But where in the world did the children vanish? – by Phyllis McGinley, Ballad of Lost Objects, 1954
Character is largely caught, and the father and the home should be the great sources of character infection. – by Frank H. Cheley
If you surround yourself with the good and righteous, they can only raise you. If you surround yourself with the others, they will drag you down into the doldrums of mediocrity, and they will keep you there, but only as long as you permit it. – by Mark Glamack

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart walk around outside your body. – by Elizabeth Stone
Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception. – by Alan Bennett
In bringing up children, spend half as much money and twice as much time on them. – by Author Unknown
Parents who are afraid to put their foot down usually have children who step on their toes. – by Chinese Proverb
My parents’ divorce left me with a lot of sadness and pain, and acting, especially humor, was my way of dealing with all that. – by Jennifer Aniston
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children. – by Clarence Day
Despite the seven thousand books of expert advice, the right way to discipline a child is still a mystery to most fathers and… mothers. Only your grandmother and Ghengis Khan know how to do it. – by Billy Cosby
Ma-ma does everything for the baby, who responds by saying Da-da first. – by Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966
While we try to teach our children all about life, Our children teach us what life is all about. – by Angela Schwindt
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that there is beauty and strength in diversity. – by Maya Angelou
Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective. – by P. J. O’Rourke
You have a lifetime to work, but children are only young once. – Polish Proverb
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. – by C.G. Jung, Integration of the Personality, 1939
The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children, they are heaven’s lieutenants. – by Shakespeare
The quickest way for a parent to get a child’s attention is to sit down and look comfortable. – by Lane Olinghouse
As a child, my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it, or leave it. – by Buddy Hackett
I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents. – by Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Some parents could do more for their children by not doing so much for them. – by Author Unknown
Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist. – by Michael Levine
The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears: they cannot utter the one, nor will they speak the other. – by Francis Bacon
Children desperately need to know – and to hear in ways, they understand and remember – that they’re loved and valued by mom and dad. – by Paul Smally
If they love you, I also believe that parents will hold you up safely above their swirling waters. Sometimes that means you’ll never know what they endured, and you may treat them unkindly, in a way you otherwise wouldn’t. – by Mitch Albom, For One More Day

The first art of being a parent consists of sleeping when the baby isn’t looking. – by Author Unknown
It always gave me a peculiar feeling to catch a glimpse of my parents’ lives before I was born. – by Robert Drewe, The Shark Net
Love is giving someone your undivided attention. – by Author Unknown
Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. – by Robert Fulghum
Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind. – by Mike Harding – The Armchair Anarchist’s Almanac.
Lucky parents who have fine children usually have lucky children who have fine parents. – by James A. Brewer
I’d stop playing seriously and seriously play. I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars. I’d do more hugging and less tugging. – by Diane Loomans, from If I Had My Child To Raise Over Again
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong. -by Cathy Ladman
No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids. – by Bill Cosby, Fatherhood, 1986
It’s not what your parents give you. It’s what you do with your own stuff. – by Jennifer Grant
Don’t be ridiculous, Charlie; people love the parents who beat their kids in department stores. It’s the ones who just let their kids wreak havoc that everybody hates. – by Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job
Parents are not interested in justice. They’re interested in peace and quiet. – by Bill Cosby
Raising kids is part joy and part guerilla warfare. – by Ed Asner
Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. – by Author Unknown
What a child doesn’t receive, he can seldom later give. – by P.D. James, Time to Be in Earnest
When I was a kid, my parents moved a lot, but I always found them. – by Rodney Dangerfield
The trouble with being a parent is that you are unemployed by the time you are experienced. – by Author Unknown
If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not an example. – by George Bernard Shaw
Do not ask that your kids live up to your expectations. Let your kids be who they are, and your expectations will be in breathless pursuit. – by Robert Brault
If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive at this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people. – by Thich Nhat Hanh
I don’t think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib. – by Woody Allen
Chance makes our parents, but choice makes our friends. – by Jacques Delille
The beauty of spacing children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes made with the older ones – which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones. – by Sydney J. Harris
The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day. – by Orlando A. Battista
Parents are the last people who ought to be allowed to have children. – by H.E. Bell

Famous Quotes about Parenting

When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son. – by The Talmud
Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children. – by Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966
Have you ever noticed how parents can go from the most wonderful people in the world to totally embarrassing in three seconds? – by Rick Riordan, The Red Pyramid
An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. You must be a stranger to one of your parents from this day. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do. – by Jane Austen, Pride, and Prejudice
As parents, we guide by our unspoken example. Unfortunately, it is only when we’re talking to them that our kids aren’t listening. – by Robert Brault.
Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers. – by Socrates
Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy. – by Robert A. Heinlein
Conscience is less an inner voice than the memory of a mother’s glance. – by Robert Brault
It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection. – by Leo F. Buscaglia
The best academy….a mother’s knee. – by James Lowell
By profession, I am a Soldier and take pride in that fact, but I am prouder to be a father. – by General Douglas MacArthur
The problem with being a parent is that you are usually unemployed by the time you are experienced. – by Author Unknown
There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings. – by Hodding Carter, Jr.
It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they watch us know what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it myself. – by Joyce Maynard

Sometimes, in a moral struggle, we discover the right thing to do – just as, on some cold day long ago, we found mittens pinned to our coat sleeves. – by Robert Brault
There is a strong chance that siblings who turn out well were hassled by the same parents. – by Robert Brault
I love to play hide and seek with my kid, but some days my goal is to find a hiding place where he can’t see me until after high school. – by Author Unknown
So much is asked of parents, and so little is given. – by Virginia Satir
What’s done to children, they will do to society. – by Karl Menninger
Always end your child’s name with a vowel so that the name will carry when you yell. – by Bill Cosby
One of the greatest titles in the world is parent, and one of the biggest blessings in the world is to have parents to call mom and dad. – by Jim DeMint
The child supplies the power, but the parents have to do the steering. – by Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care
Kids spell love T-I-M-E. – by John Crudele
The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them. – by Frank A. Clark
The thing about having a baby – and I can’t be the first to notice this – is that you have it after that. – by Jean Kerr
If your kids are giving you a headache, follow the directions on the aspirin bottle, especially the part that says keep away from children. – by Susan Savannah
It never gets easier, missing you. And sometimes, I wonder if it ever will. – by Heather Brewer, Ninth Grade Slays
Good, honest, hardheaded character is a function of the home. If the proper seed is sown there and properly nourished for a few years, it will not be easy for that plant to be uprooted. – by George A. Dorsey
We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves. – by Henry Ward Beecher
My mother protected me from the world, and my father threatened me with it. – by Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant, 1968
Smack your child every day. If you don’t know why – he does. – by Joey Adams
There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. – Chinese Proverb
I figure that if the children are alive when I get home, I’ve done my job. – by Roseanne Barr
Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you. – by Erma Bombeck
To understand your parents’ love, you must raise children yourself. – Chinese Proverb
Parenthood: That state of being better chaperoned than you were before marriage. – by Marcelene Cox
Of course, everyone’s parents are embarrassing. It goes with the territory. The nature of parents is to embarrass merely by existing, just as it is the nature of children of a certain age to cringe with embarrassment, shame, and mortification should their parents so much as speak to them on the street. – by Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
I’d take my eyes off my watch and watch with my eyes. I’d take more hikes and fly more kites.
Let parents bequeath to their children not riches but the spirit of reverence. – by Plato
As a child, I was given the freedom to explore my passion for acting, but I also grew up in a home where there were a lot of rules. I didn’t have ‘yes’ parents. – by Emmanuelle Chriqui
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older, they judge them; sometimes, they forgive them. – by Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Having babies is fun, but babies grow up into people. – by M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter, The Price of Tomato Juice
Having one child makes you a parent; having two, you are a referee. – by David Frost
The guys who fear becoming fathers don’t understand that fathering is not something perfect men do but something that perfects the man. The end product of child raising is not the child but the parent. – by Frank Pittman, Man Enough
Raising children is like making biscuits: it is as easy to raise a big batch as one while having your hands in the dough. – by E.W. Howe
Love is the chain whereby it binds a child to its parents. – by Abraham Lincoln
Parents wonder why the streams are bitter when they themselves have poisoned the fountain. – by John Locke
What impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children. – by Edward, Duke of Windsor, Look, 5 March 1957
Mother Nature is wonderful. Children get too old for piggyback rides just about the same time they get too heavy. – by Author Unknown
To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while. – by Josh Billings
Parenthood is the passing of a baton, followed by a lifelong disagreement about who dropped it. – by Robert Brault.
A child enters your home and makes so much noise for the next twenty years you can hardly stand it. The child departs, leaving the house so silent you think you are going mad. – by John Andrew Holmes
Dad needs to show an incredible amount of respect and humor, and friendship toward his mate. Hence, the kids understand their parents are sexy, fun, do things together, and are best friends. Kids learn by example. If I respect Mom, they’re going to respect Mom. – by Tim Allen
The trouble with having a stubbornness contest with your kids is that they have your stubbornness gene. – by Robert Brault
My parents wanted me to solace them for the sorrows they denied having had. – by Mason Cooley
Many parents pack up their troubles and send them off to summer camp. – by Raymond Duncan
Parenthood is a lot easier to get into than out of. – by Bruce Lansky
There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child. – by Henry Ward Beecher
Parents must always get across the idea that I love you, but sometimes I do not love your behavior. – by Amy Vanderbilt
The world talks to the mind. Parents speak more intimately — they talk to the heart. – by Hain Ginott
Whenever I held my newborn baby in my arms, I used to think that what I said and did to him could have an influence not only on him but on all whom he met, not only for a day or a month or a year but for all eternity – a very challenging and exciting thought for a mother. – by Rose Kennedy

I’d finger-paint more and point the fingerless. I would do less correcting and more connecting.
It was good for us, I suppose. Those kinds of times produce qualities in us that make us better for having had them. My parents were not getting along. My mother was quite intolerant of friendships that were being developed. – by Fay Wray
The real menace about dealing with a five-year-old is that you begin to sound like a five-year-old in no time at all. – by Jean Kerr
If your children spend most of their time in other people’s houses, you’re lucky; you’re blessed if they all congregate at your house. – by Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s
My mom used to say it doesn’t matter how many kids you have… because one kid takes up 100% of your time, so more kids can’t possibly take up more than 100% of your time. – by Karen Brown
If I had my child to raise again, I’d build self-esteem first and the house later.
To an adolescent, there is nothing more embarrassing than a parent in the world. – by Dave Barry
Was there ever a grandparent, bushed after a day of minding noisy youngsters, who hasn’t felt the Lord knew what He was doing when He gave little children to young people? – by Joe E. Wells
The parents exist to teach the child, but they must also learn what the child has to teach them; and the child has a great deal to teach them. – by Arnold Bennett
Hot dogs always seem better out than at home; so do French-fried potatoes; so do your children. – by Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960
There are no illegitimate children – only illegitimate parents. – by Leon R. Yankwich
My parents only had one argument in forty-five years. It lasted forty-three years. by Calvin Trillin
Diogenes struck the father when the son swore. – by Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Democritus to the Reader, 1621
Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves. – by Marcelene Cox
First, your parents give you your life, but they try to provide you with their life. – by Chuck Palahniuk
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother. – Bible Ephesians 6. 1
I believe that we parents must encourage our children to become educated, so they can get into a good college that we cannot afford. – by Dave Barry
Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right path, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands. – by Anne Frank
If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others. – by Haim Ginott
Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going. – by Phyllis Diller
If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. – by Abigail Van Buren
It is not bad that children occasionally and politely put their parents in their place. – by Colette, My Mother’s House, 1922
Children aren’t happy with nothing to ignore, And that’s what parents were created for. – by Ogden Nash, The Parent, Happy Days, 1933
To a father, when a child dies, the future dies; to a child, when a parent dies, the past dies. – by Red Auerbach
Although there are many trial marriages… there is no such thing as a trial child. – by Gail Sheehy

Parents who always give their children nothing but the best usually wind up with nothing but the worst. – by Author Unknown
A father’s words are like a thermostat that sets the temperature in the house. – by Paul Lewis
Most American children suffer from too much mother and too little father. – by Gloria Steinem, New York Times, 26 August 1971
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, giving your children the greatest of all blessings. – by Brian Tracy
Beat your child once a day. If you don’t know why the child does. – Chinese proverb
Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s buying. – by Fran Lebowitz, Social Studies
When parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves. – by Elbert Hubbard
A foolproof way to make your child miserable is to satisfy all his demands. – by Henry Home
A child, like your stomach, doesn’t need all you can afford to give it. – by Frank A. Clark
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children. – by Chuck Palahniuk (1962 – ), Invisible Monsters, 1999
The secret of dealing successfully with a child is not to be its parent. – by Mell Lazarus
The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears. – by Elain Heffner, O Magazine, May 2003
I would have given anything to keep her little. But, unfortunately, they outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them.
You will always be your child’s favorite toy. – by Vicki Lansky, Trouble-Free Travel with Children, 1991