Our dad hugged us and kissed us so much that some friends and relatives complained that he was going to turn us into sissies or homosexuals. But my dad didn't care. Let them raise their kids in a reserved and reticent way. He grew up in Israel, and his boys were going to be hugged and kissed by their father and know they were loved.
Interpretation
Parental affection is essential for emotional well-being, regardless of societal opinions.
In this quote, Ezekiel Emanuel reflects on the unconditional love and affection his father showed him and his siblings through physical displays of affection like hugging and kissing. Despite external criticism suggesting that such displays could harm their masculinity or sexuality, Emanuel's father remained steadfast in his belief that demonstrating love is paramount, emphasizing the importance of emotional connection and support within a family, particularly in creating a nurturing environment for children.
In practice
During a family gathering, I shared this quote to highlight the importance of showing love and affection to children.
There's nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, in trying to bend every child to match a one-size-fits-all notion of what it means to be a boy or girl of a specific age. Better to set a few parameters and then go with the flow. Call it 'jazz parenting.'
We had a big controversy in the United States when there was a limited number of dialysis machines. In Seattle, they appointed what they called a 'God committee' to choose who should get it, and that committee was eventually abandoned. Society ended up paying the whole bill for dialysis instead of having people make those decisions.
Patients who are being kept alive by technology and want to end their lives already have a recognized constitutional right to stop any and all medical interventions, from respirators to antibiotics. They do not need physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.
As an academic, what do you have? You have the quality of your work and the integrity with which you do it.
The death of a 20-year-old woman is intuitively worse than that of a 2-month-old girl, even though the baby has had less life. The 20-year-old has a much more developed personality than the infant, and has drawn upon the investment of others to begin as-yet-unfulfilled projects.
Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections.
It's impossible for most black Americans to construct full family trees. Official census records, used by so many genealogy enthusiasts to piece together their families' pasts, don't include our non-European ancestors.
I don't think anybody feels like they're a good parent. Or if people think they're good parents, they ought to think again.
This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it.
I am most anxious to give my own children enough love and understanding so that they won't grow up with an aching void in them--like you and I and Harold and Martha. That can never be filled, and one goes around all one's life trying, trying to make up for what one didn't get that was one's birthright, asking the wrong people for it.
Peace is one of the greatest gifts we can leave our children.
Mothers support certain illusions about their children, and one of my illusions was that I liked who I was, because she did. When she passed away, so did that idea.
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