The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
Interpretation
Fathers often desire their children to reflect positively on them, instead of allowing them to forge their own paths.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell highlights a significant issue within parental relationships, particularly between fathers and their children. He argues that in a competitive society, many fathers place undue pressure on their children to succeed in ways that reflect well on the fathers themselves. This desire for children to be a 'credit' can hinder the child's personal growth and independence, as they may feel compelled to meet their father's expectations rather than pursue their own passions or identities.
In practice
In a speech about parenting at a local community center, one might quote this to discuss the importance of supporting children's individuality.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
My family is everything. I am what I am thanks to my mother, my father, my brother, my sister... because they have given me everything. The education I have is thanks to them.
It's not the child's responsibility to teach the parent who they are. It's the parent's responsibility to learn who the child is.
I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that this is somehow a stranger who is carrying your child. And this is absolutely not true. Your surrogate becomes one of your best friends and a member of your family.
She hated being a nobody and like all children, adopted or not, I have had to live out some of her unlived life. We do that for our parents - we don't really have any choice.
My sense of injustice about our family's 'weirdness' in not owning a car was amplified by the fact that we did not own a television, either - my parents were unapologetic about this and told me very cheerfully that I would thank them for it when I was older, which was quite true.
I shall never forget my mother, for it was she who planted and nurtured the first seeds of good within me. She opened my heart to the lasting impressions of nature; she awakened my understanding and extended my horizon and her percepts exerted an everlasting influence upon the course of my life.
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