A grandparent will help you with your buttons, your zippers, and your shoelaces and not be in any hurry for you to grow up.
Interpretation
Grandparents provide patient and loving support to children, allowing them to enjoy their youth without pressure to grow up too fast.
This quote by Erma Bombeck reflects the nurturing and selfless nature of grandparents. They often take on a supportive role in a child's life, offering practical assistance with everyday tasks while also allowing children to bask in the joys of childhood. By not rushing them to grow up, grandparents create a safe space for children to learn and explore at their own pace.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of family bonds, you might use this quote to highlight the special role of grandparents.
We've got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don't know how it was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attache' cases and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.
You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're merging into big conglomerates.
Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real" men do that doesn't seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it's on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.
Not everyone is comfortable with the kissing ritual. My husband is one of them. Her refuses to press lips with anyone except his wife, mother, and dog. If someone wanted to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he would refuse until he had been formally introduced.
There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff.
Heaven lieth at the feet of mothers.
I can't go back. The past won't go away in this family.
I know how sobering and exhausting parenthood is. But the reality is that our children's future depends on us as parents. Because we know that the first years truly last forever.
I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.
The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.
My dad is a Chatty Cathy, the social butterfly; friendly; knows everybody in the whole world by six degrees; tells me that every performance is the greatest he's ever seen, every new outfit is the coolest. Constant cheerleader.
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