My meaning is, that no man can expect his children to respect what he degrades.
Interpretation
Parents must model respect and integrity to earn the same from their children.
This quote by Charles Dickens emphasizes the importance of setting a positive example for children. It suggests that children learn values and attitudes from their parents; if a parent degrades certain principles or behaviors, children are unlikely to respect those values or the parent themselves. Therefore, to foster a respectful relationship with their children, parents must embody the respect they wish to instill.
In practice
In a parenting seminar discussing the influence of actions over words.
I recollected one story there was in the village, how that on a certain night in the year (it might be that very night for anything I knew), all the dead people came out of the ground and sat at the heads of their own graves till morning.
A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.
There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.
You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.
Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets.
When you have a baby, you set off an explosion in your marriage, and when the dust settles, your marriage is different from what it was. Not better, necessarily; not worse, necessarily; but different.
With my family, I'm trying to raise them to have respect for all people and make friends around the world and feel at home with the world and really live a truly global life because I think it's what forms them and it's really important to me.
I was brought up in a family which valued natural history. Both my parents knew the names of all the British wildflowers, so as we went walking the country, I was constantly being exposed to a natural history sort of knowledge.
I just hope I remember to tell my kids that they are as happy as I look in my old photographs. And I hope that they believe me.
I'll be a wife and mother first, then First Lady.
The minute my child was born, I was reborn as a feminist. It's so incredible what women can do... birthing naturally, as most women do around the globe, is a superhuman act. You leave behind the comforts of being human and plunge back into being an animal.
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