Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean.
Interpretation
This quote humorously suggests that parenting should require a formal qualification or test.
Terry Pratchett's quote reflects the idea that parenting is a significant responsibility that requires knowledge and skills. It implies that many individuals may not be adequately prepared for the challenges of raising children, highlighting both the importance of effective parenting and the complexities involved in nurturing the next generation.
In practice
In a speech about family values, one might say, 'Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents.'
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
Our kids are reflections of us. How we interact with others, even in a hostile situation... how we respond and our children see that is how they are going to respond.
Although my family attended the same church as everyone in our town, our religion was not the same. I could stand with my family or with the gentiles... but there was no foothold in between.
Everyone has some dysfunction in their families. They have to deal with it. You don't walk away if you love someone. You help the person.
Give me the life of the boy whose mother is nurse, seamstress, washerwoman, cook, teacher, angel, and saint, all in one, and whose father is guide, exemplar, and friend. No servants to come between. These are the boys who are born to the best fortune.
Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life.
Family is supposed to be our safe haven. Very often, it's the place where we find the deepest heartache.
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