Youth eats all the sugared fancy cakes and regards them as its daily bread. But there'll come a time when you'll start asking just for a crust.
Ivan TurgenevRead
That's what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.
Interpretation
Children bring joy and activity to their parents' lives, preventing boredom.
Ivan Turgenev humorously captures the essence of parenting by stating that children are meant to engage their parents, suggesting that the energy and unpredictability of children provide constant entertainment and prevent monotony in adult life. This perspective highlights the significance of the family dynamic and the joy that children can bring to their parents' existence.
In practice
This quote can be used during a family gathering to highlight the joy of parenting.
Youth eats all the sugared fancy cakes and regards them as its daily bread. But there'll come a time when you'll start asking just for a crust.
To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
So many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me - a long, long road without a goal.
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!
Death's an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
My mother was and will always remain my greatest hero.
My kids are normal. If they could eat burgers and fries and ice cream every day, they would. And so would I. But that doesn't sustain us.
If we are practicing our faith and seeking the companionship of the Holy Spirit, his presence can be felt in our hearts and in our homes. A family having daily family prayers and seeking to keep the commandments of God and honor his name and speak lovingly to one another will have a spiritual feeling in their home that will be discernible to all who enter it.
The presence of a grandparent confirms that parents were, indeed, little once, too, and that people who are little can grow to be big, can become parents, and one day even have grandchildren of their own. So often we think of grandparents as belonging to the past; but in this important way, grandparents, for young children, belong to the future.
Today, I would like you to pause, ponder, and think of the value of an immortal soul, especially the ones entrusted to you as parents. Where are your priorities? Have you committed yourself to give the sufficient time necessary to train your children?
My mother's rules had to do with feminine deportment, so I never played hard enough to break a toy or muddy my dress. My father's rules had to do with never shaming the family by even a hint of scandal, and not providing business rivals with an opportunity to kidnap me or throw acid in my face.
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