Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the idea that parenting promotes maturity in adults rather than just being a means to create children.
Peter De Vries suggests that the true essence of marriage is not just to bear children, but rather that the experience of raising children is what fosters growth and maturity in adults. It implies that the responsibilities associated with parenthood shape individuals, helping them evolve into more responsible and mature beings, thereby emphasizing the transformative nature of raising offspring.
In practice
During a parenting seminar, I shared this quote to illustrate the impact of raising children on personal growth.
We must love one another, yes, yes, that's all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other. It may be the very recognition of all men as our brothers that accounts for the sibling rivalry, and even enmity, we have toward so many of them.
I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best -- it's all they'll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money -- provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don't need it.
There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you.
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff - it is a palliative rather than a remedy.
The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
In some families, please is described as the magic word. In our house, however, it was sorry.
I came back to work when my children were two months old. At that early age, they seem to have little awareness of anybody but their Raggedy Ann dolls, so it wasn't a matter of them missing me. I was missing them.
Men never think, at least seldom think, what a hard task it is for us women to go through this very often. God's will be done, and if He decrees that we are to have a great number of children why we must try to bring them up as useful and exemplary members of society.
I take my kids to school and if I go to work they visit me on set, I come home. I have dinner with my family. I have breakfast with my family. I have a very solid, a very warm home. I'm fortunate.
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, with the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
For me, already being part of a single parent household and knowing it was just me and my mom, you'd would wake up times and hope that the next day you'd be able to be alongside your mother because she was out trying to make sure that I was taken care of. But all I cared about was her being home.
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