Parental detachment Quotes

Adolescence is a time when children are supposed to move away from parents who are holding firm and protective behind them. When the parents disconnect, the children have no base to move away from or return to. They aren't ready to face the world alone. With divorce, adolescents feel abandoned, and they are outraged at that abandonment. They are angry at both parents for letting them down. Often they feel that their parents broke the rules and so now they can too.

I'm going to be in another city when my kids are teenagers. I'll be like, 'Give me a call when you're done with all that.'

We probably stagnate our children's emotional growth by not letting them have some separation from us.

He was slumped in the back, gazing out of the window, as though his parents were two people who had picked him up hitchhiking, connected to him merely by chance and proximity.

My parents are not nurturers. They're a bit like me: do a good job and move on.

Every show I've been on, my kids pay no attention. They're just like, 'Who cares. It's just dad's job.'

Sons do not need you. They are always out of your reach, Walking strange waters.

My parents had no interest in spending a lot of time with me. They were busy doing what they were doing, but they were not obnoxious. They were fabulous.

I'm well in touch with my family, my children. I keep them on my answer phone, so if I want to hear one of their voices, all I have to do is punch it up and it will be there.

I never help my kids and I never encourage them and I never give them any advice.

If your happiness depends on your children being happy, that makes them your hostages. So stay out of their business, stop using them for your happiness, and be your own happiness. And that way you are the teacher for your children: someone who knows how to live a happy life.

One cool thing is because Mom and Dad aren't into the Hollywood scene, they don't read 'US Weekly' or anything like that. They give me space. They don't care. They just want all of their children to be doing something that they love to do and be able to pay their insurance.

Edith Vonnegut behaved like a guest in her children's lives. To her way of thinking, parenting came under the general heading of household tasks, which, as a wealthy woman, she could pay others to do.

[E]verywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear.

There is a time to separate from our mother. But unless we are ready to separate-unless we are ready to leave her and be left-anything is better than separation.