Parental Misunderstanding Quotes

I agree, Dad. I was just explaining to the woman why we don’t look anything alike and why you would have been younger than me when I was born. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you ‘cause you know I do. Make one snotty comment in anger when you’re twelve years old going through puberty and getting grounded, and you pay for it for the rest of your life. Parents ain’t got no sense of humor. (Omari)

Parents become very good at not hearing the explicit words and listening instead to what the child means but doesn't yet know how to say: 'I'm lonely, in pain, frightened' - distress which then unfairly comes out as an attack on the safest, kindest, most reliable thing in the child's world: the parent.

When I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, my mom was, like, 'I think I heard you say lawyer.'

My father was always slightly bemused by my success. Although he knew that I had reasonable intelligence, he always thought that I was a little bit lazy.

Of course, an exhausting day at sail lines and nets left little energy to expend on running or laughing. Perhaps that was why her parents couldn't appreciate her music - it wouldn't appear to be hard work to them. Menolly shook her hands, letting them flap from her wrists. They ached and trembled from the constricted movements and tension of an hour of intensive playing. No, her parents would never understand that playing musical instruments could be as hard work as sailing or fishing.

My mother turned into a professional widow. She couldn't understand why I wanted to be an engineer; she thought I should be a chicken farmer.

You can never empathize with your parents as a teenager. You just think they're just on another planet.

Dad never understood why Ridley wanted to go to art school, and then I came along six years later and wanted to do the same thing.