To be a mother you must be strong. Even if you don't feel it, you have to pretend.
Telling my children was the toughest part. But that's when you get strong, because you have to be strong for other people.
My mother brought up nine children, in Hackney, and none of us are criminals, none of us in jail. Her strength made me who I am today.
[My mother] was the strength of our family, and I didn't realize that until I got a little bit older.
I feel a lot stronger than I ever have done since I've had kids, because you have to be: you don't want them to see any weakness.
I feel simultaneously completely vulnerable and made wholly brave by becoming a parent. It has changed the way that I live my life. Because I want to be an example for my son.
I always grew up thinking how amazing my dad was, how strong he was.
Being a parent you want to be strong for your kids and ninety percent of being a parent is not telling the truth.
What parent has it easy? I just never make the difficulty of it an obstacle. I just do it.
In my opinion, the teaching, rearing, and training of children requires more intelligence, intuitive understanding, humility, strength, wisdom, spirituality, perseverance, and hard work than any other challenge we might have in life.
In my family, if something were to have happened with one of my kids, I think my wife would be the tougher one.
Adolescents do get very angry with their parents, and acknowledging this anger is part of acknowledging them. If the anger is notacknowledged then its expression is increased. The parent seems super-strong. The adolescent tries to become the super-attacker.
My father has been a constant source of love and strength in my life.
One of my biggest goals as a mom is to be a pillar of strength for my children - to envelop them in love and address every emotion, but also to have them be absolutely sure that I can protect them in any situation.
I get looks like I can't raise my child, but I can.
I believe there's a secret chemical that's turned loose when you have kids that says you've got to survive, you've got to be strong. That keeps you on your toes, besides all kinds of other things, when you have three little ones running around.
England, an old and exhausted island, must one day be contented, like other parents, to be strong only in her children.
Time has taught me that parents do the best they can with the light they are seeing with. That is what we all do.
I'm not as tough as my Dad.
But, in fact, there is nothing that can bring you closer to fearlessness about everything else in the world than being a parent - because everyday fears - like not being approved of - pale by comparison to the fears you have about your children.
I think we forget that part of parenthood means having to face and reject or face and embrace a kind of animal capacity for unkindness. And if, when, parents do embrace that, it reveals something very ugly to oneself.
If I'm a young mom or young dad, I can find a great source of strength. God has promised that He will help me to be the mom or dad that He wants me to be. He has promised to be with me every step of the way. He has promised that He will never leave me or forsake me. These are wonderful promises that I can learn to trust and build a life on.
