Great parenting quotes and GIFs

This quote about how “boys will be boys” reduces males into some kind of animal that cannot help but behave badly is such a good one. I’m really tired of this argument and I am betting that men are, too. Men are not mindless, craven rapists who stalk the earth hungry to fulfill their baser needs; they are evolved, thinking creatures with connections just as deep as the ones women make. It is our society at large that conditions us to believe otherwise and stereotype men just as we do women. We have to ditch this saying as part of letting go of these stereotypes and loving the world’s boys and men.

This quote from Grace Llewellyn is hard-hitting but very true. In what other environment must you ask permission to pee or get a drink and be shamed for doing so, sometimes even made to use a weird token to show that you have “permission” to fulfill your body’s needs? In what other environment must you constantly please people and be judged for your ability to recall their regurgitated facts, and be rewarded or punished for failing? It’s such an artificial environment that does the opposite of preparing you for life.

This quote about overvaluing school is scary but also true. We put school at the heart of our children’s lives, putting it before everything else—pleasure, personal interests, and even death in our families. Parents say, “I can’t wait until my kid goes back to school!” Then why have children in the first place if you don’t intend to be with them all day? School is a relatively new compulsory concept—only about 100 years old in America—yet we act like it’s a reverent place of worship that our children must attend no matter what. Of course, we’ve also all been spoonfed the fact that school provides you with the tools you need to succeed in life, which is just not true for so many people. Certain types of people thrive in an academic setting—mostly academics themselves—and even those of us who do leave the system scarred and unprepared for most of what real life demands of us.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia