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"I've begun to love this little creature and to anticipate his birth as a fresh twist to a knot which I do not wish to untie."
--Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley, 1797-1851
Of all the joys that brighten
suffering earth,
What joy is welcom'd like a
newborn child!
(Caroline Norton, 1808-77)
When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about and that was the beginning of fairies.
JAMES BARRIE (Peter Pan)
THE BIRTH OF LOVE
The day I became a mother,
I felt a little strange.
Something happened inside of me,
My heart began to change.
I became a better person,
My smile grew wider too.
Each time I held him in my arms,
I felt so fresh and new.
I fell in love with the feelings.
The softness of his face.
I understood comptely,
Noone could take his place!
Housework became less important,
The mop and broom stood still.
While my role as this childs mother
Became my greatest thrill!!
I realized without a doubt,
This child had made me whole,
His sweet love has engulfed my heart.
And touched my very soul!!
This baby is society's future and resources need to be given to assure this future is sound.
NORMA TRACEY
I could still remember how having a two-day old baby makes you feel faintly sorry for everyone else, stuck in their wan unmiraculous lives
MARNI JACKSON
Sister Peters says that newborn babies mostly sleep well. It is only when they get home they start bawling their heads off.
ELIZABETH JOLLY
A mother, father and baby are in the most vulnereable state of human existence, looking after the future of the world. They need space, time, emotional support and economic security. They need so much ... And they have a right to it.
NORMA TRACEY
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's star
hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
(WORDSWORTH)
The mighty sun has warmed you
You've come from cosmic spaces
The stars have given soul life
The Gods have worked upon you.
Now your task is calling
We welcome you to earth life
Your destiny awaits you
We ask God's blessing for you.
(JOAN SALTER)
When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments: tenderness for what he is and respect for what he may become.
Louis Pasteur
What's done to children, they will do to society.
Karl Menninger
Once you bring life into this world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.
Elie Weisel
If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis
The illusions of childhood are necessary experiences, a child should not be denied a balloon because an adult knows that sooner or later it will burst.
Marcelene Cox
The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.
Fred Astaire
Who takes the child by the hand, takes the mother by the heart.
German Proverb
Children of the world. Future flowers, now seeds. Some hand raised,
nourished in love-richened ground. Others tossed carelessly on the
coldest concrete, struggling beneath Darwins dispassionate sunlight.
Each unique, snowflake-individualized. And all the same.
Our race. The human race.
One color--many shades.
Treasures to some, toys to others.
They will reach the stars and stalk the shadows.
What children are, more than anything else, is this: another chance for
our flawed species. Another chance to get it right.
Andrew Vachss
"You can give two great gifts to your children. One is roots. The other is wings."
Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old.
- Lewis Lapham
We hold tomorrow in our hands when we hold our children in our arms.
I'm not sure who said this one.
All kids are our kids
giving protection and comfort
to other people's children
is not an act of charity
it's an opportunity to enrich the future.
Shari Lewis
Children have more need of models than critics.
Joseph Joubert
It is said that the indentation between the nose and the upper lip is the space where at the moment of birth, a child's guardian angel presses her finger, so the little one won't tell the secrets of heaven.
A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger of peace and love, a resting place for innocence on earth; a link between angels and men.
M. F. Tupper
Hold a hand that needs you and discover abundant joy.
Flavia
If while you are a child just one someone loves you uncritically, then you will have love to give for the rest of your life.
Flavia
Remeber, when they have a tantrum, don't have one of your own.
Dr. Judith Kuriansky
It is better to bind your children to you by a feeling of respect, and gentleness, than by fear.
Terence
The world talks to the mind. Parents speak more intimately — They speak to the heart.
Haim Ginnot
The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day.
O. A. Battista
May he always feel the sunshine,
and take time to taste the rain
May his friends be true and caring,
and I hope that he's the same
May his heart be filled with kindness,
and the seeds of wisdom grow
May he seek for truth and beauty,
when he finds it may he know.Change cannot alter love
nor time impair,
for love is more than a feeling....
love is a decision, a commitment to care forever.
"A child is a person who is going to carry on what you started. He's going to sit where you are sitting and when you are gone, attend to the things which you think are important...The fate of humanity is in his hand."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"The value of children is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults."
--Peter De Vries
"All kids are gifted. Some just open their packages earlier than others."
-Michael Carr
"In the sheltered simplicity of the first days after a baby is born, one sees the magical closed circle, the miraculous sense of two people existing only for each other."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Monday's Child
==============
Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day,
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.-anonymous
"Perspective: A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank balance was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove - but the world may be a different place because I was important in the life of a child."
-Unknown
"Mothering is the best all round job. No other other career would allow you to be plumber, drill sergeant, nurse, chef, umpire, banker, telephonist and international diplomat - all before 9.30am."
"It is important to me that I spend a part of the next few hours here alone with you in the darkness. You and I will never be this close again. By morning you will be a tiny person all your own...No longer the kicking, demanding bulge in my body, I have grown to love so well. I pray God will safely guide you on your journey tonight...and I ask him for the strength to help you all I can.
"Again you signal...your impatience to be free...time to wake your Daddy."
"After you have a baby, in a few months you work your way up to getting dressed. Then, after a few more months, you can start doing your hair, maybe putting on makeup a few times. But you never, ever get back to accessorizing."
-Michelle Pfeiffer