family life Quotes

“Ending patriarchal domination of children, by men or women, is the only way to make the family a place where children can be safe, where they can be free, where they can know love.”

“In future feminist movement we need to work harder to show parents the ways ending sexism positively changes family life. Feminist movement is pro-family. ”

“And now you must survive because we love you, and for the sake of your children and your children’s children.”

“Well, what family doesn’t have its ups and downs?”

“You know what I am? I’m the family nothing. Geoffrey’s smart and Richard’s brave and I’m not anything.”

“When Uncle Stan rose in the morning, he somehow managed to wake the entire household. No one complained, as he was the breadwinner in the family, and in any case he was cheaper and more reliable than an alarm clock.”

“Many toxic parents compare one sibling unfavorably with another to make the target child feel that he’s not doing enough to gain parental affection. This motivates the child to do whatever the parents want in order to regain their favor. This divide-and-conquer technique is often unleashed against children who become a little too independent, threatening the balance of the family system.”

“Maniac felt why more than he knew why. It had to do with homes and families and schools, and how a school seems sort of like a big home, but only a day home, because then it empties out; and you can’t stay there at night because it’s not really a home and you could never use it as your address, because an address is where you stay at night, where you walk right in the front door without knocking, where everybody talks to each other and uses the same toaster. So all the other kids would be heading for their homes, their night homes, each of them, hundreds, flocking from school like birds form a tree, scattering across town, each breaking off to his or her own place, each knowing exactly where to land. School. Home. No, he was not going to have one without the other. ”

As the story unravels, you learn that Toby lives in the Tree but his family was forced out of the Upper Branches to the bleak Lower Branches because his dad was a scientist who refused to reveal a secret that could destroy the lives of them all.

Raven does come across as the typical bad boy at the beginning, but there is definitely a lot more to his character when you see how he behaves around his brothers and his family in general.

Only a small boy sees them leaving and follows as the babies chase butterflies in trees, frogs in a bog, even bats in a cave, ignoring pleas to come back. But not to worry, our hero saves the day, making sure that all the babies get home safely from their appealing adventures.

This wonderful story expresses through words that people can recover from painful comings and goings as long as they have the help of their friends and family and other loved ones.

“My mother used to threaten to tear me into eight piece if I knocked over the water bucket, or pretended not to hear her calling me to come home as the dusk thickened and the cicadas’s shrilling increased. I would hear her voice, brought and fierce, echoing through the lonely valley. “Where is that wretched boy? I will tear him apart when he gets back.”

Basically the story revolves around Lucy (aka the girl who cried wolf), who tells her family about the wolves lurking behind the wallpapers. Her relatives however dismissed her fears as a product of her overactive imagination, and they are actually too engrossed into their own worlds to deal with Lucy: her mother (like any mother) is a personification of domestic order, her oblivious father plays tuba, and her annoying brother plays video games.

The art is bewitching, and the story is both funny and full of heart. A winner for the whole family, because yes, irl babies do crawl away (though generally not so far) and older siblings are heroes.

The entire book works. The color wash suits the drawing style which complements the story which is carried by mild misbehavior and mayhem.

“Clarice’s extraordinarily ordinary family is under pressure. Dad keeps muttering about how “there might be a reshuffle going on at work”, while mum spends her life “gribbling about pants on the floor and shoes on the sofa”. And as for her brother, Minal Cricket, he “tends to be utterly a nuisance”.”

Just your typical ‘move into an old creepy house, weird stuff starts happening, one of the kids gets blamed, and then they find a book that explains the existence of fairies/faeries/fey which solves their problems... while at the same time causing many more problems’.

“I turned fifteen and my mother began to lose our wrestling matches. I grew six inches in a year, and by the time I was sixteen I was taller than my stepfather. He grumbled more often, that I should settle down, stop roaming the mountain like a wild monkey, marry into one fo the village families.”

Just your typical ‘move into an old creepy house, weird stuff starts happening, one of the kids gets blamed, and then they find a book that explains the existence of fairies/faeries/fey which solves their problems... while at the same time causing many more problems’. Happens every day.

Bridget is fed up with being an only child -- it’s too quiet. If she just had a brother or a sister, she wouldn’t feel so lonely.

The narrative is just deadpan enough to highlight the moose shenanigans, and Bridget’s attempts to cope with these unruly guests actually hint in an exaggerated way at what real siblings might be like.

This is me, Clarice Bean. I am not an only child, but I sometimes wish I was. My family is six people, which is sometimes too many. Not always, just sometimes. My dad is mostly in an office on the phone, going, “I can’t talk now — I’m up to my ears in it.”

it brings to life summers when kids disappeared for days at a time, when there were no planned activities, and each day held its own possibilities.

It’s not easy to concentrate at school when mysterious things are happening all around you. In fact, Clarice Bean is starting to feel just like her favorite heroine: Ruby Redfort, schoolgirl detective.

“I am the third oldest, and I think it would have been a good idea if I was the youngest, too. I am not quite sure why my mom and dad wanted to have more children after me.”

But the moose brothers don’t turn out to be the sort of siblings she had in mind. Maybe peace and quiet is okay after all . . .

Mom is always gribbling about pants on the floor and shoes on the sofa. She says, “This house doesn’t clean itself, you know. “Who do you think does everything around here? “Mr. Nobody? “I don’t get paid to pick up your smelly socks! If I did, I’d be a rich woman.” etc. etc. non stop.

Shooting and shouting result, and the family is ordered to leave the country. An almost duplicate scene labeled “Eritrea” follows. In an effort to show that neither country embraces the union of this Ethiopian man and Eritrean woman and its progeny, the question immediately arises, are the soldiers Ethiopian or Eritrean?

He thinks they are at the pool and he is determined to fearlessly cannonball into the pool and make a big loud splash that would wake the Colonel and he would be running ahead and lead them home and they would admire him and he would be in charge for the first time ever. That was what he hoped for anyway, but instead, he finds they aren’t there and the Colonel busts him and takes him home.

“Bridget’s room is too quiet, and she is tired of it. She wants a brother or a sister, a small, thin one that will fit in her doll’s bed. Or also a big brother who plays loud and noisy music. ”

Retta, the eldest, has tried her best to replace their mother, but Johnny, the middle child, is fed up with Retta. He refuses to let her have any control over him. Desperate to try be a mother to him, she follows him one night when he slips out to be with a friend. She scolds him, but his friend sticks up for him, she can’t help be angry at both of them. Roy, who was left at home, is upset because he was left out of some “secret operation”.

After their mother passes away, Retta, Johnny, and Roy don’t have much parenting in their lives. Their dad is a country singer who keeps them well fed but isn’t around much. Older sister Retta takes control, leading her brothers on all sorts of unwise adventures and promising that one day they’ll have money, safety, and a nice home.

The mom listening to whales sing in the bathtub while standing on one foot = yoga; and the older brother that’s a teenager in his room with headphones on and a shirt that reads, “Shut up and go away.” A good book to read as an introduction to family discussion because the family is so large, someone everyone would be able to relate to.

“Later, after Clarice dumps a bowl of spaghetti on her brother’s head, her mother advises her to think before she acts, and this young queen of the quick comeback responds, “And she’s right. If I’d thought about it I would have put tapioca down his shorts.”

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse is not a true story. While it is a novel, however, and while its plot and characters are fictional, its portrayal of life during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl of the 1930s is historically accurate

This story is set in the heart of the Great Depression. It chronicles Oklahoma’s staggering dust storms, and the environmental--and emotional--turmoil they leave in their path. An unforgettable tribute to hope and inner strength.

A boy came by the house today, he asked for food. He couldn’t pay anything, but Ma sent him down and gave him biscuits and milk. He offered to work for his meal. Ma sent him out to see Daddy. The boy and Daddy came back late in the afternoon. The boy walked two steps behind, in Daddy’s dust.

“I bet he’s in the pumpkin patch.” But the Duck was not in the pumpkin patch. They could not find him anywhere. So they waited...All that long afternoon... The Cat watched the door. The Squirrel paced the floor. “The Duck will be sorry when he comes home,” they muttered. But the Duck didn’t come home. Not even at soup time.

″‘It’s the only way to get rid of nits,’ said Dad. ‘But it never works!’ screamed Henry. And he ran for the door. Mum and Dad grabbed him. Then they dragged him kicking and screaming to the bathroom. ‘Nits are living creatures,’ howled Henry. ‘Why kill them.’ ‘Because...’ said Mum. ‘Because...because... they’re blood-sucking nits,’ said Dad. Blood-sucking. Henry had never thought of that. ”

“It was a warm day so the back door stood wide open. Sam’s balloon snuggled up against the ceiling. It was bobbing and bumping in the breeze.”

“After breakfast, Sam and Dad, went upstairs to wash their hands. Then from the bathroom window Dad caught sight of a glint of silver and red. ‘Look!! There goes your balloon,’ he said. ‘It must have blown out of the back door!”

‘And on that island,’ said Sam, ‘my grandad Abdulla lives looking after his goats and tending his date trees.’ ‘That’s right,’ said Dad. ‘Perhaps,’ said Sam, ‘my balloon is going to visit Grandad Abdulla.’ ”

“Anastasia’s father, Dr. Myron Krupnik, was a professor de literature and had read just about every book in the world, which may have been why he knew so much about warts. He had a bear the color of Hubbard squash, though not much hair in his head, and he wore glasses for astigmatism, as Anastasia did, although his were not quite as owly.”

“Anastasia went home. She wanted to tell her parents about her decision to become a Catholic, but she knew that she had to tell them at the right moment, in the right way, because if would be something of a surprise. They might even be a little upset, she suspected, that she was changing her name.”

“That’s one of those gerbil-things,′ Mrs Sparrow said in the voice of a sleepwalker. The gerbil seemed not to like her tone, for it withdrew into the tube again. Meanwhile, another gerbil sat up on its hind-legs behind another tube, on which it rested one front paw, as if to begin public speaking. It held its other paw against its white shirt-front.”

“Sid Parker crouched on the floor, in front of a cage in which two mouse-like creatures had frozen into stillness on the instant. One had been working a little treadmill fastened to the inside of a cage wall. The other had been gnawing at one of the bars of the cage.”

“As long as they were there, the gerbils belonged to Sid. But, from that very first afternoon, Peggy was the one who loved them. Sid would be doing his homework, or out playing football, or just watching television.”

‘Sid’ll be back,’ said Bill Sparrow. ‘We might as well have tea.’ ‘No,’ said her mother. ‘Where’s Peggy?’ asked Amy. ‘She is upstairs. She doesn’t want any tea. And don’t ask any more questions.’ As his wife stood making the tea, Bill Sparrow massaged her shoulder. He did this when she complained of back-ache.”

“When Wilbur sat on the carpet with his eyes open, Winnie could see him. She could see his eyes, anyway. But when Wilbur closed his eyes and went to sleep. Winnie couldn’t see him at all. So she tripped over him.”

“I felt rotten today. It’s my mother’s fault for singing “My Way” at two o’clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children’s home.”

“Sunday, February 1st. Fourth after Epiphany. There was a lot of shouting downstairs late last night. The kitchen waste-bin was knocked over and the back door kept being slammed. I wish my parents would be a bit more thoughtful, I have been though an emotional time and I need my sleep.”

″... and that there may be more to a name than she ever though possible, for in Elsie’s Kingdom it isn’t enough to have a name. You have to have a handle, too...”

“Erica stayed at the window and wondered about the surprise. It was only half a surprise now, because she knew it was coming, but she was glad in a way of the warning.”

“Oldest daughter Charlie struggles to care for her sisters in the wake of the accident that took their parents, while each of the younger sisters narrates a volume of the series.”

“These sisters are not perfect and they may not always get along, but in times of need, they can always count on one another.

“This children’s book about a boy named Pedro who lives with his mother and father in an unnamed country under a dictatorship.”

Master illustrator Quentin Blake has created an irrepressible character, and action-filled plot, and an eloquent story that can be read on several levels -- all without the use of a single word.

“How could someone like my dad be in trouble? It wasn’t the sort of thing you’d expect of him. He’s a big, open, easygoing Australian. He came over from Brisbane with qualifications on accountancy, intending to study economics -which is how he met Mum, who was reading English Literature at the University of Manchester.”

“While Dad often made wisecracks about his origins, he always promised that one day the four of us would visit Australia, maybe even stay for a while.”

“But in the busy foyer of Knutsford Inn there was to be no giggling between Nicola and me. Already we have a sense that in the morning we wouldn’t be going back home. The whole situation was so unusual, so dreamlike.”

Solomon’s mum walked out a while ago and his Dad is often out of work and tends to go on benders. Solomon has one refuge - the local graveyard. But then workmen come to remove an old rowan tree.

Just as she is losing hope of ever finding a home, and forgetting all she once loved, Halinka sees something that reminds her that everyone needs some beauty in their lives, like they need air, or food . . . and maybe a friend.

Halinka’s attempts to stay strong and find some joy in her Spartan existence ring true. At first she stays aloof from everyone, keeping her thoughts and inside her head and sharing them only with her secret book and a beloved aunt whom she occasionally visits.

She wants to return to her brother to bury him, is contaminated by radiation, and collapses. She wakes up in a provisional hospital in Herleshausen, where she witnesses the hardships of others. She learns of the extent of the disaster from television and a nurse.

The children bounce to and from their volatile mother, Miranda, and their out-of-work actor father, Daniel.

Lydia, Christopher and Natalie are used to domestic turmoil. Their parents’ divorce has not made family life any easier in either home.

If parents would only take the time to think about that and communicate more before having kids, there would be less of a need for therapy for adults.

“Malusi liked doing things slowly. He sang a little after he had pulled on this T-shirt. He played a little and then he put in his shoes - his tackies. There were very old tackies. When they were new they had belonged to Mongi.”

Dusty helps Grandpa make pancakes with interesting results.

The only person who saw her leave the house was the younger brother - which is why he feels particularly guilty about her disappearance.

“Their cottage stood on its own at the edge of the great marsh, two miles away from the village of Waterslain. That marsh! Empty it looked and silent it seemed, but Annie knew better. She knew about the nests among the flags and rushes.”

Her sister Willa is pregnant and Annie is overjoyed when she comes home to have her baby. Annie tells Willa the names of local plants and Willa tells Annie about the ghost, murdered by highwaymen, who is said to haunt the old forge nearby.

“Enough help. You’ll have to stay on the floor now,′ says Grandpa. ‘I have to fry the pancakes.’ “I want to help,′ says Dusty. ‘No,’ says Grandpa. ‘Can I have some milk?’ asks Dusty, pushing the chair closer to the bowl.”

“I swam around for quite a while and then I scrambled up on to the bridge and stood there, wet trough, the water running out of my clothes. My trousers were clinging to my legs, which was why I could see so clearly what had happened.”

Dusty helps Grandpa make pancakes with interesting results.

“I want to help,′ says Dusty, swishing his hands in the egg mixture. ‘No, no, NO,’ says Grandpa. His voice is getting louder. He wipes Dusty’s hands and lifts him down to the floor.”

‘Would you look after Dusty for a little while?’ Dusty’s mother asks her father. He is Dusty’s grandpa.”

“One morning his wife went looking for berries, leaving the boy to care for his father. The unhappy old man sat in the sun, thinking of his days as a great hunter.”

″‘I want to help,’ says Dusty, as he drops two eggs into the bowl. The third one cracks in his hand. ‘Oh boy, what a mess.’ says Grandpa. ‘There will be eggshells in the pancakes, I will have to take them out.‘”

“He pushes a chair over to Grandpa and climbs up. He finds three eggs. ‘Hold it,’ says Grandpa. ‘The eggs are supposed to go into the bowl. ”

“Ever since Nora moved into the new apartment, strange things have been happening - cryptic phone calls, hidden messages, haunting visits by an invisible presence, and a doll that sometimes seems to be alive.”

“As soon as Dick came into the kitchen he knew that something had happened. His mothers was short-tempered and his father’s brows were down; and his brother’s boots, caked with mud, were drying in the hearth.”

“It’s a little story of a family that is set around the turn of the century. The father has to leave his job abruptly and decides to pursue a new career in America. The mother and four children are left in England, staying with two elderly aunts, while the father gets settled.”

“She got to stay up late and watch TV, and naturally, she was never wrong. ”

″..and who knew better than anyone that little sisters don’t know anything at all.”

“Meet the deliciously zany Callendars _a British family of eight (not counting the animals) whose offbeat interest land them all in the astonishing middle of an international political crisis.”

“I hope this book proves it,”″ ends Kruss, the now grown great-grandson, and we believe that he can rest assured.”

“These six kids are aided by their teacher, Grandmother Sibble III, legless Janus, old Douwa, and the “tin man”.

“Look after yourself and your clothes, son,′ continued his mother. ‘You know very well what all this has cost your father. We’re poor. But your father wants you to be someone in life. He doesn’t wants you to work and suffer as he’s done.”

“When he wants to check out library books, Rufus teaches himself to write... even though he doesn’t yet know how to read.”

“When food is scarce, he plants some special ‘Rufus beans’ that actually grow... despite his digging them up every day to check on them.”

“He has his own personal flying horse for a day, and tours town with the Cardboard boy, his dearest friend_ and enemy.”

“He surprised Mama by asking to have his hands washed.When this was done, he mounted his scooter again and returned all the long way to the library. It was just a little trip to the library. it was a long one.”

“Ordinarily the Pyes never went away from Cranbury either, except for Papa, who was a renowned ornithologist and accustomed to travelin placer near, faraway, and even dangerous.”

“The check from The Auk had come, on time. ‘Hurray!‘, said Papa. ‘We can go! We can spend the whole summer. I can write ten books!’ he said. Papa was always about ten books behind in his writings.”

“Specimens were what Jerry was interested in, not birds that fly away before one can be sure what they are but specimens of rock that may be scrutinized at leisure in one’s room by lamplight, late.”

Marriage had never presented itself to him as a possibility. He not only disliked family life, but a family, and especially a husband was, in accordance with the views general in the bachelor world in which he lived, conceived as something alien, repellant, and, above all, ridiculous.

Levin had been married three months. He was happy, but not at all in the way he had expected to be. At every step he found his former dreams disappointed, and new, unexpected surprises of happiness. He was happy; but on entering upon family life he saw at every step that it was utterly different from what he had imagined. At every step he experienced what a man would experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a little boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat. He saw that it was not all sitting still, floating smoothly; that one had to think too, not for an instant to forget where one was floating; and that there was water under one, and that one must row; and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore; and that it was only to look at it that was easy; but that doing it, though very delightful, was very difficult.

In order to carry through any undertaking in family life, there must necessarily be either complete division between the husband and wife, or loving agreement. When the relations of a couple are vacillating and neither one thing nor the other, no sort of enterprise can be undertaken.