Andrew Solomon: Quotes about children

Andrew Solomon is American journalist. Explore interesting quotes on children.

Andrew Solomon: 66 quotes1 like

“I want more than anything for my children to be happy, and I love them because they are sad, and the erratic project of kneading that sadness into joy is the engine of my life as a father, as a son, as a friend—and as a writer.”

Source: Far from the Tree, Ch. 12 Father, p. 701.

“Insofar as our children resemble us, they are our most precious admirers, and insofar as they differ, they can be our most vehement distractors. From the beginning, we tempt them into imitation of us and long for what may be life's most profound compliment: their choosing to live according to our own system of values. Though many of us take pride in how different we are from our parents, we are endlessly sad at how different our children are from us.”

Source: Far from the Tree, Ch. 1 Son, p 1-2.

“Children ensnared me the moment I connected fatherhood with loss, but I am not sure I would have noticed that if I hadn't been immersed in this research. Encountering so much strange love, I fell into its bewitching patterns and saw how splendor can illuminate even the most abject vulnerabilities. I had witnessed and learned the terrifying joy of unbearable responsibility, recognized how it conquers everything else. Sometimes, I had thought the heroic parents in this book were fools, enslaving themselves to a life's journey with their alien children, trying to breed identity out of misery. I was startled to learn that my research had built me a plank, and that I was ready to join them on their ship.”

Source: Far from the Tree, Ch. 12 Father, p. 702.

“Our children are not us: they carry throwback genes and recessive traits and are subject right from the start to environmental stimuli beyond our control. And yet we are our children; the reality of being a parent never leaves those who have braved the metamorphosis.”

Source: Far from the Tree, Ch. 1 Son, p 1.

“Most of the parents I interviewed for this book said they would never want other children than the ones they had, which at first seemed surprising given the challenges their children embody. But why do any of us prefer our own children, all of them defective in some regard, to others real or imagined? If some glorious angel descended into my living room and offered to exchange my children for other, better children—brighter, kinder, funnier, more loving, more disciplined, more accomplished—I would clutch the ones I have and, like most parents, pray away the atrocious specter.”

Source: Far from the Tree, Ch. 12 Father, p. 698.

“We depend on the guarantee in our children's faces that we will not die. Children whose defining quality annihilates that fantasy of immortality are a particular insult; we must love them for themselves, and not for the best of ourselves in them, and that is a great deal harder to do. Loving our own children is an exercise for the imagination.”

Far from the Tree