Parent Child Relationship Quotes

“An important difference between overt and covert incest is that, while the overt victim feels abused, the covert victim feels idealized and privileged. Yet underneath the thin mask of feeling special and privileged rests the same trauma of the overt victim: rage, anger, shame and guilt. The sense of exploitation resulting from being a parent's surrogate partner or spouse is buried behind a wall of illusion and denial. The adult covert incest victim remains stuck in a pattern of living aimed at keeping the special relationship going with the opposite-sex parent. It is a pattern of always trying to please Mommy and Daddy. In this way the adult continues to be idealized. A privileged and special position is maintained; the pain and suffering of a lost childhood denied. Separation never occurs and feelings of being trapped in the psychological marriage deepen. This interferes with the victim's capacity for healthy intimacy and sexuality.”
― Kenneth M. Adams, Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners : Understanding Covert Incest

“I can be anything I want to be. Just wait and you will see. Only time will tell what I will be.”
― Jason J. Greenaway, My Daddy Loves Me: Just the Way I Was Made to Be

“The boundary between caring and incestuous love is crossed when the relationship with the child exists to meet the needs of the parent rather than those of the child. As the deterioration in the marriage progresses, the dependency on the child grows and the opposite-sex parent's response to the child becomes increasingly characterized by desperation, jealousy and a disregard for personal boundaries. The child becomes an object to be manipulated and used so the parent can avoid the pain and reality of a troubled marriage.
The child feels used and trapped, the same feelings overt incest victims experience. Attempts at play, autonomy and friendship render the child guilt-ridden and lonely, never able to feel okay about his or her needs. Over time, the child becomes preoccupied with the parent's needs and feels protective and concerned. A psychological marriage between parent and child results. The child becomes the parent's surrogate spouse.”
― Kenneth M. Adams, Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners : Understanding Covert Incest

“The progress of a struggling teen has less to do with the application of specific parenting techniques than with the parents’ own patient, persistent efforts to construct relationships with their son or daughter.”
― Marian Sandmaier, “More Than Love,” The Family Therapy Networker, May/June 1996

“Dad takes a step back, one hand still on my shoulder, and reaches into his pocket. He draws out a little blue capsule, and I feel every molecule in my body screaming to run. Dad must catch the panic in my eyes - he squeezes my shoulder and holds out the capsule. "Cas, it's fine. It's going to be fine. This is just in case."

Just in case. Just in case the worst happens. The ship falls. Durga fails, I fail, and the knowledge I carry as a Reckoner trainer must be disposed of. That information can't fall into the wrong hands, into the hands of people who will do anything to take down our beasts.

So this little capsule holds the pill that will kill me if it comes to that.

"It's waterproof," Dad continues, pressing it into my hand. "The pocket on the collar of your wetsuit, keep it there. It has to stay with you at all times."

It won't happen on this voyage. It's such a basic mission, gift-wrapped to be easy enough for me to handle on my own. But even holding the pill fills me with revulsion. On all my training voyages, I've never had to carry one of these capsules. That burden only goes to full-time trainers.

"Cas." Dad tilts my chin up, ripping my gaze from the pull. "You were born to do this. I promise you, you'll forget you even have it." I suppose he ought to know - he's been carrying one for two decades.

It's just a right of passage, I tell myself, and throw my arms around his neck once more.”
― Emily Skrutskie, The Abyss Surrounds Us

“Why didn't I feel that I belonged to my parents? How could I have known that I was not right? I think it has always been part of me. Can a newborn sense her parents' disappointment and feelings of frustration at not being able to change the unchangeable?”
― Joan Frances Casey, The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

“Dear Lord, keep my name out of the therapist's office.”
― Jen Hatmaker, For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards

“Sitting across from me is my father, and as I look into his worn face it hits me, a truth so powerful I don't know why I've never understood it before. The truth is this: that I am not a good daughter. I am a traitor, a wolf among sheep; there is something different about me and that difference is not good. I want to bellow, to weep into my father's knees and promise never to do it again. But wolf that I am, I am still above lying, and anyway he would sniff the life. We both know that if I ever again find Shawn on the highway, soaked in crimson, I will do exactly what I have just done.

I am not sorry, merely ashamed.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“What was unfathomable to me was possible to you.”
― Fatima Farheen Mirza

“From the very beginning of their lives children are programmed to perceive the adults closest to them as unquestioned authorities, who provide orientation and set the standards for what is right and what is wrong. Children are told what to wear and when to go to bed. They are to eat what is put on the table, and anything undesirable is suppressed. Parents are always denying their children something they want to have. Even when adults take chocolate away from children, or the few euros they received from a relative for their birthday, that constitutes interference. Children must learn to accept that and trust that their parents are doing the right thing. Otherwise the discrepancy between their own desires and the discouraging behaviour of their loved ones will break them.”
― Natascha Kampusch, 3,096 Days in Captivity: The True Story of My Abduction, Eight Years of Enslavement, and Escape

“When I look at the US now, I am devastated and angry that we live in a country that supports the narrative that it is okay to medicalize young girls and women by prescribing testosterone and performing mastectomies as a first response to the girls’ gender confusion, stress, or mental health concerns.”
― Lisa Shultz, The Trans Train: A Parent's Perspective on Transgender Medicalization and Ideology

“Many families have been emotionally blackmailed and told that they will lose their kids to suicide if they don’t agree to participate in the affirmation model. This threat is an unsubstantiated claim. When parents tap into the experiences of detransitioners, they learn that mental health often crumbles after transition. If it doesn’t work out so well on the other side, then what? It is a no-win situation for parents.”
― Lisa Shultz, The Trans Train: A Parent's Perspective on Transgender Medicalization and Ideology

“The Musket's Progeny by Stewart Stafford

The musket's progeny, gunpowder's rise,
Heirloom ingot cast in festering dirt,
No scaldy-faced defecator's lies,
Can tarnish gold's immutable worth.

Besmirched, perpetual gleam to my eyes,
Ne'er base, but plundered from thy berth,
Another's private treasure, I cannot despise,
Until thy loan fadeth i' th' afterbirth.

With cloistered secrets to impart,
Our correspondence doth expand,
Let it encompass thy tiny heart,
For when it groweth to understand.

When from distant quays, emotion sails,
My words guide thee in storms and gales.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“To understand parent-child conflict, adults need to revisit their own childhood memories...when you figure out something about your own childhood, it serves a double purpose: when you can acknowledge your unmet needs, you can appreciate that your child may have similar unmet needs.”
― Janis Clark Johnston, It Takes a Child to Raise a Parent: Stories of Evolving Child and Parent Development

“Parenting isn’t about perfection—it’s about connection. When we listen, learn, and lead with love, we build the unshakable bonds our children need to thrive.”
― Sage Everest, Positive Parenting Made Simple: Effective Communication for Stronger Family Bonds: Practical Tools to Connect as a Mindful Parent and Raise Resilient Children ... Mindset, and Personal Growth Book 8)