60 Inspiring Quotes for Parenting and Raising Kids

It’s strange to say this, but as someone who has always been a writer, I sometimes feel like I shouldn’t be the one to tell certain stories.

While I am not a parent, I’ve worked with many parents and many children over the years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned thus far in my career in education, it’s that good parenting is hard work. Raising a “good kid” is hard. Getting good advice on parenting is hard.

Being a parent to a child is one of the greatest gifts, but it is far from easy. Parenting is a journey that takes so much patience, so much love, and teaches you lessons you never knew you needed.

At the end of the day, every parent is an amateur parent. Most parents are trying to show their kids unconditional love and give them the best upbringing that they possibly can. Other parents want to give their children the world in rich experiences. Some parents have nothing but time to spend while others work multiple jobs to make ends meet and struggle to line up their schedules to be able to spend time with their kids. Some find it easier to parent little humans than they do to parent young people or young adults.

Regardless of the exact situation, there will be natural ebbs and flows for any parent’s journey. There will be great times and there will be difficult times and these changes in parenting seasons can come with big emotions.

One of the simple truths that I like to remind parents of is that the quality of your parenting does not depend on how much money or how much time you have. The greatest sign of good parenting is the positive changes and growth that will occur in children’s lives.

In my opinion, the best parent is the one who tries because perfect parenting does not exist. There is no such thing as a perfect mother or father and I would love to know who came up with the crazy idea that this was something for all of us to aspire to. In an effort to give you a little boost when you need it, I’ve put together a list of 60 of the most inspirational quotes about parenting. Whether you’re looking for support with discipline, something to make you laugh, something to make you feel less alone, or something to inspire you, I think you’ll find it on this list.

So, for the new parents, the good parents, the parent trying to be a better parent, the parent who needs a pick-me-up on the bad days, the dad who is trying to be a good father, the parent trying to be a loving parent, the admittedly imperfect parent, and every other kind of parent you can think of: here are some positive parenting quotes to get you through the hard times on your parenting journey.

60 Insipirational Quotes for Parents

“Parenting: the days are long, but the years are short.” – Gretchen Rubin
“The most precious jewels you’ll ever have around your neck are the arms of your children.” – Unknown
“Your greatest contribution to the world may not be something you do, but someone you raise.” – Andy Stanley
“Parenting is a constant uphill battle of negotiating, compromising, and evolving.” – Maraboli
“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” – Peggy O’Mara
“It’s not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.” – Ann Landers
“The best kind of parent you can be is to lead by example.” – Drew Barrymore
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss
“A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.” – Billy Graham
“Your children need your presence more than your presents.” – Jesse Jackson
“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” – C.S. Lewis
“Parenting is about raising and celebrating the child you have, not the child you thought you’d have.” – Joan Ryan
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln
“To be in your children’s memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today.” – Barbara Johnson
“The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature.” – Antoine François Prévost
“It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings.” – Ann Landers
“The most important thing that a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” – Theodore Hesburgh
“Your children will become who you are, so be who you want them to be.” – Unknown
“The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day.” – O. A. Battista
“Your time and attention are the most valuable gifts you can give to your children.” – Unknown

“A parent’s love is whole no matter how many times divided.” – Robert Brault
“No one is perfect, and no parent is perfect. But there is always the perfect moment to love and guide your child.” – Unknown
“The more I see, the less I know for sure.” – John Lennon
“Parenting is a constant learning process, and there’s no manual that fits all.” – Unknown
“Every parent is at some point the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.” – John Ciardi
“In the eyes of a child, you will see the world as it should be.” – Unknown
“The best parenting advice I ever got was: ‘Your job is not to make your children happy. It’s to prepare them to be responsible, respectful, and resilient.'” – Lori Gottlieb
“Parenting is not about perfection. It’s about learning and growing together.” – Unknown
“Children are great imitators, so give them something great to imitate.” – Anonymous
“Your children need your presence more than your presents.” – Jesse Jackson
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
“I think the most important thing a parent can do is make sure their child feels loved and valued.” – Jodi Picoult
“Your children become who you are; so be who you want them to be.” – Ewan McGregor
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
“When a child hits a child, we call it aggression. When a child hits an adult, we call it hostility. When an adult hits an adult, we call it assault. When an adult hits a child, we call it discipline.”—Haim G. Ginott
“If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.”—Bette Davis
“Encourage and support your kids, because children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.”—Lady Bird Johnson
“As your kids grow up, they may forget what you said, but they won’t forget how you made them feel.”—Kevin Heath
“Having children is like living in a frat house: nobody sleeps, everything is broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up.”—Ray Romano
“We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change.”—Henry Cloud

“I may not be able to give my kids everything they want, but I give them what they need: love, time, and attention. You can’t buy those things.”—Nishan Panwar
“Play helps build a warm relationship between family members and create a bank of positive feelings and experiences that can be drawn upon in times of conflict. Through play, you can help your children solve problems, test out ideas, and explore their imaginations.”—Carolyn Webster-Stratton
“Anybody out there who is a parent, if your kids want to paint their bedrooms, as a favor to me, let them do it. It’ll be OK.”—Randy Pausch
“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.”—Robert Fulghum
“Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them.”—Bill Ayers
“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: He believed in me.”—Jim Valvano
“Say ‘no’ only when it really matters. Wear a bright red shirt with bright orange shorts? Sure. Put water in the toy tea set? Okay. Sleep with your head at the foot of the bed? Fine.”—Gretchen Rubin
“Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first, we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?”—Jane Nelson
“Sometimes, kids want you to hurt the way they hurt.”—Mitch Albom
“If we don’t shape our kids, they will be shaped by outside forces that don’t care what shape our kids are in.”—Dr. Louise Hart
“If I had to make a general rule for living and working with children, it might be this: Be wary of saying or doing anything to a child that you would not do to another adult, whose good opinion and affection you valued.”—John Holt
“By loving them for more than their abilities, we show our children that they are much more than the sum of their accomplishments.”—Eileen Kennedy-Moore
“Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it.”—Harold Hulburt
“The reality is that most of us communicate the same way that we grew up. That communication style becomes our normal way of dealing with issues, our blueprint for communication. It’s what we know and pass on to our own children. We either become our childhood or we make a conscious choice to change it.”—Kristen Crockett
“Having children is my greatest achievement. It was my saviour. It switched my focus from the outside to the inside. My children are gifts, they remind me of what’s important.” – Elle MacPherson
“A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to.”—Robert Brault
“But kids don’t stay with you if you do it right. It’s the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won’t be needed in the long run.”—Barbara Kingsolver
“Parenthood…It’s about guiding the next generation, and forgiving the last.”—Peter Krause
“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” – Anne Frank
“There’s nothing called a perfect parent, so just be a real one.” – Sue Atkins

I hope these words resonated with you and that you come back to them when you need them. As I put this together, I was reminded that they are simply words on this blog. But before they lived here, they lived elsewhere. They lived in people’s minds. They are reflective of people’s experiences, of their joys and their challenges.

I hope they reminded you that you aren’t in this parenting journey alone and that there is room for you to make mistakes. I hope that this list of inspiring quotes has reminded you that parenting is a unique combination of love, discipline, laughter, and resilience. It’s a journey that challenges you, transforms you, and ultimately shapes the future through the lives you nurture.

May these words be a source of inspiration, a guide in times of uncertainty, and a reminder that your story–the beautiful chaos of parenthood–is always a story worth telling.

Always remember, you’ve got this.