Children do not need superhuman, perfect parents. They have always managed with good enough parents: the parents they happened to have.

Two generations ago only a few unfortunate children ever saw anyone hit over the head with a brick, shot, rammed by a car, blown up, immolated, raped or tortured. Now all children, along with their elders, see such images every day of their lives and are expected to enjoy them. ... The seven-year-old who hides his eyes in the family cops-and-robbers drama is desensitized four years later to a point where he crunches potato chips through the latest video nasty.

Whatever you do to your child's body, you are doing to your child's mind too.

Being "brave" means doing or facing something frightening. ... Being "fearless" means being without fear.

There is no way out of the experience except through it, because it is not really your experience at all but the baby's. Your body is the child's instrument of birth.

Grown-up people do very little and say a great deal.... Toddlers say very little and do a great deal.... With a toddler you cannot explain, you have to show. You cannot send, you have to take. You cannot control with words, you have to use your body.

Guilt is the most destructive of all emotions. It mourns what has been while playing no part in what may be, now or in the future.