Quote

In considering the ledger equal, understand the greatest gift you have given your parents is the opportunity to raise you. The things a child gets from parents can't compare to the things a parent gets from raising a child. Only by experiencing this can you understand the degree to which children give meaning to parents' lives.

Frank Pittman

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Frank Pittman
Age: 77 †
Born: 1935
Born: January 1
Died: 2012
Died: November 24
Psychiatrist
Psychotherapist
the United States of America
Lives
Equal
Considering
Given
Gets
Compare
Give
Parents
Raise
Giving
Greatest
Raises
Children
Parent
Degree
Things
Child
Degrees
Ledger
Opportunity
Gift
Experiencing
Understand
Meaning
Raising

More quotes by Frank Pittman

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Becoming Father the Nurturer rather than just Father the Provider enables a man to fully feel and express his humanity and his masculinity. Fathering is the most masculine thing a man can do.
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Parents have to get over the idea that their children belong just to them children are a family affair.
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Love is not something people feel, but something people try to express no matter how they feel.
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Each generation's job is to question what parents accept on faith, to explore possibilities, and adapt the last generation's system of values for a new age.
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The guys who fear becoming fathers don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. The end product of child-raising is not the child but the parent.
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Men who have been raised violently have every reason to believe it is appropriate for them to control others through violence they feel no compunction over being violent to women, children, and one another.
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Parents can make us distrust ourselves. To them, we seem always to be works-in-progress.
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The secret to having a good marriage is to understand that marriage must be total, it must be permanent, and it must be equal.
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Our father has an even more important function than modeling manhood for us. He is also the authority to let us relax the requirements of the masculine model: if our father accepts us, then that declares us masculine enough to join the company of men. We, in effect, have our diploma in masculinity and can go on to develop other skills.
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A boy is not free to find a partner of his own as long as he must be the partner to his mother.
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Fathering makes a man, whatever his standing in the eyes of the world, feel strong and good and important, just as he makes his child feel loved and valued.
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To insult a friend implies that you respect his masculinity enough to know he can take it without acting like a crybaby. The swapping of insults, like the fighting between brothers, becomes the seal of the male bonding.
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The end product of child raising is not the child but the parent.
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When the masculine mystique is pulling boys and men out into the world to growl manly noises at one another, the only power with astronger pull on the male psyche is maternally induced guilt. The guilt is quite necessary for our moral development, but it is often uncomfortable.
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For most people, a life lived alone, with passing strangers or passing lovers, is incoherent and ultimately unbearable. Someone must be there to know what we have done for those we love.
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We know how powerful our mother was when we were little, but is our wife that powerful to us now? Must we relive our great deed of escape from Mama with every other woman in our life?
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Character, not passion keeps marriages together long enough to do their work of raising children into mature, responsible, productive citizens.
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Fidelity is the single most important element in solidly enduring marriages.
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