25 Inspirational Parenting Quotes to Keep You Going

There are about as many ways to describe parenting as there are human beings in the world. It is the greatest gift and the greatest source of fear, anxiety and pressure to be the "best parent." Whether you're at the start of your parenting journey or your kids are having their own kids, these inspiring parenting quotes will make you smile, laugh and perhaps shed a tear or two. And at the end of the day, remember that the wisest voice when it comes to your kids is always your inner voice.

More: 10 Positive Affirmations for Kids and How to Use Them

Heartwarming Quotes About a Parent's Unconditional Love:

1. "When your children arrive, the best you can hope for is that they break open everything about you. Your mind floods with oxygen. Your heart becomes a room with wide-open windows. You laugh hard every day. You think about the future and read about global warming. You realize how nice it feels to care about someone else more than yourself." - Amy Poehler
2. "Motherhood: All love begins and ends there." - Robert Browning
3. "Having kids feels like that first seventh-grade crush that overwhelms every molecule in your body, but it's permanent." - Kristen Bell
4. "Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope outlives them all." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
5. "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
6. "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
7. "There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Positive Parenting Quotes to Boost Your Self-Esteem and Brighten the Bad Days:

8. "Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do." - Benjamin Spock
9. "Encourage and support your kids because children are apt to live up to what you believe of them." - Lady Bird Johnson
10. "Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child's life and it's like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities." - Gary Smalley
11. "Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children." - Charles R. Swindoll
12. "Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted." - Garrison Keillor
13. "There are times as a parent when you realize that your job is not to be the parent you always imagined you'd be, the parent you always wished you had. Your job is to be the parent your child needs, given the particulars of his or her own life and nature." - Ayelet Waldman
14. "There is no such thing as a perfect parent. So just be a real one." - Sue Atkins

Inspiring Parenting Quotes for New Parents:

15. "Just as there is no warning for childbirth, there is no preparation for the sight of a first child. There should be a song for women to sing at this moment, or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that moment." - Anita Diamant
16. "One thing about having a baby is that each step of the way you simply cannot imagine loving him any more than you already do, because you are bursting with love, loving as much as you are humanly capable of—and then you do, you love him even more." - Anne Lamott
17. "Making the decision to have a child — it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." - Elizabeth Stone
18. "Loving a baby is a circular business, a kind of feedback loop. The more you give the more you get and the more you get the more you feel like giving." - Penelope Leach
19. "The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new." - Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
20. "Hugs can do great amounts of good - especially for children." - Princess Diana
21. "The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde
22. "Mother is a verb. It's something you do, not just who you are." - Cheryl Lacey Donovan

Best Parenting Quotes for When You Just Need a Laugh:

23. "If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?" - Milton Berle
24. "You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance." - Franklin P. Adams
25. "Having children is like living in a frat house - nobody sleeps, everything's broken, and there's a lot of throwing up." - Ray Romano