This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Temple Bailey, born Irene Temple Bailey
The mother said, “This is a better day than the last, for my children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness. Yesterday I gave them courage. Today I have given them strength... This is the best day of all, for I have shown my children God... I have reached the end of my journey. And now I know that the end is better than the beginning, for my children can walk alone, and their children after them.” And the children said, “You will always walk with us, Mother, even when you have gone through the gates.”
Beginning | Better | Children | Courage | Day | Fortitude | God | Journey | Mother | Strength | Will |
Art, not less eloquently than literature, teaches her children to venerate the single eye.
Art | Children | Literature | Wisdom |
Peter A. Bertocci, fully Peter Anthony Bertocci
The sexual act takes on qualitative significance and value which transcends the other meanings the sexual act can have, when lovers use the act purposely to become parents. For now the two lovers express their faith in love itself, in the possibilities open to their children within the social order and in this world.
Joseph Zabara, fully Joseph ben Meïr Zabara
A healthy man may live seven days without food, five without drink, but only three without sleep.
Parents belong to the world of the past; children belong to the world of the future. Both share the world of the present, but neither can enter or fully understand the other’s world and time. It is easier to communicate across miles than across years. We meet and laugh awhile; we separate and grieve awhile. And then we remember.
Children | Future | Parents | Past | Present | Time | World | Understand |
Joan Chittister, fully Sister Joan D. Chittister
Blind obedience is itself an abuse of human morality. It is a misuse of the human soul in the name of religious commitment. It is a sin against individual conscience. It makes moral children of the adults from whom moral agency is required. It makes a vow, which is meant to require religious figures to listen always to the law of God, beholden first to the laws of very human organizations in the person of very human authorities. It is a law that isn't even working in the military and can never substitute for personal morality.
Abuse | Children | Commitment | Conscience | God | Individual | Law | Morality | Obedience | Sin | Soul |
T. Berry Brazelton, fully Thomas Berry Brazelton
Reading to children at night, responding to their smiles, with a smile, returning their vocalizations with one of your own, touching them, holding them – all of these further a child’s brain development and future potential, even in the earliest months. Research demonstrates that the early responsiveness of caring parents sets the tone for future self-esteem, trust, problem solving, ability to communicate successfully and motivation for future learning.
Ability | Children | Esteem | Future | Learning | Parents | Reading | Research | Self | Self-esteem | Smile | Trust |
[A] society that pulls the needs of its children dead is a society “progressing” rapidly toward moral ruin.
Peace of mind is the greatest asset we can have for happy, healthy living. This is an inner victory which only comes from knowing God intimately. Then the material things of life do not both us any longer - we live in a spiritual world, and spiritual values are the only real values in life.
God | Happy | Knowing | Life | Life | Mind | Peace | World | God |
Tiny children want to learn to the degree that they are unable to distinguish learning from fun. They keep this attitude until we adults convince them that learning is not fun.
Children | Distinguish | Fun | Learning | Learn |
The primary business of school is to train children to co-operative and mutually helpful living; to foster in them the consciousness of mutual interdependence.
Business | Children | Consciousness | Business |