Hands-Off Parenting/Quotes

BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN

—a telegram from the children's father, in Swallows and Amazons

Ned's Mother: [About a young Ned's destructive behaviour] You gotta help us, Doc. We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!

—The Simpsons, "Hurricane Neddy"

Indiana Jones: It was just the two of us, dad. It was a lonely way to grow up, for you too. If you'd been an ordinary, average father like the other kids had, you'd have understood that.

Henry Jones: Actually, I was a wonderful father.

Indiana: When?

Henry: Did I ever tell you to eat up, go to bed, wash your ears, do your homework? No, I respected your privacy, and I taught you self-reliance.

Indiana: What you taught me was that I was less important to you than people who'd been dead for five hundred years in another country. And I learned it so well, we've hardly spoken for twenty years.

Henry: You left just when you were becoming interesting.

—Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade