Linux Kids

Nature makes boys and girls lovely to look upon so they can be
tolerated until they acquire some sense.
                -- William Phelps

Never have children, only grandchildren.
                -- Gore Vidal

Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.
                -- Erma Bombeck

Never raise your hand to your children -- it leaves your midsection
unprotected.
                -- Robert Orben

Never trust a child farther than you can throw it.

No house is childproofed unless the little darlings are in straitjackets.

No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for
signs of improvement.
                -- Florida Scott-Maxwell

Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order
for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of
their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old.
                -- Lewis Lapham

        On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us out pick
tomatoes.  Back in April I'd have killed for a fresh tomato, but in August
they are no more rare or wonderful than rocks.  So I picked up one and threw
it at a crab apple tree, where it made a good *splat*, and then threw a tomato
at my brother.  He whipped one back at me.  We ducked down by the vines,
heaving tomatoes at each other.  My sister, who was a good person, said,
"You're going to get it."  She bent over and kept on picking.
        What a target!  She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending over,
she looked like the side of a barn.
        I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground.  It looked like it
had sat there a week.  The underside was brown, small white worms lived in it,
and it was very juicy.  I stood up and took aim, and went into the windup,
when my mother at the kitchen window called my name in a sharp voice.  I had
to decide quickly.  I decided.
        A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound, like a fat
man doing a belly-flop.  With a whoop and a yell the tomatoee came after
faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about to brain
me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice.  And my sister, who was a
good person, obeyed and let go -- and burst into tears.  I guess she knew that
the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of hearing
a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end.
                -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.
                -- George Herbert