Any boy mom will agree that raising sons is an action-packed adventure. For starters, they typically have boundless energy, a fearless love of exploration and an uncanny ability to turn practically anything into a demolition project. They also have a whole lot of love to give and their joie de vivre can really melt your heart. After reflecting on my own ongoing journey of raising a little boy, I decided to scour the internet for a collection of boy mom quotes that really speak to the unique parenting experience. Read on for some words of wisdom, sentiment and humor—preferably when the beast is subdued by food, TV or sleep.
50 Boy Mom Quotes That Will Make You Laugh, Cry and Say ‘Yep, So True!’
So much chaos. So much love.
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Published Feb 27, 2025
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“But kids don’t stay with you if you do it right. It’s the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won’t be needed in the long run.”
— Barbara Kingsolver
1. “If a man has been his mother’s undisputed darling, he retains throughout life the triumphant feeling, the confidence in success, which not seldom brings actual success along with it.” —Sigmund Freud
2. “My mother said to me, ‘If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.’ Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.” — Pablo Picasso
3. “Despite all the certificates, diplomats and honours, it remains true that education begins at home.”― Mwanandeke Kindembo
4. “I want my son to have a choice to contribute fully in the workforce or at home.” — Sheryl Sandberg
5. “I always tell my son: ‘You need to happen to life. Don’t be the person that life happens to. Don’t let life happen to you; YOU HAPPEN TO LIFE.’ And it has occurred to me that I should be following my own advice.” — C. JoyBell C.
6. “It is imperative that we teach our boys to love themselves, too! One day they will become men, husbands, and fathers. I encourage you to instill self-love early on!” — Stephanie Lahart
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7. “I want my boys to have an understanding of people’s emotions, their insecurities, people’s distress, and their hopes and dreams.” — Princess Diana
8. “But kids don’t stay with you if you do it right. It’s the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won’t be needed in the long run.” — Barbara Kingsolver
9. “I don’t need an obedient son, I need a son who has become better than me, brighter than me, who is reliable, accountable, trustworthy and insightful. And he’s all that. That’s how he’s a good son.” — C. JoyBell C.
10. “You don’t raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they’ll turn out to be heroes, even if it’s just in your own eyes.” ― Walter M. Schirra, Sr.
11. “To be a mother of a son is one of the most important things you can do to change the world.” — Shannon L. Alder
“It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.”
― Ann Landers
12. “More than mother and son, they were accomplices in solitude.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
13. “Men are what their mothers made them.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
14. “If the day ever came when we were able to accept ourselves and our children exactly as we and they are, then I believe we would have come very close to an ultimate understanding of what ‘good’ parenting means.” — Fred Rogers
15. “Letting children fall is a part of parenting; and, showing kids how to stand right up takes a real artist.”— Bert McCoy
16. “It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.” — Ann Landers
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17. “That strong mother doesn’t tell her cub, ‘son, stay weak so the wolves can get you.’ She says, ‘toughen up, this is reality we are living in.’” — Lauryn Hill
18. “I have always felt that the more experiences a child has and the more things he sees and hears, the more interested in life he is likely to be.” — Rose Kennedy
19. “My kids have so much, and it’s the only way I can teach them that there is a responsibility to their life that comes with being lucky. You give some of yourself to others.” — Denzel Washington
20. “A foolish son has no advantage over a wise orphan.”— Matshona Dhliwayo
“A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.”
— Irish Proverb
21. “And she loved a little boy very, very much—even more than she loved herself.” — Shel Silverstein
22. “I have a son who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.” — Maya Angelou
23. “A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.” — Victor Hugo
24. “A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.” — Irish Proverb
25. “Little boys can test your patience, run you ragged, and make you want to pull your hair out. But they will also melt your heart with just one look, and make you wonder how you ever existed before them.” — Katie Bingham Smith
26. “Who’s a boy gonna talk to if not his mother?” — Donald E. Westlake
27. “All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” — Abraham Lincoln
28. “I live for my sons. I would be lost without them.” — Princess Diana
29. “If love is as sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love.” — Stevie Wonder
30. “My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.” — Thomas Edison
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31. “To wake up to the sound of my son saying ‘Mama, mama!’ It’s the best sound ever.” — Miranda Kerr
32. “No man succeeds without a good woman behind him. Wife or mother, if it is both, he is twice blessed.” — Godfrey Winn
33. “Heaven on Earth is looking at my little boy.” — Jenny McCarthy
34. “Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.” — Louisa May Alcott
35. “You have my whole heart. You always did. You’re the best guy. You always were.” ― Cormac McCarthy, The Road
“Having an infant son alerts me to the fact that every man, at one point, has peed on his own face.”
— Olivia Wilde
36. “Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading, I denied. That leaves only me to blame 'cause Mama tried.” — Merle Haggard, Mama Tried
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37. “Children are never too old to be controlled. It’s just like chess, children are the pawns and you are the queen.” — Jessica Huang, Fresh Off the Boat
38. “Having an infant son alerts me to the fact that every man, at one point, has peed on his own face.” — Olivia Wilde
39. “When my kids become unruly, I use a nice playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.” — Erma Bombeck
40. “Having children is like living in a frat house —nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up.” — Ray Romano
41. “The quickest way for a parent to get a child’s attention is to sit down and look comfortable.” — Lane Olinghouse
42. “I don’t have to say ‘I’m sorry,’ to him, Louis. I gave birth to him.” — Jessica Huang, Fresh Off the Boat
43. “A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it.” — Jerry Seinfeld
44. “You do not pinch, you do not poke, you do not bite, you do not spit, you do not eye gouge, you do not vomit intentionally on other babies!” — Lois Wilkerson, Malcolm in the Middle
45. “That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.” — Ivan Turgenev, Diary of a Superfluous Man
46. “My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.” — Mark Twain
47. “Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.” — Plato
48. “Here’s what I’ve learned about raising boys…if you keep ‘em busy, they’re fine. You let ‘em get bored, they’ll dismantle your house board by board.” — Kenny Rogers
49. “I want my son to wear a helmet 24 hours a day. If it was socially acceptable, I’d be the first one to have my kid in a full helmet and like a cage across his face mask.” — Will Arnett
50. “Becoming a mom to me means that you have accepted that for the next 16 years of your life, you will have a sticky purse.” — Nia Vardalos
