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Growing up is hard. No one can deny that. There’s not a single rite of passage that doesn’t induce at least a little anxiety. First solo bike rides end in bruises and scrapes. First periods end in stains. First driving tests sometimes end in tears. First loves, well, we all know they can end in broken hearts. And just because these milestones are “learning experiences” doesn’t mean they suck any less when you’re going through them. You know what can help, though? Growing up quotes — words that serve as a reminder that other people have survived the awkwardness of adolescence and the growing pains of adulthood.

After the fact, you can usually see the beauty. The freedom you gain, the life you can create, the love you end up with in the end. None of those things happen without the bumps and bruises first. And, it’s suddenly even more beautiful to be the mother or father watching those moments unfold in your own child’s life. Yes, you hurt for them. But, you also know what’s in store after they heal.

These growing up quotes? They capture that for parents.

Quotes About Growing Up

1. “Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up.” — Tom Stoppard
2. “As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.” — Ray Kroc
3. “The trick is growing up without growing old.” — Casey Stengel
4. “Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.” — Walt Disney
5. “Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.” — Maya Angelou
6. “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — E.E. Cummings
7. “When they tell you to grow up, they mean stop growing.” — Tom Robbins
8. “’Oh,’ she thought, ‘How horrible it is that people have to grow up and marry and change!’” — L.M. Montgomery
9. “Growing older is not upsetting; being perceived as old is.” — Kenny Rogers
10. “You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” — George Bernard Shaw
11. “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” — J.D. Salinger
12. “Growing up is losing some illusions in order to acquire others.” — Virginia Woolf
13. “Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you’re in diapers; the next day you’re gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul.” — The Wonder Years
14. “Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.” — Allie Condie, Matched
15. “My mother… she is beautiful, softened at the edges, and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.” — Jodi Picoult
16. “Growing up happens when you start having things you look back on and wish you could change.” — Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes
17. “You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end, she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls.” — J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
18. “Growing old is unavoidable, but never growing up is possible. I believe you can retain certain things from your childhood if you protect them — certain traits, certain places where you don’t let the world go.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
19. “Growing up, we are told many things; one being, you can do anything. But somewhere between child and adult, things change.” — Julie Hebert, Why Not You
20. “As I learned from growing up, you don’t mess with your grandmother.” — Prince William
21. “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” — Anne Frank
22. “When we are children, we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.” — Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
23. “It takes years to learn the difference between who to let go and who to be patient with. The same way it takes years to know what you deserve and what you don’t. So hang in there — growth and experience come with time.” — R.M. Drake
24. “Wasn’t it beautiful when you believed in everything?” — Unknown
25. “‘Don’t you find it odd,’ she continued, ‘that when you’re a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you’re older, somehow they act offended if you even try.’” — Ethan Hawke, The Hottest State

Quotes On Growth For Parents

1. “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” — C.S. Lewis
2. “Children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.” — Lady Bird Johnson
3. “We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.” — Stacia Tauscher
4. “While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.” — Angela Schwindt
5. “You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they’re going.” — P. J. O’Rourke
6. “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.” — Phyllis Diller
7. “A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark.” — Chinese Proverb
8. “Motherhood is an early retirement position. Your children do grow up.” — Colleen Parro
9. “Kids: They dance before they learn there is anything that isn’t music.” — William Stafford
10. “You know children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers.” — John J. Plomp
11. “You have a lifetime to work, but children are only young once.” — Polish Proverb
12. “She’s a wild butterfly finding her way… just a girl growing wings.” — Butterflies Rising
13. “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different?” — C.S. Lewis
14. “I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway… let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves.” — C. JoyBell C.
15. “Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them — a mother’s approval, a father’s nod — are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.” — Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Quotes About Watching Daughters Grow

1. “No matter how old she may be, sometimes a girl just needs her mom.” — Cardinal Mermillod
2. “I think she is growing up, and so begins to dream dreams, and have hopes and fears and fidgets, without knowing why or being able to explain them.” — Louisa May Alcott
3. “To a father growing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter.” — Euripides
4. “A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.” — Dorothy C. Fisher
5. “A daughter may outgrow your lap, but she will never outgrow your heart.” — Unknown
6. “The older I get, the more I see the power of that young woman, my mother.” — Sharon Olds
7. “As they get older, our daughters become more and more like us too.” — Amy Newmark
8. “I hope that my daughter grows up empowered and doesn’t define herself by the way she looks but by qualities that make her an intelligent, strong, and responsible woman.” — Isaiah Mustafa
9. “Raising a daughter is like growing a flower. You give it your best. If you’ve done your job well, she blooms. And after that, she leaves.” — Unknown
10. “It’s about a girl who is on the cusp of becoming someone. A girl who may not know what she wants right now, and she may not know who she is right now, but who deserves the chance to find out.” — Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper

Quotes About Raising Sons

1. “The years will rush by, and one day you will be watching your son as a man and feeling incredibly proud that he is caring, safe, making a contribution, and hopefully going far beyond you in the scope of his life.” — Steve Biddulph
2. “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
3. “Yet, now in my arms, I was holding a helpless baby boy who would grow into a man. I cannot imagine that soft little face one day having whiskers.” — Rhonda Stoppe
4. “Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.” — John F. Kennedy
5. “‘I don’t want to be a man,’ said Jace. ‘I want to be an angst-ridden teenager who can’t confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead.’ ‘Well,’ said Luke, ‘you’re doing a fantastic job.’” — Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

This article was originally published on Dec. 14, 2020