Perry Childhood Quotes

To express nostalgia for a childhood we no longer share is to deny the actual significance and humanity of children.

I didn't have a catharsis for my childhood pain, most of us don't, and until I learned how to forgive those people and let it go, I was unhappy.

We also need to recognize that not all stress is bad, that children require challenges and risk as well as safety. It is natural to want to protect our children, but we need to ask ourselves when the desire for risk-free childhoods has gone too far. The safest playground, after all, would have no swings, no steep slides, no rough surfaces, no trees, no other children—and no fun. Children’s brains are shaped by what they do slowly and repeatedly over time. If they don’t have the chance to practice coping with small risks and dealing with the consequences of those choices, they won’t be well prepared for making larger and far more consequential decisions.

Cheryl Peters had already told me that the family next door, the third house I'd gone to, had also heard me and not opened the door. "They have two children," she said, matter-of-factly. But I was a child, too. Or at least I had been.

Teenage boys are raised on pop culture that presents having sex ‘like a man’ as the ultimate form of female sexual empowerment, and, in the porn to which they are typically exposed from childhood, women are shown begging men for painful or degrading sex acts.

Well then, he said. What are you doing here? I am not sure. Liberty I suppose. I lived so long under constraints. You wonder why I grub about in the mud - it's what I remember from childhood. Barely ever wearing shoes - picking gorse for cordial, watching the ponds boiling with frogs. And then there was Michael, and he was - civilised. He would pave over every bit of woodland, have every sparrow mounted on a plinth. And he had me mounted on a plinth. My waist pinched, my hair burned into curls, the colour on my face painted out, then painted in again. And now I'm free to sink back into the earth if I like - to let myself grow over with moss and lichen. Perhaps you're appalled to think we are no higher than the animals, or at least, if we are, only one rung further up the ladder. But no, no - it has given me liberty. No other animal abides by rules - why then must we?

Reading was the only subject at which I excelled. I would much rather be reading James Fenimore Cooper than dealing with participles in French. My poor school performance was puzzling because my parents saw that I possessed intelligence and curiosity. Marine biology became a passion. When I asked them to drive me to Boston to hear lectures by Jacques Cousteau, my first hero, they were happy to do so. They took me to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, a paradise for a kid in love with water. I was obsessed with learning from those men who explored the deep. I wanted to go deep. I was told that if I kept up my grades I could come back one summer and intern at Woods Hole. That never happened. My grades were below average. That became the great mystery of my childhood: Why was I having

What made you come back?” Kitty jerked at his sudden question. She sputtered for a moment then laughed. “What made me come back? What do you mean?” He shrugged with one shoulder, never moving his gaze away from her. “At Eliza’s and Thomas’s wedding last year you were convinced that returning to Boston and living with your aunt was the best course to take. But it appears you have changed your mind. So, what made you come back?” “Is that why you followed me? To ask me that?” Her face burned, but she feigned composure and looked at him with as much ease as she could marshal. “Boston is too dangerous, you know that.” “’Tis true, I am well aware of what Boston and its residents suffer. But I cannot believe that was the only reason you returned.” Training her mouth to reveal nothing more than a slight grin, she strained to keep her pulse quiet. She stepped toward the fire, resting her hand atop the chair, acting more casual than she felt. “If there were any other reason, do you think that I would share such information with you? Surely, Nathaniel, I cannot share all my secrets.” “Secrets? Well, now I am curious.” Kitty rubbed the lace on her gloves and emitted a warm, genuine laugh that eased the strain in her voice. She offered an impish smile. “I came back for several reasons, if you must know. As I mentioned, ‘twas for matters of safety that Henry Donaldson insisted I return as well as—”  “Donaldson?” Kitty peered over her shoulder, hiding the grin that surged at the undeniable question in Nathaniel’s eyes. Could he be... nay, not possible. She kept her focus. “Aye, Henry Donaldson. You remember him, do you not?” “Aye, of course. I just... I just hadn’t known he was still... around. He was always a good friend and I admire him, despite his poor choice of allegiances.” Nathaniel’s interested expression stayed lifted, but the light in his eyes went flat. “Are you... have you been seeing much of him of late?” “I have,” she said. “He’s a close friend and I admire him very much.” Nathaniel’s expression didn’t change, but his Adam’s apple bobbed and he cleared his throat. “I see.”  She once again toyed with the fabric of her gloves, unsure what else to do with her hands. Quickly focusing on the subject of their conversation, she stared back into the fire. “Henry said it was too dangerous for me to stay despite my protestations. With Father gone and Eliza here—and since our home was destroyed that December… well, my home is here now.” The scent of smoke wafting from the fireplace in front of her snatched the horrid vision from its hiding place in her mind. Instantly she witnessed anew the roaring flames that devoured her treasured childhood home, taking with it all her cherished memories and replacing them with ash. She turned to Nathaniel, his face drawn as if he too relived the tragedy. The bond they’d shared that night had forged a friendship that could never be shaken.  Nathaniel stepped forward, the look of tenderness so rich in his eyes it wound around her shoulders like a warm cloak. “I can well understand that, Kitty. Donaldson was right in advising you to return.” Then, as if the heaviness were too much, he shrugged and sighed with added gaiety to his tone. “Well, I will admit that Sandwich didn’t feel the same with you gone, that’s for certain.” She tipped her head with a smirk. “You pined for my return?”  “With the pains of an anguished soul.” “Lying is a sin, Nathaniel,” she teased. Nathaniel laughed, his broad smile exposing his straight teeth. “All right, if you want the truth I pined more for your cooking, and more specifically for your carrot pudding. Are you satisfied?” “I knew it.

We have talked about how an infant’s brain takes in sensory information to make sense of their world and build associations. And we’ve talked about how we’re deeply relational creatures whose developing brains—starting with the lowest areas—begin to make “memories” of the smells, sounds, and images of “our people.” These memories exist on a very deep, pre-cortical, unconscious level: the way your people talk, the way they dress, the color of their skin. Now remember that your brain is always monitoring your world—both inside and outside—to ensure your survival. And when the brain encounters any unfamiliar experience, its default move is to activate the stress response. Better to be safe than sorry—better to assume that novelty can be a potential threat. Now add to this the fact that the major predator of humans has always been other humans. Our stress response has evolved to be relationally sensitive, such that when we’re with people who have attributes similar to our childhood “clan,” we feel safe. But when we encounter people with attributes that are different from “our people,” the brain’s default is to activate the stress response. When that happens, we feel dysregulated, even threatened.

Certainly, our work supports that observation. One of our major findings is that in determining someone’s current mental health, the history of their childhood relational health—their connectedness—is as important as, if not more important than, their history of adversity.

Childhood experiences literally impact the biology of the brain…our earliest developmental experiences, particularly touch and other relational-based sensory cutes, including the caregiver’s smell and the way they rock the infant, the songs they hum when feeding the infant, any unique movement in the way they respond to the infant when it’s needy-all of these things are organizing experiences that help create the infant’s “worldview,”…Really, every aspect of human functioning is influenced by early developmental experiences-both when there are consistent, predictable, and loving interactions and when there is chaos, threat, unpredictability, or lack of love…Love, given and felt, is dependent upon the ability to be present, attentive, attuned, and responsive to another human being. This glue of humanity has been essential to the survival of our species-and to the health and happiness of the individual. And this ability is based upon what happened to you, primarily as a young child.

A recent study by the National Survey of Children’s Health found that almost 50 percent of the children in the United States have had at least one significant traumatic experience. Even more recently, a study from 2019 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 60 percent of American adults report having had at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE), and almost a quarter reported three or more ACEs. These numbers are even more sobering when you consider that the CDC researchers believe them to be an underestimate.

Children of Babylon Early Marxists and Communists understood that to gain the hearts of a generation, seeds must be planted during childhood and early youth. The family of my Jewish-Israeli tour guide, Gideon Shor, originally lived in the Soviet Union. Gideon told me that prior to the 1917 Russian Revolution, Russia was a strong Christian nation. Communism needed to defeat the ideas of Christianity. His grandparents remember attending a public school where there were numerous Christian children. When the time came for lunch, the teacher asked the children to pray to God for food to appear. When they did, no food appeared. They were then asked to pray to “Father Stalin.” Those who did were amazed to see a cart of food, fruits, nuts, and candy roll through the classroom door. This was repeated daily, brainwashing the children into believing that Stalin and the Communist regime were the sole providers of their food. The youth living today are accepting radical ideologies that have totally failed. Multitudes who migrated to America from former Communist and Socialist nations are against both systems as they witnessed first-hand the oppression, government control, loss of freedoms, and hatred toward religion. Personal poverty, oppression, and a basic, simple life eventually rule in the majority of Socialist-Communist countries.

The developmental process is very front-loaded, meaning that the majority of brain growth and organization takes place in the first years of life. Now, this doesn’t mean that the brain won’t change after early childhood, but early life experiences do have a very powerful impact on how we develop.

But it was impossible to share my feelings of grief with Peggy, because most of the time it was impossible to feel them. My sadness was overwhelmed by fear and visceral disgust and rage, rage so consuming and aimless that sometimes I was afraid of myself. I was convinced that the killer's fury had entered me, and would never leave. I knew that Peggy, my soft-bodied former babysitter, with her houseful of Precious Moments figurines, was not interested in hearing about my rage. She wanted to wipe away the tears of the cute little blond girl she had known. She didn't know what to do with my fear and rage, so she tried to will them to disappear, in favor of a gentler, more manageable sadness.

I tried to be thankful that they had accepted this burden. But I didn't want to be accepted. I wanted to be wanted.

We believe these children could live happier, healthier lives if the homes, schools, health-care, and mental health systems they grew up in replaced “What is wrong with you?” with “What happened to you?” And we recognize the power and potential of very early childhood. Think of the impact just a few months of consistent, predictable support for a young parent could make. For the child, it could create a positive jump start in life that would lead to the development of more resilient stress-response systems. And in turn, these regulated stress-response systems would help ensure healthy development in higher parts of the brain.

The most pervasive feeling I remember from my own childhood is loneliness.

Our stress response has evolved to be relationally sensitive, such that when we’re with people who have attributes similar to our childhood “clan,” we feel safe. But when we encounter people with attributes that are different from “our people,” the brain’s default is to activate the stress response.

You can do this second variation of the exercise even if you do not yet have a child. Just notice how often you feel angry, or self-righteous, or indignant, or panicky or perhaps ashamed, or self-loathing or disconnected. Look for patterns in your responses. Look back to when you first felt this feeling, tracing it back to your childhood, where you began to respond like this, and you may begin to understand to what extent this reaction has become a habit. In other words, the response is at least as much due to it having become a habit in you than it is to do with the situation in the present.

Think back to your childhood: were you made to feel “bad” or in the wrong, or even responsible for your parents’ bad moods? If it happened to you, it is all too easy to try to repair your feeling of being wrong by making someone else feel wrong, and the victims of this are, far too often, our children.

Childhood experiences literally impact the biology of the brain.

Watching him fall down and pick himself back up, Perry mourned no longer being small enough that falling didn’t hurt. He no longer even remembered how it felt to have the ground so unthreateningly proximate. Why had he been in such a hurry to grow up? It was as if he’d never experienced the grace of childhood.

is even more difficult to understand and take into account how early childhood trauma can express underlying genetic vulnerabilities.

I started writing to deal with my childhood abuse and to help me get over it. I began putting my thoughts on paper because I saw a show on Oprah where she said it was “cathartic” to write things down. Being from a substandard public school system, I didn’t even know what “cathartic” meant. I had to look it up. So I started writing, but I didn’t

MY CHILDHOOD WAS A STORY of discouragement, belittlement, and unthinkable abuse, and yet I rose above. There was no way I could have found any kind of happiness, hope, or vision if my mother, Maxine, and my aunt Mae hadn’t shown

But Isabel was like no one Nora had met before. She was beautiful, of course---the otherworldly clarity of her English skin!---and possessed of the sort of poise Nora could only dream about. Beyond that, she was magnetic. Try as Nora might, she couldn't resist her brother's new wife. First, there was her voice when she spoke, that crisp accent and authoritative diction that made Miss Perry (strictest in a long line of governesses) seem like a drover's wife by comparison; next, there was her laugh, which rose like bubbles in a glass of champagne. And then there were her stories. True tales of adventure and daring, rivaling anything Nora had read in her Girls' Crystal Annuals: during the Blitz, Isabel had handled secret papers in Whitehall and later worked in some sort of capacity that she wasn't able to speak of at length (at least not then and there). Even more excitingly, she was an orphan---a real one, just like a girl in a book, whose parents had died in tragic circumstances when she was only young, casting her out of the nest and into a childhood of boarding schools and midnight feasts and hockey sticks and daring japes. Nora couldn't think of anything more romantic.

Pauline wished her mother dead. She had wanted to kill the bloody bitch for ages. Her mother had it coming to her for her ill humour, her nagging, her stupidity, her small-mindedness. Pauline would never forget the unhappiness of her childhood, everything that had happened to her.

I thought these children needed the opportunity to process what had happened at their own pace and in their own ways. If they wanted to talk, they could come to a staff member that they felt comfortable with; if not, they could play safely and develop new childhood memories and experiences off-setting their earlier, fearful ones. We wanted to offer structure but not rigidity; nurturance, but not forced affection.