Joke of the Day (Bill Hicks, Comparing the Intelligence of Children and Adults)

“Children are smarter than any of us. Know how I know that? I don’t know one child with a full-time job and children.”—American stand-up comic and satirist Bill Hicks (1961-1994) quoted by Brent DeBoer, “From the Desk of the Dandy Warhols’ Brent DeBoer,” Magnet Magazine, June 9, 2012 

Joke of the Day (Paula Poundstone, on Kids Being Asked What They Want to be When They Grow Up)

“The reason adults are always asking children what they want to be when they grow up is that they're looking for ideas.”—American stand-up comic Paula Poundstone quoted by Deborah Stea, “Off the Shelf: How to Get a Job, Even One That Suits Your Psyche,” The New York Times, Dec. 3, 1995

Quote of the Day (Filmmaker Nancy Meyers, on Boys and Girls Growing Up in the Oprah Era)

“When my daughters were growing up, Oprah was on TV every day at three o’clock pushing girls forward. Meanwhile, boys fell in love with video games. These boys turned into men who wear hoodies and don’t shave. I think there is a reluctance to embrace adulthood.” —Film director-screenwriter (What Women Want) Nancy Meyers interviewed by Eliana Dockterman for “7 Questions: Nancy Meyers,” Time Magazine, October 5, 2015

The image accompanying this post, showing Nancy Meyers at the Screenwriting Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center hosted by Creative Screenwriting magazine, was taken Nov. 16, 2008, by thedemonhog.

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ With Phyllis on Her Daughter’s Dance Date)

Phyllis Lindstrom [played by Cloris Leachman]: “Bess... is outside - with her young man... and they're going to the school dance, and she's so proud of him, I just know how much she'd like you to meet him...”

Mary Richards [played by Mary Tyler Moore]: “Oh, sure, I'd love to meet him...”

Phyllis: “Oh, and, um, Mary; when I bring them in, um, don't make a big fuss over them. Don't treat them like children. They're not children, you know. They're little people.”

Rhoda Morgenstern [played by Valerie Harper]: “I would love to meet your 'little people.' Why don't you slide them under the door?”— The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Season 3, Episode 12, “It Was Fascination, I Know,” original air date Dec. 2, 1972, teleplay by Ed. Weinberger, directed by Jay Sandrich

Quote of the Day (Erma Bombeck, on Kids’ Uncanny Sense Around a Kitchen)

“Kids were equipped with radar long before it went commercial. They knew when there were bananas hidden behind the popcorn popper in the pantry. They knew when there was a candy bar in the meat keeper in the refrigerator. It was not possible for a leftover piece of pie to survive a child in search of breakfast. When a dish rattled, they heard it, no matter where they were.”— American humorist Erma Bombeck (1927-1996), Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing From America's Favorite Humorist (1996)

Tweet of the Day (Anne Theriault, on a Child’s Eating Preferences)

“9yo didn’t want to try my lemon loaf, but when I rebranded it as ‘lemonade cake’ he was interested.” — Toronto-based writer Anne Theriault, tweet of Apr. 24, 2020

Quote of the Day (Gelsey Kirkland, on Children and Uncertainty)

“Fortunately for children, the uncertainties of the present always give way to the enchanted possibilities of the future.” —American ballerina Gelsey Kirkland (with Greg Lawrence), Dancing on My Grave: An Autobiography (1986)

Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on Reasoning With a Six-Year-Old)

“I call that parent rash and wild
Who’d reason with a six-year child,
Believing little twigs are bent
By calm, considered argument.

“In bandying words with progeny,
There’s no percentage I can see,
And people who, imprudent, do so,
Will wonder how their troubles grew so.”— Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978), “The Velvet Hand,” in Times Three: Selected Verses From Three Decades (1961)

Joke of the Day (Bonnie McFarlane, on Her Daughter)

“I have a daughter. She's my world, she's my everything.” [Pause] “She's 5, or 12, or something like that.” —Stand-up comic Bonnie McFarlane quoted in “The Stand-Up Comic,” The New York Times Magazine, June 2, 2019

Quote of the Day (Mary-Louise Parker, on Fear and Bravery)

“My daughter made an amazing jump in the pool the other day. I said, ‘You're so brave.’ She said, ‘No, I was scared.’ I said, ‘That's why you're brave. If you weren't scared, you wouldn't be brave at all. You'd just be dumb.’" —Actress Mary-Louise Parker quoted in Cal Fussman, “Mary-Louise Parker: What I've Learned,” Esquire, January 2011

Photo of the Day: Encountering the Beautiful, at Brooklyn Botanic Garden

This mother had the right idea when I took this image three years ago: expose her son, amid New York’s vast concrete jungle, to the realm of lush nature. I found the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to be all that, and more. No matter how young this boy might have been, it could never be too late to plant in him the seeds of an idea of the beautiful--even when, as here, it's just the entrance to this jewel of the city.

Quote of the Day (James Baldwin, on Prejudice, Children and Elders)

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”—Novelist-essayist James Baldwin (1924-1987), Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (1961)

Quote of the Day (S.J. Perelman, on Concealing ‘One's True Livelihood From the Kiddies’)

"The instinct to conceal one's true livelihood from the kiddies, for fear of their possible scorn, is as normal as snoring. A highly solvent gentleman in Forest Hills, a vestryman and the father of three, once told me in wine that for thirty years, under twelve different pseudonyms, he had supplied the gamiest kind of pulp fiction to Snappy Stories and Flynn's, although his children believed him to be a stockbroker."— American humorist and screenwriter S.J. Perelman (1904-1979), “How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth," in The Most of S.J. Perelman (1957)