Parenting Quote by Neil Kurshan

Parenting gets distilled here into a single, deliberately impossible double-bind: it is both “overwhelmingly frustrating” and “most joyous,” not in alternation but “at once.” Kurshan’s phrasing refuses the comforting myth that good parenting is merely hard now and rewarding later. The friction and the payoff are simultaneous, tangled together in the same ordinary hour. That’s the psychological truth the line is aiming for: the emotional whiplash isn’t a bug in the system, it’s the system.

The subtext rides on that loaded, slightly abrasive clause: “to make human beings out of children.” It’s not about keeping kids alive, educated, or well-behaved; it’s about the slow, repetitive work of socializing a raw, self-centered organism into someone who can live among others. The language is blunt enough to flirt with heresy. Calling it “making” suggests construction, labor, even coercion; it also quietly acknowledges how unfinished children feel to exhausted adults in the thick of it. The sentiment isn’t anti-child so much as anti-sentimentality.

The intent reads like reassurance for people who feel guilty about resentment. By naming exasperation as legitimate, Kurshan gives caregivers permission to admit the grind without forfeiting love. Contextually, it belongs to a modern parenting culture that swings between Instagram gloss and burnout discourse. The line works because it denies both extremes: parenting as idyllic fulfillment and parenting as pure martyrdom. It’s a tight verdict on the job no one can do perfectly and no one can really opt out of, once they’ve begun.