Parenting & Family Quote by Arthur Miller

Parenting, in Miller's formulation, is less a chase than a test of nerve. The line stages a small drama of power: the adult, frantic and well-meaning, sprinting after a child who has already learned that attention can be manipulated; the adult who stops, who refuses the jittery performance of control, and in that stillness creates the conditions for trust to reappear. It reads like stage direction disguised as advice, and that matters. Miller writes families as pressure cookers where love is real but rarely pure, always entangled with pride, fear, and the need to be needed.

The intent is corrective: stop confusing pursuit with care. "Running after" suggests not only physical chasing but emotional overmanagement - the hovering parent, the interrogator, the fixer. Miller's subtext is that a child's "spirit" isn't a possession you seize; it's a relationship you invite. Standing still is not withdrawal, it's restraint: the adult choosing steadiness over escalation, making space for the child to approach on their own terms. The payoff is in the quiet confidence of "for love": affection is treated as an agency the child holds, not a reward the adult doles out.

Contextually, it fits Miller's lifelong suspicion of coercion dressed up as virtue - whether in the home, the marketplace, or the courtroom. His plays warn that moral panic and grasping certainty do damage precisely because they cannot tolerate ambiguity. This sentence offers a counter-technique: let the room breathe, and people - especially children - will often find their way back when they feel safe enough to do so.