Society needs both parents and nonparents, both the work party and the home party. While raising children is the most important work most people will do, not everyone is cut out for parenthood. And, as many a childless teacher has proved, raising kids is not the only important contribution a person can make to their future.

Being a father gave me a new purpose for existing. That newfound purpose has somehow given me the stamina and patience to take on the endless stream of challenges that come along with parenthood.

Parenting is love, sure, but it's as much about receiving love as it is giving it. Parenthood is a kind of vanity.

Parenthood and family come first for me, and when I'm not working I'm cool with the Teletubbies.

Parenthood always comes as a shock. Postpartum blues? Postpartum panic is more like it. We set out to have a baby; what we get is a total take-over of our lives.

Parenting classes should be mandatory, whether you are adopting or not, and would include an evaluation of your current physical, mental and financial state as well as how ready you are to take on the rigors of parenthood. Our children are our most precious natural resource, and there is absolutely no other way to parent but to put them first.

Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.

We were unfortunate in having lost our only child. Our world had come crashing down. But thanks to the world of medical miracles, we've become parents again at an age when parenthood is considered impossible.

I have always stood up to protect women's access to safe and legal abortion, birth control and health care at Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood's mission, on paper, is to give women quality and affordable health care and to protect women's rights. In reality, their mission is to increase their abortion numbers and, in turn, increase their revenue.

Planned Parenthood is an organization that does not provide quality health care.

Planned Parenthood doesn't care about women's health care needs; it cares about abortion.

Planned Parenthood has a right to operate. Planned Parenthood has a right to provide family planning services. Planned parenthood has a right to perform abortions.

In my opinion, the battles over birth control and Planned Parenthood are primarily neither political nor religious. This is an issue of equality for women. This is an issue of women's rights: Planned Parenthood is the most important private provider of reproductive health care for women in the United States.

Maybe it's just parenthood that puts you in a situation where you just have to develop a new attitude, I guess, about things.

The most convincing argument against early parenthood is that you are in a relationship that is likely to fall apart before that child grows up.

Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.

Thankfully President Obama has stood firmly behind women's health care issues by supporting coverage for contraception and reaffirming commitment to organizations like Planned Parenthood.

Billy is a funny cheeky lovely boy and I love being with him. Parenthood is terrifying though. I can barely walk past a building without panicking that it's going to collapse on his head.

Our youth deserve the opportunity to complete their high school and college education free of early parenthood. Their future children deserve the opportunity to grow up in financially and emotionally stable homes. Our communities benefit from healthy productive well-prepared young people.

Parenthood and family come first for me and when I'm not working I'm cool with the Teletubbies.

Becoming a mother cannot help but change things. An author's life is reflected in their writing whether they want it to be or not and parenthood is one of the biggest life changes there is.