I always say that a successful parent is one who raises a child so that they can pay for their own psychoanalysis.

-Ephron, Nora
  In The Guardian, 26  Jun.

The parent who could see his boyas he really is, would shake his head and say: 'Willie is no good; I'll sell him.'

-Leacock, Stephen Butler
  Further Foolishness,'The Lot of the Schoolmaster'.

A man can be a parent without knowing it: a woman cannot.

-Muir,Willa (Wilhelmina) Johnstone ne¤  e  Anderson also
  Women:  An Inquiry, pt.1, published as Hogarth Essay no.10 in The Hogarth Essays (Second Series,1926).

Go little book, thy self present, As child whose parent is unkent: To him that is the president Of noblesse and of chivalry, And if that Envy bark at thee, As sure it will, for succour flee.

-Spenser, Edmund
  The Shepherd's Calendar,'To His Book'.

To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

-Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills
  Lady Bracknell.The Importance of Being Earnest, act1.