unreasonable lengths

I've had a lot of people comment on "how good" I am with children. I've been told I "have a gift." I usually pass these comments off with an awkward smile and a shrug of the shoulders. In my mind it was simple; I've been taking care of children since I was a child, it's fun (way more fun than a sales position), I'm taking care of someone else's children (which is a huge responsibility), and I'm being paid good money. Most of all, it's something that comes naturally to me, yes I'm always learning and growing and getting better at it, but I've never had to work hard or really struggled with it. But I guess I'm coming to realise that doesn't mean that being "good with children" is an easy thing or something to take for granted or pass off as not a big deal. And at the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn, the more I'm studying the more I'm realising, I am good with children. I'm reading "Child Development a First Course" by Kathy Sylva and Ingrid Lunt which is an introduction to the psychology of child development and a lot of the observations and recommendations they're making are things that I've always done, intuitively I guess. Maybe this is it, maybe I've realised what my "thing" is. How exciting!

Anyway I really just wanted to share this quote because I love it! It's from the chapter on substitute mothers, i.e. foster/adoptive parents, childminders, day nurseries (those are all British words, think nannies and daycare centres):

"It has been suggested that the crucial characteristic of the parental role is its partiality for the individual child; the child needs to know that to someone he matters more than other children, and that someone will go to unreasonable lengths, not just reasonable ones, for his sake."

How great is that?