I didn't have any singing background. Against the wishes of my parents, I got into making music.
Since I was an atheist for many years and came to believe in God through my studies in science, it frustrated me to see students and parents who viewed faith and science as enemies.
I spent my summers in a war zone because my parents were afraid that if we didn't go back to Palestine every single summer, we'd grow up to be Madonna.
As a child, I was spoilt by my parents as an only son. They indulged my every whim, and I grew up in luxury.
I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents!
My parents were really encouraging. But I had to teach them the proper way you respond to an actor after seeing a play - regardless of whether you like their performance you tell them how great they are because they have to go on again the next night.
During the first 10 years of my life, while my parents were married, I enjoyed a privileged upbringing. After their divorce, my life was difficult.
You could time a suburban story by your watch: it lasts as long as it takes a small furry animal that's lonely to find friends, or a small furry animal that's lost to find its parents; it lasts as long as a quick avowal of love; it lasts precisely as long as the average parent is disposed on a Tuesday night to spend reading aloud to children.
You grow up listening to Eminem; your parents don't let you listen to it - you gotta sneak into a car to listen to this guy rap. He changed my whole life, my whole perspective on music, so to more or less co-sign something that I've done is the ultimate childhood goal.
My parents were so proud when I got a scholarship to go to theatre school - it was unheard of that a coal-miner's son should go to drama school.
My parents taught me about the importance of qualities like kindness, respect, and honesty, and I realize how central values like these have been to me throughout my life.
My parents come down to Los Angeles a lot.
My parents never pressured me to skate. They always said I could quit if I wanted to. They only expected me to skate when they had already paid for the expensive lessons. But, otherwise they said I could do what I wanted to do.
In some ways, siblings, and especially sisters, are more influential in your childhood than your parents.
The only reason we make good role models is because you guys look up to athletes and we can influence you in positive ways. But the real role models should be your parents and teachers!
CARE and our partner organizations have found that one of the most effective ways of stopping child marriage is to tap into a parent's love for their child. When parents learn about the consequences of child marriage, they're far less likely to push their children into it.
So no, it's not all in the genes, but what isn't in the genes isn't in the family environment either. It can't be explained in terms of the overall personalities or the child-rearing practices of parents.
My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria. They were not just converts; my father was an evangelist, a religious teacher. He and my mother traveled for thirty-five years to different parts of Igboland, spreading the gospel.
There was an undercurrent of poverty throughout my childhood. We lived with my grandmother in her two-bedroom flat, and I slept with my parents. We had cheap holidays, I had to save for my bike and get a paper round as soon as I was old enough.
I write a tiny fraction of what I used to write. My only job used to be to just write songs, and that was a really nice job to have, but only a tiny amount of people heard those songs, and I didn't make a living from it, and eventually I begged my parents to let me move back into my room.
Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.
My parents taught me to do whatever makes you happy - follow your bliss. That's why I don't make a lot of movies. I'm very meat and potatoes when it comes to work, putting in eight hours each day. I only do what I love.
It's almost an impossible task to sum up all the things my parents have taught me over the years. Whether it was how to tie my shoelaces or encouragement in whatever career choice I wanted to pursue, they have both always been there to support me.
We stand for getting government out of the way, letting people make good decisions for themselves, in education, returning power to school boards and to teachers and to parents so they can educate the children.
I know it can be difficult for parents, but I really do believe that kids need to play the predominant role in the choices that go into their own space.
I think no matter what you do you go through stages when you play. There was a number of times when I didn't do very well or was tired. It was too much to combine school and tennis altogether. Parents need to step in and say, take a little time off, do something fun.
I am my parents' daughter, and I always want to be. But I first wanted to make sure that I was standing on my own two feet.
My mum was a dancer when she was a kid. Then my parents met and eventually had an art gallery; my dad taught himself how to frame pictures, and then he was a curator at an art gallery in the city I'm from. I'm an only child.
My parents, they're the kind of people that didn't want me to get a big head, so they just kept challenging me and challenging me.
My parents put the New Yorker in my crib. I saw Vogue and Vanity Fair around the house before I could read.
As a child, I was a brat, and my parents didn't know how to control me. So they told me ghost stories, which stayed with me. I am still petrified of darkness and being alone.
I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.
My parents are supportive of anything I want to do, as long as it's not bad.
My own parents were touchy-feely.
Before playing football, I didn't fit in anywhere. My parents didn't have a lot of money, which they spent on our education to send us to Catholic private school in Oakland, mostly black. The other kids had more money than I did. I started school early; I was young. So I'd come back to my hood and read.
It is said that the way to prevent obesity is not to allow kids to become overweight in the first place. But it takes a multi-pronged approach that has to start with parents. Kids are just too young to understand the consequences of obesity.
