That whole business of having two homes, and that divided loyalty bind that kids get into. I mean, my parents were divorced - though I was adult - but I still grappled with being responsible to both of them.
I've always loved records, even when I was a kid, my parents would buy me records instead of a lot of the other toys kids got. That's what I wanted. I've been collecting records and DJing my whole life, and I thank my parents for that. They had a big record collection and really imparted the magic of it on me.
There are a lot of young people out there who need to start using their idle time in a positive way. Parents need to play an important role in making sure their children succeed in school.
My family kept its history to itself. On the plus side, I didn't have to hear nightmarish stories about the Holocaust, the pogroms, terrible illnesses, painful deaths. My elderly parents never even spoke about their ailments.
My parents found good paying jobs, educated me and my brother in wonderful public schools, and entered the middle class.
Both my parents said they never got so many emails from friends and colleagues - with all the theater work that I've done - than when I was on 'The Good Wife.'
I would even say that my parents, and their friends in our community, thought of education as a kind of armor against racism.
My parents didn't believe in luck. They believed in hard work and in preparing me to take advantage of opportunity. Like many parents, they taught me to be generous but never to depend on the generosity of others.
When your parents are Middle Eastern immigrants, you have three choices. You can become a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer.
My parents were entrepreneurs. I grew up believing in the power of innovation.
Explorations into chemistry were done in our basement, sometimes with friends, and my parents must have had quite a bit of confidence in my abilities when they allowed me to experiment with explosive mixtures.
One of the greatest features of science is that it doesn't matter where you were born, and it doesn't matter what the belief systems of your parents might have been: If you perform the same experiment that someone else did, at a different time and place, you'll get the same result.
I could never call myself an atheist; my parents could, quite happily. I always felt like there was a little bit more out there, and was always into observing the world from a slightly more spiritual, as opposed to scientific, perspective.
My parents were very volatile but very loving. My father would get jealous if my mother looked at somebody. I used to be insanely jealous. It comes out of insecurity. It can come and go, but you get to the point in life where you don't have this raging jealousy and protectiveness about your world.
I was in Toronto with my parents, and my dad took me to an outdoor hockey rink. I was 3 or 4, and I just remember everything about that day. For some reason, I thought, 'This is it. This is what I'm supposed to do.' And this is around the time that Gretzky came to L.A., so I immediately joined a hockey league.
My parents took a fairly liberal approach at raising me, always encouraging me to be creative and free-thinking.
I have that memory of dancing on my father's feet to all the music my parents used to listen to.
My parents were active in the anti-war movement in the 1960s, so I grew up with a tradition of civic activism around our dinner table and going to different marches for different causes.
When I was in college, my parents' house burned down, and took a lot of the possessions I'd grown up with. That's probably one thing that made me realize material stuff is not really that important.
I still remember how my father used to wake me up at 4 A.M. and make me study. He also used to take me for a walk and then always dropped me to school. I was very disciplined, as my father inculcated those values in me. Now that my father is no more, I understand that you should not take your parents for granted.
I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like to watch my parents lose access to the American dream.
When I was younger, even though I had a big brother, my parents would give me the house key every day.
My parents came from Calcutta. They arrived in Cambridge, much like the parents in my novel. And I found myself sort of caught between the world of my parents and the world they had left behind and still clung to, and also the world that surrounded me at school and everywhere else, as soon as I set foot out the door.
My parents owned a plants nursery. We all grew up growing things and planting things and selling things, and I also managed landscape crews.
It's like the old thing: The parents stay together for the kids, but the kids know that you don't want to be together. The kids would rather you be happy - and separate - than together and miserable. I don't want my kid to grow up around two parents who just don't work.
My grandparents were all born in the U.S., but their parents came from Ireland.
Everything I do is for my parents, None of this matters without them. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here... If it wasn't for them, if it wasn't for the structure and the backbone that I have, I wouldn't be able to mess up and keep coming back and sit in front of you as a world champion.
Emotional grandeur, rendered in the vernacular, has been Mona Simpson's forte. In her novels, 'Anywhere but Here,' 'The Lost Father' and 'A Regular Guy,' Simpson wrote wide and long and high about the most profound human bonds: parents and children lost each other, found each other, lost each other again, but differently.
I grew up in this era where your parents' friends were all called aunt and uncle. And then I had an aunt and an aunt. We saw them on holidays and other times. We never talked about it, but I just understood that they were a couple.
I've always had to force myself to make friends and speak to people. My parents were quiet, and it took me a while to get used to the fact that people talk about their feelings, their problems.
I know gay - gay people who aren't married who are better parents than some, you know, straight people I know who are married.
My parents are very good parents and have already said that they will look after me until the end of my skating career.
I always vaguely knew I wanted to perform, but I haven't got the greatest singing voice and my dancing isn't up to scratch. Acting was really the only alternative. My parents have been really supportive throughout.
I've always loved French music. My parents adored it; my father played it on the piano.
My parents got to see all my hard work pay off.
Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most inchoate form.
