As our parents planted for us, so will we plant for our children. When Charlie and I began our philanthropic journey, we wanted to focus our resources on planting seeds that would help perpetuate Jewish values and traditions for future generations and also contribute to repairing our world.
'E.T.' began with me trying to write a story about my parents' divorce.
It was not hard for me to find guidance and motivation. I'm very blessed, and my parents were always so supportive of myself and my brother. Whatever you wanted to do, you just had to give 110 percent. So whatever that was, they supported it.
I must admit, even though I'm the product of two Jewish parents, I think the Irish temper got in there somewhere, so I'm going to check Mom's genealogy.
Relatively many autists are first-born children. There is also a pretty widespread conviction that the parents of autists are somehow different - for instance, many of them are very serious people or people who are themselves under some sort of strain.
More people seem to know the Van der Graaf Generator material than my solo work - thanks, I suppose, to their parents' lingering vinyl collections.
My parents went to Italy a lot, but I didn't go with them. I can't believe that!
Some of us stay married because we're in competition with our divorcing 1960s and 1970s parents, who made such a hash of it. What looks appealing to us now, in an increasingly frenetic, digital world, is the 1950s marriage.
My parents were quite strict; we couldn't just listen to whatever music we wanted. It was very much like they monitored what we listened to.
In tennis, a lot of parents are accused of driving their kids into tennis. I would say I'm the opposite: I drove my parents into it. They didn't take it that seriously until I was about 11 or 12 years old, when they realised I had an opportunity to go pro.
I was real into theater, and then I tried soccer, acting and ballet. Both my parents didn't want a child-star model, so I didn't get into modeling until I was 14.
My parents divorced when I was seven. Because divorce is messy, for good or ill, they sent me to boarding school.
I knew everything in the forest. I had a secret home tree, where I pretty much lived. I also liked rooftops and streetlamps. My parents would get calls saying 'He's out there again.'
When my father became vice president, I was a sophomore in high school. I'd do things like go on a run with my soccer team and purposely dodge the security van. Then my parents compromised with the Secret Service when I went to college. I just had a panic button in my dorm room, so if I pressed that, they'd be there within 2 or 3 minutes.
I'm lucky my parents raised me well.
I think both of my parents are unique in the way they don't live their lives as celebrities. They're both artists, first and foremost. My mom lives a very private life. So does my father. You don't really see them in the tabloids or anything like that. I think that's definitely a decision you can make.
I never really had to put much thought into my race, and neither did anybody else. I knew I was black. I knew there was a history that accompanied my skin color, and my parents taught me to be proud of it. End of story.
I grew up in a small town in Washington State, so I wasn't really aware of costume design as a career growing up, but I loved clothes. I remember I saved all my money, and the first thing that I bought was a white blazer, which was to the horror to my parents. But I have always had a strange connection with clothing.
I was playing sports all the time, and my parents, Anne and John, encouraged me to play in grade school and high school.
I am not complaining; I had a beautiful childhood - we didn't have a lot of money, but there was always food on the table, and my parents saved money so that in the holidays we would all get in the car and drive to the mountains. I have amazing parents.
I think I really thought I was a boy until I was ten years old because my parents divorced when I was born, and so my three brothers were almost like my fathers growing up. So they taught me how to ride a bike and all that stuff. I really was just kind of a guy's girl and just kind of an outspoken - some could say obnoxious - in-your-face kid.
Umberto Poli was born in Trieste in 1883, when the city was at its zenith as the major port of the Habsburgs. The irredentist sympathies of Umberto's Italian-speaking parents can be detected in their giving him the first name of the Italian emperor.
At 500, our policy is 12 weeks of fully paid leave for all parents in the U.S. Parents can choose to take this leave consecutively or spread it out through the first 12 months after birth.
When you meet your kids, you realize that they deserve great parents. And then you have your marching orders, and you have to try and become the person that they deserve.
As long as I can remember, I had a strong interest in fishing, and my parents, even though they had never fished or camped, took us on canoe camping trips in the wilderness of Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, where I could fish to my heart's content.
I think I realized my parents' relationship was special when I had my first girlfriend, and she came from a broken marriage. I watched how much closeness there was between her and her mom, and also how much bickering.
Occasionally I've seen children become heavy-handed and insensitive when dealing with their aging parents, and it only caused resentment and hard feelings.
My parents were not born in Vienna, but they had spent much of their lives there, having each come to the city at the beginning of World War I when they were still very young.
I didn't spend much time with my parents when I was growing up.
I learned from my parents the idea that, if you are devoted enough and you want to study something enough, you can really teach yourself anything.
I spent grade nine and ten going to school in Victoria. My parents lived there for 10 years.
I've always had a great relationship with my mother, and with both of my parents. We can sit down and talk about things, and even if we do argue, we can get over it and get past it.
Parents are the centre of a person's solar system, even as an adult. My dad had a stronger gravitational pull than most, so his absence was bound to leave a deep and lasting void.
I had been accepted to film school, but my parents couldn't afford it, and yet they made too much money for me to get a scholarship.
My parents were part of a crowd that was attached to all the different navies stationed in Malta. When they would have parties in each other's houses, I would get taken along, and that's where I heard all this great music. I didn't distinguish particular styles; it was all music to me.
So many parents these days are totally cool with their kids living on the couch the whole time. It's like a new thing with families. But you've got to leave the nest and get out there.
