My mother desperately wanted to give her kids a wholesome environment, and we were born into a traditional Catholic family.
Among many of my friends and acquaintances, I seem to be one of the very few individuals who felt or feels no ambivalence about my mother. All my feelings for my mother were positive, very strong and abiding.
You have kids growing up in some of the worst circumstances financially, living in some of the worst ghettos, and they succeed. They succeed because an adult figure, typically a mother, maybe a grandmother, nourishes the kid, supports the kid, protects the kid, encourages the kid to succeed. It's as if the environment never happened.
A mother is neither cocky, nor proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child had just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium.
My mother was from West Bromwich; my grandfather was Pakistani. I had an aunt who started trying to trace the family tree and stopped when she saw what turned up.
I would describe my mother as a steel magnolia. She was very intelligent, very persuasive.
I grew up in the kitchen, mostly with my grandfather, my mother and my aunt Raffy.
Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them.
My father was a classical musician and my mother was a writer.
I have to keep reminding myself that I am their mother. Sometimes we are sitting at home and I feel like we are waiting for our mom to come home.
I grew up in uptown Jamaica; I went to a rich school. I was raised by my mother and my stepfather; they made sure education came before anything. I had a good childhood, grew up spending time with my bigger brothers and sisters. My people are good people. I was exposed to a lot of different kinds of people and culture.
Now I have children of my own. They ask their mother what will I be. Will I be handsome, will I be rich?
My mother worked in the old Minsky's troupe, which toured the country in the golden age of burlesque theatre.
Over the years, things got so bad between my mother and I, we stopped talking to each other and started communicating by putting Ann Landers articles on the refrigerator.
My mother was a single mom, and most of the women I know are strong.
I mean, if somebody said to me, junior year of college, you can go anywhere, your old man's paying for it, I'd have been gone in a flash. But I had to work. Every summer my mother would say, 'Get that job and hold on to it until August 30.'
I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.
I was like the class clown in school so I guess I would say I did like the attention. In church I did a lot of plays, my mother made me play characters, do a lot of drama and acting, trying to become someone else. So it helped me create who I am, to create Snoop Dogg.
My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, 'You're tearing up the grass'; 'We're not raising grass,' Dad would reply. 'We're raising boys.'
Our family business was operating batting cages. The pitching machine spit out the balls at lightning speed. Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax. Whitey Ford. 50 cents for 12 pitches. Of course, my mother ran the place, and I was her slave: selling candy, hosing down the street, and the most dreaded of all jobs, feeding the pitching machine with balls.
My mother went to work in the homes of white folk, usually living in and looking after their children. The money was small.
I am the oldest of three. I was in charge of making sure my brother and sister were OK and also entertained so they didn't bother my mother, who had a job at home.
We know how powerful our mother was when we were little, but is our wife that powerful to us now? Must we relive our great deed of escape from Mama with every other woman in our life?
My mother, who died aged 82, had Alzheimer's. Losing your memory is bad enough, but everything shuts down. You can't remember how to eat or go to the toilet. It's a terrible disease and so distressing to watch it take over someone you love.
The speed limit on most of Maui's highways is forty miles per hour, but my mother never went above thirty.
There are only two things a child will share willingly; communicable diseases and its mother's age.
My father had all kinds of instruments in the house that he would hide from my mother. He bought them through mail order!
I know my mother has always looked at strangers as friends.
I never looked at fan mail, for some reason. My mother and grandmother handled my mail - although it's not like I was ever in the stratosphere of Kirk Cameron or Scott Baio.
My mother sent me to psychiatrists since the age of four because she didn't think little boys should be sad. When my brother was born, I stared out the window for days. Can you imagine that?
A mother's life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible. Not an hour but has its joys and fears.
My mother was a strong-willed and opinionated woman - a Sicilian! - and if she didn't like something, she'd let you know about it. So her undying support of her kids went a long way in proving to us that we were on the right path.
I've been writing Indian music for a while. Indian music is about Mother Earth, and mine is no exception.
For now, for this year, I need to be a good mother.
My mother has become my daughter and I've become her guardian.
My mother taught me that the universe guides, teaches, and offers up gifts... even when bad things happen.
