Most of the characters I have in my children's books are grouchy or annoyed about something or are calling each other unfriendly names. Like my own kids, they're not honeys and sweetie pies and little angels. They're kids. Sloppy, dirty, stinky.
Part of the satisfaction of tattling surely comes from showing oneself to adults as a good moral agent, a responsible being who is sensitive to right and wrong. But I would bet that children would tattle even if they could do so only anonymously. They would do it just to have justice done.
I don't really want to get married. I've got my career, my friends - my life is very, very full. It's nice to go out to dinner with a man and have fun, but I wouldn't rush into anything because I don't think it's right to bring another man into the house with my four children.
My wife and I have chosen to bring up our children as vegetarians. In another time or place, we might have made a different decision. But the realities of our present moment compelled us to make that choice.
A married vicar is likely to regard his vocation as a job - a tough and ill-paid one, to be sure - but a priest is seen as a pillar of the community, answerable only to his parishioners and his God, rather than to a wife and children.
Most marriages are a mess, and the children get caught between two bitter, antagonistic parents. My parents stayed married for 27 unhappy years, till their kids were grown, and this was a catastrophe for us.
If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration - and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration - is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not.
We've enshrined the purity, sanctity, value, and importance of bringing children into the world, yet we don't discuss death. There used to be an enshrined period where mourning was a necessary part of going through the process of grieving; death wasn't considered morbid or antisocial. But that's totally gone.
I really am glad that the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has had the courage to stand up and say that children should not be hit under any circumstances. I am a committed supporter of this campaigning charity for children.
Farm workers are society's canaries. Farm workers - and their children - demonstrate the effects of pesticide poisoning before anyone else.
My children have been my friends and they share anything and everything with me.
Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, 'Children's Letters to God.' You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, 'Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.'
In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.
Years ago I wanted to buy an apartment in New York City. I was a single female - I had gone through my divorce - I had three children, I was in show business and black. It was, like, impossible.
I have no intention of selling any more of the historical Apollo 11 items in my possession for the remainder of my life. I intend to pass a portion of these items on to my children and to loan the most important items for permanent display in suitable museums around the country.
I talk about beepers going off in the middle of a concert and people being late and not apologizing, and people not RSVP-ing, and adult children going back to live with their parents, which we didn't have in the '60s and '70s.
As apostles and prophets, we are concerned not only for our children and grandchildren but for yours as well - and for each of God's children.
I have seen what the days of tribulation can do to people. I have seen hunger stalk the streets of Europe. I have witnessed the appalling, emaciated shadows of human figures. I have seen women and children scavenge army garbage dumps for scraps of food. Those scenes and nameless faces cannot be erased from my memory.
No one can ever prepare a parent for two things: the immeasurable love that comes with having a child; and the sorrow and confusion that comes when your child appears to learn in a different way from other children.
Men are but children of a larger growth, Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving too, and full as vain.
