If I walked into the kitchen without washing my hands as a kid, I'd hear a loud 'A-hem!' from my mother or grandmother. Now I count on other people to do the same.
A harrassed and dubious childhood under the hand of a well-meaning but barbarous mother's help from County Armagh led me to think of the North of Ireland as prison and the South as a land of escape.
The story I get the biggest kick out of is when my name and e-mail appeared on 'Jeopardy' a couple of years ago. My mother was a faithful viewer, and she said she was happy that they finally had an answer she knew the question to.
I lost my girl a couple years back, Aaliyah, in a plane crash. I wasn't expecting that, and also, my mother died, and at the time, my father wasn't in my life; the only person that took care of me was my mom.
I never took banned substances, but I have been courted by doctors who wanted to improve my blood in the laboratory. My mother always put them on a flight.
They wrapped her up like a baby burrito to show to Mom. Here were a mother and her daughter and I love them both so much. I couldn't wait for Courtney to come to the hospital so I could have all my women together.
When Courtney's mother and I first separated I tried to be Disney Dad, showering her with gifts, trips and then I snapped out of it. You don't have to try to impress your kids. If they're not getting what they need from you, they will let you know.
Mother Earth needs us to keep our covenant. We will do this in courts, we will do this on our radio station, and we will commit to our descendants to work hard to protect this land and water for them. Whether you have feet, wings, fins, or roots, we are all in it together.
I was always embarrassed because my dad wore a suit and my mother wore flat pumps and a cozy jumper while my friends' parents were punks or hippies.
Lovingly crafted and super-creative cupcakes are not exactly on tap in my household after a full day at work, and I do not blame my mother for a second that they were not on tap in hers, either.
Every one of us is, even from his mother's womb, a master craftsman of idols.
Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave.
My mother says I was writing before I was crawling. I wrote in the dirt with a twig.
I always was a weird child. My mother told me the story that, in kindergarten, I would come home and tell her about this weird kid in my class who drew only with black crayons and didn't speak to other kids. I talked about it so much that my mother brought it up with the teacher, who said, 'What? That's your son.'
My mother didn't want me to be in fashion. She was in the fashion business, so was my brother, and she thought it was too crazy for me. She wanted me to be married with children, to be independent, yes, but not to have a crazy life.
Work creates an enormous sense of self and I saw that in my mother. She was an enormous, towering figure to me in the best possible way. I picked up a lot of things from her in the way that I work... I also picked up a lot of the failings of when your father doesn't have those things and that results in a house that turns into a minefield.
Being a wife and a mother is very gratifying, but it's not a creative expression and that's something I need to be happy.
Life was a lot simpler when what we honored was father and mother rather than all major credit cards.
I am certain that my family - my grandmother, mother and myself - had a credit score of zero when we arrived in 1976. There were no credit cards in the Soviet Union, and we didn't have any money.
