Gym class was, of course, where the strongest, best-looking kids were made captains and chose us spazzes last. More important, it was where the figures of supposed authority allowed them to do so. Forget the work our parents did molding our minds and values. Everything fell apart as soon as we put on those maroon polyester gym suits.
I think I can always look back and say my mom and dad would have done this or suggested that in a particular situation. I just really feel blessed to have had them as parents.
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 think there's a need for more oversight by social workers, because there are a lot of foster parents who are just collecting checks. They need to look closely into the backgrounds of the people whose hands you're putting the kids into and then continue to monitor them.
I learned the way a monkey learns - by watching its parents.
I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and help save the world.
I realize that there's a whole generation of kids out there like me who are totally disregarding the moral values taught to us by our parents.
When I was young, I would make my parents breakfast in bed on Saturday mornings.
To my parents, Morris and Helen, I give thanks for the gift of life, the vehicle for the expression of my work, and for your continued full and unequivocal support from both sides of the physical plane.
I grew up in Baltimore, which is, you know, a city of extremes certainly, but my parents were very conservative. But they made me feel safe, and even though they were mortified at what I was doing, they encouraged it. I think because they thought, what else could I do?
I was mortified by my parents - what they did, who they were, everything. I hated who I was. I hated everything, and I would live in a fantasy world and try to be different. But that's not a lot different, I think, than a lot of kids.
Anyone who plays in the NHL dreams to win the Stanley Cup and I dreamed as well to be one of them and raise the cup in Washington and bring it home to Moscow and celebrate with my friends and my parents.
Unlike most divorced parents, whose interactions are confined to the topic of the kids, people still sharing a house have to talk about clogged sinks and moth infestations.
I grew up in Hollywood, California. A lot of my parents' friends were in the motion picture industry, but I saw their doctor friends as more solid. I admired them; there was a peacefulness in them, a sense of purpose that I liked. So I became very interested in being a surgeon.
I had Hallowe'en parties every year, as it was my birthday five days before. My parents would actually put prosthetic noses on, and my dad would wear a top-hat and tails, put on a fake curly moustache, and hold a pipe.
Like many Asian parents, mine were very focused on education. My dad would quiz me with multiplication tables when I was about 5.
My mum and dad were a little like tiger parents. I hate that, but at the same time, I am a little bit proud.
Before, I guess, mum and dad were everything, but now, in my case, I had two new girls and all of a sudden they're completely dependent on you and there's a third generation. It's a funny shift all of a sudden. You have the babies, you have yourself and then you have your parents.
I had bohemian parents in Seattle in the last '60s living in a houseboat. My dad wrote science fiction novels and painted big murals and oil paintings.
Mom would talk about Eric Sevareid and Murrow and Howard K. Smith the way other parents talk about sports figures.
