Unlike most divorces, where the children were usually the first to know, my parents were very good about keeping that a secret.
I'm not someone who has had to deal with much personal drama outside of the usual: growing up with parents who hated each other, two marriages and divorces of my own. There was the cancer thing, too.
I'm more married to Sandy now than when we were married with the legal document. We're still married as parents.
The question of a valid parental-child relationship is at the center of how the Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services handle detainment. Because of fraudulent documentation, profits to smugglers, and false asylum claims, there is essentially no way to prove or verify adults traveling with children are indeed their parents.
For my book, 'Age of Ambition,' I spent time documenting, among other things, the trials of young Chinese strivers who are bombarded by pressures unlike those that their parents faced.
Where I grew up in St. Louis, Saturday was country music day on television. We'd watch the Bill Anderson show, the Willie Nelson show, the Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner show, and always the Grand Ole Opry. My parents were fans of that music, and my friend's parents would pull the TV out and watch those shows on the porch.
I wasn't the biggest hip-hop fan, because I had to listen to whatever my parents listened to, so growing up, it was a lot of Dolly Parton, Elvis, and Whitney Houston. When they finally put a TV in my room and I got to listen to MTV Jams I was like: 'Here I am!'
Any child may go through periods during which they become less outspoken with their parents or teachers. But girls, like boys, live in many different worlds - they have their friends and their classroom and their parents - and within these different domains, they may have different levels of expressiveness.
My parents, fleeing a repressive regime in the Dominican Republic, were embraced by this country and taught us to love it in return. After my father served proudly in the U.S. Army, they settled in Buffalo, N.Y., and were able to live the American Dream.
Years after my parents made the United States their home, I had the joy of traveling to the Dominican Republic with my kids. They saw where it all started and how their grandparents' values survived and thrived in America.
My parents are Dominican. I would always go to the Dominican Republic, and I fell in love with Bachata, which comes from the Dominican Republic.
When I went on tour with my father, I knew he was a musician. But they were my parents. I still think of my mum as being kind of a dork - a cooler one, but still a dork.
I'd love to do a movie where I actually get to be kind of quirky and odd and dorky and all that stuff. My parents would like to see some movies where I'm not in peril. They'd appreciate it.
Parents will purchase the dot-com name for their baby. We have been aware of some instances where somebody didn't name their child a particular name because the dot-com wasn't available.
If kind parents love their children and delight in their happiness, then he who is perfect goodness in sending abroad mortal contagions doth assuredly direct their use.
My parents never planted the seed that anything was impossible. They planted the seed that things were doubly hard for a black man. My brothers and I made sure we outworked people and were better than everyone we were around.
We had many books and pictures... my parents' way of life doubtless left a lasting impression on me. They created an atmosphere in which a certain kind of freedom could exist. This may well account for my seeking a related sense of liberty as I grew up.
I don't think my mother and father ever had any doubts about what I was to be punished for or not. My parents come from a very strictly defined culture.
There are some parents who have really done it right and told their kid, 'You know, we have this dough, none of this is for you. You have to get your own.'
I was always a silent comedy nerd. I would stay up late and sneak downstairs to watch 'Saturday Night Live' and 'Kids in the Hall,' and things like that. Very early on, my parents realized that I was not going to be an engineer or a doctor. I just don't have those inclinations, at all.
