For me, Twitter works best as a way of taking pictures of being stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. If people really want to read really funny quips about life, parenting, and pop culture, then by all means read Michael Ian Black's tweets.
Parents should be encouraged to read to their children, and teachers should be equipped with all available techniques for teaching literacy, so the varying needs and capacities of individual kids can be taken into account.
My parents read me fairy tales every night and I used to believe I was a fairytale princess, like every young girl. I had all the Disney dressing-up costumes and would play every character.
I had a head start in acting. Because of my parents, I had a SAG card, an agent and a recognizable name. But I knew if I screwed up, people would never forget. I'd be dead.
We must do all we can to empower parents and communities to protect our youth and to encourage healthy behavior free from binge drinking and other forms of alcohol abuse.
Civil rights happened because youth got involved. The youth stood up and helped to break the pattern that their parents had got accustomed to living. The next generation has to take that stand for whatever it is, socially, that they are involved in.
A sympathetic parent might see the spark of consciousness in a baby's large eyes and eagerly accept the popular claim that babies are wonderful learners, but it is hard to avoid the impression that they begin as ignorant as bread loaves.
'Monsters,' everybody has the thought of monsters in your closet as a kid, and more importantly, the idea of becoming a parent. We're always kind of looking for those emotional nuggets. They're always at the heart of the story.
But as for activism, my parents did what they could, given the constraints, but were never involved in the causes I think of when I think of activists.
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 think every parent, every generation has wanted their children to do better and have a higher standard of living. But I think there's too much guilt.
If I had been born in the circus, my parents would have pushed me on that little high wire at four years old. That's when the body is most limber to learn those acrobatics.
When I was younger and my parents used to always slap my hand if I was picking my nose or if I was running around screaming I was told to shut up.
I became almost immediately fascinated by the possibilities of trying out all conceivable reactions with them, some leading to explosions, others to unbearable poisoning of the air in our house, frightening my parents.
I was born in New York City in 1926, four years after my parents and my brother migrated to the United States from the city of Odessa in Russia.
Although they arrived in New York penniless, my parents scraped together enough savings to establish the first of several small businesses just after I was born.
My parents have mellowed quite a bit, but, growing up, there was a sense that the only real professions were doctor, engineer, lawyer. Those were your choices.
Sleep resistance, bouts of insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, crawling into bed with parents in the middle of the night - all these are so common among children, it seems fair to call them 'normal.'
Bedtime rituals for children ease the way to the elsewhere of slumber - teeth brushing and pajamas, the voice of a parent reading, the feel and smell of the old blanket or toy, the nightlight glowing in a corner.
My grandfather was Orthodox, and he was religious, but neither of my parents were. Of course, as they got older, it seems like they get more religious the older they get, even though they're still not practicing Jews.
Of course our most important role as a parent is to have our children know that they are loved and worthy. Even more importantly, it's to help them discover, and fan the flames of whatever it is that they are enthusiastic about!
