All my life my priority was football, football, football. I was just fully focused on that and when my kids were born that focus changed gradually. I had something in my life that changed my perspective. You experience something that is more importan...
I have encouraged my kids to eat well from day one. I add flavor - herbs and spices - to everything because I don't want them getting used to starchy, bland food. I also want them to experiment - they don't have to love everything, but they do have t...
A few years ago, kids from poor areas in France were asked to draw items of food. For a chicken, they drew a drumstick. For a fish, they drew a fish stick. Those are extremes, but there is a lot that needs to be done to help children discover good fo...
When it comes to romance, I'm really simple. I am really a 'dinner and a movie' type of person, and I love food, so surprise me and order something different or adventurous when it comes to food, and I'm like a kid at Halloween.
People without children do have the freedom to do things that caring parents with dependent kids can't - to work long hours, to travel frequently, to relocate, and to do all these things on short notice if necessary. In return, they can achieve posit...
I've tried to handle winning well, so that maybe we'll win again, but I've also tried to handle failure well. If those serve as good examples for teachers and kids, then I hope that would be a contribution I have made to sport. Not just basketball, b...
If you've gone into a marriage and you haven't been clear about how you're going to handle money, how you want to raise kids, who is going to work or stay home or what have you, then you've set yourself up for failure.
I've had a family my entire adult life; I started raising kids when I was 21. I suspect that being part of a family has probably informed my life as a writer as much as anything else has.
Movies these days have made killers into funny people. What's that all about? I've got kids and family and friends, and I don't like bad things. I don't think they're funny, and it's irresponsible to make movies that don't show you how that's not goo...
Our family room, where we live, is about togetherness and ease. Nothing in my house is too formal. There are no coasters on tables; the kids can eat Popsicles on the couch if they want to. I let them ride these little cycles we got for them when they...
I'm fortunate enough to have learned not to waste time getting frustrated with my kids, or co-workers, or friends and family for not doing everything I wish they would. If someone doesn't respond to me the way I want them to, I understand that it doe...
I won the parental lottery. Most of the kids I grew up with either came from really fractured homes, or really violent ones. I went home to a very traditional, good Irish Catholic family.
We'll be going to the fish market and a farmer's market this afternoon to get what we need to make and eat dinner as a family. I'm trying to expose my kids to going to a farmers market or the fish market and learning what that's all about.
When I was a kid, I took 'The Brady Bunch' and 'The Partridge Family' very seriously. It was a world to me in the same way that the Greek myths would have been had I read them. You know, Marcia is Athena and Mr. Brady is Zeus.
Because my parents, growing up, they worked hard. Everyone in my family woke up early in the morning. I used to see my mother and my father go off to work, and come back and, no matter what, they had time for the kids.
I don't necessarily want kids. A lot of our friends are having children and I don't know if it's for me. I haven't come down hardcore on either side of the argument. I think when people come from a stable family having children becomes a celebration ...
When I was a kid trying to communicate with family in the Soviet Union, it was very difficult. You had to go through the long-distance phone companies like MCI, which were difficult to navigate and expensive to make calls through.
A rescue mission doesn't involve going in and just taking a child and leaving. You can't just choose any child at random. Every kid has a case that is based on that child's original family. So, we made it over to a village, found the child; we were i...
When I was a little, little kid, my family got a new washing machine, and they had a big box that was left over. So I cut a big hole in the box, and I made it like a giant TV set. I brought it into the living room, and I did the news and the weather ...
I speak about family and adoption because it 100% changed my life and who I am. It definitely played a very large role into just learning how to be grateful for what you have and being fulfilled in a way that a lot of adopted kids don't feel.
When my father went back into the military in 1947 and was gone for 3-1/2 years, my mother was 24 years old with four kids in a town she didn't know that well with no military services available, no family services available through the military, and...
