I grew up in a working class family. People thought I might go work at a mill. My mom wanted me to learn how to lay carpet because she was concerned about my future. Nobody had high hopes for me. But I was a hustler.
When I started, I didn't think I would become a great player. It was my passion; I had interest. My parents supported me. In that way, I continued.
My mother was the greatest mother in the world. She thought I was the greatest thing on two feet. I'd come home with a little composition I had written at school, and she'd look at it and say, 'It's wonderful! You're another Shakespeare!' I always assumed I could do anything. It really is amazing how much that has to do with your attitude.
I was always a performer kid - like, annoyingly so. I would put on shows for my family and direct my friends in little plays, and my little sister, I'd make up dances with her. But when I was 12, that was when I started taking it seriously, and my mom for some reason believed in me and helped me find an agent in Cleveland, which did nothing for me.
My mum has recorded all my programmes and not watched one. My dad says he finds it embarrassing.
The USA won't be competitive or fair if we don't help more families give their kids the best possible start in life.
My overwhelming concern will always be the well-being of the athletes. In Olympic sport, it is rare for competitors not to devote half their young life to this. Their families will have given up all sorts of things to allow them to do that.
I am so excited to extend myself behind the scenes as a designer and to - as my father puts it - finally have a real job.
I know I want to have children while my parents are still young enough to take care of them.
More than 72 percent of children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock. That means absent fathers.
We certainly had our moments when I was growing up. But the great thing was, if Mom was working on a night shoot, she'd be up making breakfast before school.
My parents always wanted the very best for me and pushed me further and further, so that stuck with me.
My mom made sure all her kids went to college.
I'm lucky that I was born to these parents. I'm lucky that my dad wanted to be around me, that he took me to all these National League cities by the time I was 12.
A lot of times, when parents overdiscipline their children, especially when they're queer, their intention isn't to hurt them. They think they're saving their children from harm. But they don't realize that they're causing harm, that they're doing to their kids exactly what they're afraid of the world doing to them.
I'm the parent of a queer child, and for my kid to know that they can always come to me and I'm going to love them no matter what is the biggest gift.
My whole family actually, but my parents. I had such a normal and amazing childhood. I've been so lucky. My parents are cool and normal. They don't talk about the business and I still have stuff to do at their house.
I've been performing since I was a child; my mother would have to pull me aside and tell me that I wasn't onstage. I was a cheerleader, president of choir, and in the school play.
My biggest hero was my mother. She told me every day that I could do or be anything. I knew it, I believed it, and I embraced it.
The government can take smart steps to give all kids the healthy start they need to reach their full potential.
These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that.
Dad always explained the car engine when he repaired it, and he had many technical books, so I was making electromagnets by age eight as well as reading my mother's medical and nursing books. I suspect I was born with a boundless curiosity, and this was encouraged through my childhood.
I had a lot of space as a kid. My mother worked with human rights for the government, and my dad had a book publishing company, but they weren't really musical.
As a child, I lived with being punier than other boys in class. The only consolation was my parents' empathy - they encouraged constant trips to the local drugstore for chocolate milk shakes to fatten me up. The shakes made me happy, but still, all through grammar school, other kids shoved me around.
I have a wife and two boys. One is 18 and the other is 14. The 18-year old is getting ready for college next year and he made a decision to run track. He runs a lot like Michael Johnson.
