In my town, I had only one adult American male role model: my father. I grew up taking it for granted that missionaries were what American boys grew up to be.
My family have shaped my politics more than anything else.
I'm an atheist, a devout atheist, but I find religion fascinating. Primarily because of cultural references, as in: This is what we grew up with. Both on a personal level and a collective level.
I had a world of people raising me; it was like a little village.
I'm 23 years old. I might just be my mother's child, but in all reality, I'm everybody's child. Nobody raised me; I was raised in this society.
Nothing is crueller than children who come from good homes.
I come from a well-educated and cultured, middle-class Maharashtrian family and have been brought up with social awareness.
My parents were the traditional Filipino parents who didn't talk about money around the dinner table.
I'm a product of an East Coast liberal arts educational system.
I have a lot of brothers and male cousins. I grew up in an informal, jokey environment.
I was brought up in a strong working-class community by working-class parents and relations until I was 18, and that's what I really am. Now all sorts of things have been added, but that's what I am.
I come from a single-parent family and my Mum is super liberal.
I grew up with Jilly and Tamsin driving Volvos. But I wasn't one of them... I always felt more comfortable with Cockney and working-class people. My heroes were the Beatles and people like Michael Caine.
I've never been drawn to the feminist movement. I was brought up to believe that men had little to do with the home or children - except to bring in the money.
I was one of those kids who had never seen an indie film before I got to college. If it wasn't a big, huge tentpole movie, or if it wasn't on the radio, I hadn't experienced it.
I was raised to think cursing makes you look unintelligent.
I grew up with a posh English accent, and all my aunts sounded as if they came out of a Merchant Ivory movie.
I'm the classic example of alienation: I grew up in a middle-class household without art or books. I was going to be a chemical engineer until I went to the theatre for the first time at 16 and was blown away by it.
You can take the girl out of the estate, but you can't take the estate out of the girl.
I grew up in a world that was clannish - old Tasmanian-Irish families with big extended families.
