If your dad died before you were born, yeah, it hurts - but it's not like you had a connection with something that was real. Not to say it's any better - but to have that connection and then have it ripped away was, like, the worst. My dad was such a good dad that when he left, he left a huge scar. He was my superhero.

I think that in order to parent effectively, we are going to have to admit two things: We can't keep our children safe. We can't accept the fact that we can't keep our children safe.

My mother and father were never frightened of anything. They always felt that they should go through life happily and without fear, and they did that. And it was a great boon to my brother and myself.

It was about the preciousness of that, and how they viewed those birds as art, as something valuable. I didn't care one way or another back then, but now, thinking about my grandparents - who are still alive but getting older - I see the birds as sort of time capsules. Now I go home during the holidays and they hold a lot of weight in terms of nostalgia and memory. Now they mean everything.

For millions of girls around the world, motherhood comes too early. Those who bear children as adolescents suffer higher maternal mortality and morbidity rates, and their children are more likely to die in infancy.

When I go back to the core of my childhood, my cousin Lucy seems always to be in the peripheral vision of my memories. She is off to one side, always off to one side, with a book, with a scheme or a project or an enterprise.