I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.
The schools would fail through their silence the Church through its forgiveness and the home through the denial and silence of the parents. The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it.
I'm very proud of my Nigerian heritage. I wasn't fortunate enough to be raised in a heavy Nigerian environment because my parents were always working. My father was with D.C. Cabs and my mother worked in fast food and was a nurse.
My parents owned a soul food diner. It inspired me to go to culinary school.
I travel around and hear from so many kids. Their parents say they were always very picky but they watch the show and they want to try stuff. The show is entertainment but I think it has done so much for the public perception of what food can be.
Heads know that failing to invest in good nutritious food is a false economy and parents won't tolerate reconstituted turkey being put back on the menu.
I wanted to be a great white hunter a prospector for gold or a slave trader. But then when I was eight my parents sent me to a boarding school in South Africa. It was the equivalent of a British public school with cold showers beatings and rotten food. But what it also had was a library full of books.
Food was always a big part of my life. My grandfather was one of 14 kids and his parents had a pasta factory so as a kid he and his siblings would sell pasta door to door. After he became a movie producer he opened up De Laurentiis Food Stores - one in Los Angeles and one in New York.
When fast food is not a treat but a dietary staple the children surf the internet all day in dark corners of the room and are bombarded with latest gadgets. Things replace parental standards.
As the proud father of two teens and past Chairman to the Presidents Council on Physical Fitness and Sports I am committed to educating parents and especially young people on ways to live a long healthy and active life.
Parentage is a very important profession but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.
Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear.
Another parent's different approach raises the possibility that you've made a mistake with your child. We simply can't tolerate that because we fear that any mistake no matter how minor could have devastating consequences. So we proclaim the superiority of our own choices. We've lost sight of the fact that people have preferences.
Vaccines save lives fear endangers them. It's a simple message parents need to keep hearing.
Being a parent is not for the faint of heart. I may joke about knowing fear but the fact is the first time I ever knew real fear was the day Charlotte my first child was born. Suddenly there is someone in the world you care about more than anything.
Therefore when I considered this carefully the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.
I'm famous by default. I came out of the womb and people wanted to know who I was because of my parents.
It was a mixed blessing to have famous parents. It was tough to go to auditions and be bad since I couldn't be anonymous.
When we were growing up our parents somehow made it clear that being famous was good. And I mistakenly thought that if I was famous then everyone would love me.
The importance of human life should be universally respected - and that refers to children before they are born and after. All children have the right to be brought up in a loving two-parent family where the notion of divorce is not even possible.
My parents did a great job raising me and my two sisters. We all graduated from high school and we all graduated from college. So to be a good representative of my family is probably my greatest accomplishment thus far.
When I'm home the heart and soul of our family is in the kitchen. Growing up my parents both worked so dinnertime was for family - the TV was off. I think it's important to grab that time and really make it special even after a tough day.
It's one of the worst-kept secrets of family life that all parents have a preferred son or daughter and the rules for acknowledging it are the same everywhere: The favored kids recognize their status and keep quiet about it - the better to preserve the good thing they've got going and to keep their siblings off their back.
There aren't a lot of ironclad rules of family life but here's one: No matter how much your parents deny it - and here's betting they deny it a lot - they have a favorite child. And if you're a parent so do you.