The older I grow the more I see the influence of my family on my life. I didn't always see it. It was up to our parents to see that we had our education in a town that hadn't yet realized what racial prejudice was but actually knew and practiced it on occasion.
I dropped out of college my junior year to do Saturday Night Live, and I didn't even consult my parents. They were very supportive because they had no choice.
My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends.
Since the conception of our country, America has held that parents, not schools, teachers, and certainly not courts, hold the primary responsibility of educating their children.
It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. The best way for children to treasure reading is to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.
