The people on my mum's side of the family are atheist intellectuals who are ueber-proper. My dad's side of the family are missionaries who are more comfortable sitting around in sweatpants than they are in a five-star restaurant. But those two influences converged in my life.

Work ethic has always been stressed in my family. My dad is going to be 80 years old and he still works part time. My mom just retired a couple years ago and she's in her mid- to late 70s.

I wanted to travel with my dad to be close to him again. Having babies and raising my own family took so much of my time I didn't have a chance to be with him very often.

My dad was a singer in a band and neither of my parents went to college and I ended up getting into Harvard and was the first person in my family that went to college and it happened to be Harvard.

It was sort of just a family sport. My mom and dad were pretty keen golfers when I was young and so were my grandparents and I just sort of tagged along with them.

It would be nice if I did have a good relationship with my family and yes part of me longs to have a mum and dad who love and accept me for who I am. But if they never do it's OK.

My mother is Italian and my dad's Irish. In my family we're expressive. Nobody holds back.

Being an only child I didn't have any other family but my mom and dad really since the rest of my family lived quite far away from London.

We sat together as a family for dinner at night. And my mother had a job. My dad had a job. But there was always a meal on the table at 6:00 you know.

I was a sickly baby and after two sets of adoptive parents took me home they returned me to the orphanage because of a serious respiratory infection. But as they say the third time's a charm because my mom and dad adopted me and took me into their home where I was raised in a family full of love.