It never occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college and have a career - as well as a family - of my own. Both my parents but especially my mother encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible.

It's not an accident that both my sister and I are writers. Our parents created an accidental Petri dish. My family has great storytellers and I grew up in a very funny conversational house and didn't have television. This small family farm was a bubble world that didn't have much to do with reality.

I've never had a very closely connected family. My parents split up when I was young and I was living with my mom for a little while then I was kind of just on my own really young. It wasn't some kind of global tragedy it was just never really a very close-knit family. So there was support in the sense that they didn't stand in my way.

Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask if we cannot trust the Bible what can we trust?

My grandfather's family used to own a pasta factory in Naples and they would go door-to-door selling their pasta. So his love of food came from his parents which was then passed down to my mother and then again to me.

My family my parents are hippies.

My parents were drawn to the idea that there was space and opportunity in Australia. For the meagre sum of £10 you could sail your entire family out to Australia so that's what my father chose to do.

As a child the family that I had and the love I had from my two parents allowed me to go ahead and be more aggressive to search and to take risks knowing that if I failed I could always come home to a family of love and support.

My parents were French and Irish and our family even has Spanish blood-and I do so love the United States and consider myself part American.

When families are strong and stable so are children - showing higher levels of wellbeing and more positive outcomes. But when things go wrong - either through family breakdown or a damaged parental relationship - the impact on a child's later life can be devastating.