I was always talking about peace and love, even when I was a kid. That's how I grew up in my family.
You want your kids to grow up in a world that's better than the one you grew up in. I'm not talking about my own family's wealth. I'm talking about the actual world and all the issues that we have.
I grew up under the politics of my size and my skin. I grew up under the politics of the sound of my voice and a lack of agency, or a feeling of a lack of agency, and not always being able to find myself in images that were in the media.
We talked about politics constantly in my family growing up in North Carolina. There were always debates. Being of Greek background, it's in our blood to drink coffee and talk politics.
My mom always talks about how hard it was to grow up in a political family. It's always split up, and just - I want to have fun in life. No, politics isn't on the list.
I grew up in Manchester in a big Irish family - there are seven of us in all - so my life has always been about role-playing, about doing anything for a laugh. I'm always joking about; that's the way I am.
I don't know if it's because of the way we grew up - we just don't like talking about ourselves or talking about what we're doing... It's not really our approach.
Even though I grew up in an area of England that was more conservative than my personal politics and my family's personal politics, I grew up with a lot of guy friends. There was no real difference between us. When I moved to London, it really became apparent that gender was going to make a mark. I started experiencing sexual intimidation and aggression. People coming up to women on the streets and telling them how hot they are and what they wanted to do to them. For me, that was shocking coming from a village. I thought intersexuality was a great way of exploring that shock.
I definitely grew up differently to most of my friends, and that was a little bit of a struggle then. I wouldn't want to change anything about the way I grew up, even though it was a different situation. I still love the way I grew up, and I had an amazing childhood with a really supportive family.
Growing up in Augusta in such a protected and loving community is something that I really enjoy talking about. I love talking about - even though I grew up, of course, in the time of segregated schools: Brown vs. Board of Education came along after I was already in first grade.
As a layperson, I consider myself fairly well-educated in terms of politics. My family always has been really interested in politics, and various members of my family have a hand in politics in upstate New York.
It sounds like a cliche, but it... you do sing about what you know about. And I grew up in a small town, and I grew up in a place where your whole world revolved around friends, family, school, and church, and sports.
It's the height of the Cold War, but I grew up in apolitical family and politics wasn't on the agenda.
I don't like Johannesburg, where I grew up. Everybody lives in 'gated' buildings, is paranoid about crime and is always talking about being mugged. It's not a very joyful place.
It's different when you talk about immigration in the abstract... It's very different when you sit in front of a family, and [undocumented] children who grew up in this country, and who go to the same school you once went to... They thought if we only enforce the law, people will self-deport... It's not going to happen. The solution is not the status quo, or deportation when you're talking about breaking up families.
I always knew I wanted a family because of the way I grew up. Family has always been the most important thing.