I want to give my daughter that Caribbean influence. But also, just being a black girl in this country, I want her to grow up with culture and confidence, and with love.
I didn't want my daughter to feel culturally isolated in the pursuit of her studies as I had as a young girl. I didn't want her to give up on her passions just because she didn't see anyone else like her in the classroom.
I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan't make the mistakes I've made. When I look back upon the girl I was I hate myself. But I never had a chance. I'm going to bring up my daughter so that she's free and can stand on her own feet. I´m not going to bring a child into the world, and love her, and bring her up, just so that some man may want to sleep with her so much that he's willing to provide her with board and lodging for the rest of her life.
I obviously want to give a healthy body image to my own daughter. I think having good examples, eating properly, that's all one can do - and just be really loving around her. I've tried to give her confidence in who she is. I think she's all right in the confidence department.
But I want her to grow up knowing that I was the first man ever to fall in love with her. I'd always thought the father/daughter thing was overstated. But I can tell you, sometimes, she looks at me and I just become a puddle.
My job now is to not give up, to continue advocating and fighting for the issues Secretary Clinton ran her campaign on. I have to do that to show young girls in this country that they truly can grow up to be whatever they want to be - they need to know that they can grow up to be president.
I want my daughter to grow up with some kind of ambition. I want her to work and to have that independence.
Sometimes I'll say, "I wrote that book," and the person will look at you as if you're really strange. One time that happened to my daughter on a plane. She was sitting next to a girl who was reading one of my books and my daughter said, "My mother wrote that book." And the girl started to quiz my daughter, asking her all sorts of questions, like what are the names of Judy's children and where did she grow up. My daughter thought it was so funny.
Connecting with my daughter is the most important thing in my life - the priority. I want to be a man who shows up for her. I want to have such a big influence on her, so that she knows she can call me about anything, which she does.
If I have a daughter, I want her to grow up in a world where people know to explicitly ask before touching her.
I just want my daughter to grow up in a society where she feels accepted being South African, German and Ukrainian.
When we look at that jingoism and the sexism and the racism and the homophobia, that's not who we are, and that's not the country that I want my daughter to grow up in.
I just want to raise a confident girl. I just want her to know that she doesn't need to be sending naked pictures and doing all that stuff - I'm definitely going to monitor everything. I want to raise her to know that she can go do whatever she wants in life and to be comfortable in her own skin, which I think also just comes with age and time.
I just want my daughter to be respectful and nice to people. I want her to understand the importance of being humble.
I have four boys and one girl. My daughter is my only little girl and I just love her to death. I can't even fix my mouth to tell her 'no' for anything.
My love has eyes blue as the sky. Her warm, bright smile makes me want to try To give her the world, And when she's curled Up in my arms where I can feel her touch, I realize again that I love her so much. My world has turned from black to white. Kissing in starlight, basking in sunlight, dancing at midnight.' ~John's poem for Belle
If you grow up saying, 'I want to be a lawyer,' everyone says, 'Let's give her everything she needs to be a lawyer.' But if you say 'I want to be an artist or a dancer or a painter,' it's, 'Oh, she'll grow out of it.'