I grew up in St. Louis in a tiny house full of large music - Mahalia Jackson and Marian Anderson singing majestically on the stereo, my German-American mother fingering 'The Lost Chord' on the piano as golden light sank through trees, my Palestinian father trilling in Arabic in the shower each dawn.

The old notion that children are the private property of parents dies very slowly. In reality, no parent raises a child alone. How many of us nice middle-class folk could make it without our mortgage reduction

There was one moment where they were riding their little ponies in Scotland, and Stella said to me: 'Dad! You're Paul McCartney, aren't you?' 'Yes darling, but I'm Daddy really'.

Your children live or die without you. No matter what we do, no matter how we agonize or obsess, we cannot choose for our children whether they live or die. It's a devastating realization, but liberating.

Do you light up when your kids are coming in the room or do you become the instant critic?

I learned respect for womanhood from my father's tender caring for my mother, my sister, and his sisters. Father was the first to arise from dinner to clear the table. My sister and I would wash and dry the dishes each night at Father's request. If we were not there, Father and Mother would clean the kitchen together.