Quotes About Upbringing

When people grow up with a family characterized by chaos and uncertainty and fragility, you look for a substitution for that.

I have six siblings but grew up an only child. I was adopted by my aunt and uncle.

I am very much an only child, meaning I am self-reliant, egocentric, sociable. I had my mother, father, and an uncle who lived with us, all doting on me.

I know black kids who don't even know any other black kids except their cousins. And that's enough. You wouldn't look at these kids and say that they are Uncle Toms or self-hating or fleeing or trying to be white, given the culture in which they live, which is very natural to them as kids.

I'm adopted by my uncle and aunt, who I look to as my parents and people who really did everything they could to put me on the right path. I'm really grateful to them.

My dad's from Barbados, but I lived with my mum. She brought me up; my uncle took me to the football. I grew up in a white family, I'd say.

I knew nothing about my mum's family. Her parents were dead by the time she was 14. She was brought up by two aunts, and she only ever met one uncle.

My parents separated before I was 1 year old. I moved in with my aunt and uncle when I was in fourth grade. I was, like, 8 or 9 years old. I was getting in a lot of trouble when I was in Southern California. My older sisters were in gangs. My older brother was in gangs.

I was not very strong growing up, and my uncle used to look at me, like, 'This kid is not growing up, he is growing tall but he can be broken like a banana.' The banana in Congo is called 'Dikembe.' So my uncle start calling me, 'Dikembe, Dikembe, look at you Dikembe, you cannot even stand up.' It took a long time for me to walk.

Music has always been in my family down to my dad through my uncle. I'm just the next generation, since it's always been around me when I was younger when I looked up to my mom and dad, to Michael Jackson, and B2K was my favorite band growing up.

My mother, Betty, was an entertainer - she opened up for James Brown, Ike and Tina Turner - and I had an uncle who would work as a chef in a restaurant, 6-foot-3 or 6-foot-4. I was young, so he could have been shorter, but in my mind, that's how tall he was.

I grew up with very strong family support. My grandparents raised me, and my uncle sort of played that father-figure role in my life.

I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music. I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers.

I grew up as a kind of nondenominational Christian. I have two uncles who are Baptist ministers. I went to a Samoan church when I was younger. I went to a Catholic school, so I was actually able to experience a lot of different religions. Mormonism, as well. My father in-law, who I'm very close with, is a Muslim.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it's just kind of been like my habitat.

My identity has always been confused. Born in Edinburgh of a Scottish/Russian/Jewish mother and an English/Irish/Catholic father, there is no form of guilt to which I was not subjected in my childhood. Members of my immediate family live all over the world - a diaspora of cousins, aunts, uncles and more in a dizzying mix.

My dad worked for a generator company and then UC Berkeley, and my mom was as a dental hygienist and then eventually a history teacher. My uncles and aunts, all of them are elementary school teachers or scientists.

I was brought up to look after my parents. My family were Polish Jews, and we lived with my grandmother, with uncles and aunts and cousins all around, and I thought everybody lived like that.

Of course there's some things that I would have liked to have... none of my friends growing up had their father in the house. None of 'em. We had uncles and stuff like that, but nobody had a father in the house, none of my friends.

Me and both my brothers got permits to attend Beverly because two of my uncles and my uncle's wife all taught and coached at Beverly Hills High. But I grew up in South Central.

My mum was a bookies' runner at nine years old and my dad's uncles were Peaky Blinders and gangsters.

When you are born into a family like mine, you don't really know anything else. But you quickly realise that it's more about other people and how they are dealing with it. Some can be hugely in awe or uncomfortable, but to you, your parents are just your parents.

The trapeze was my first love. To me, it's normal. It's all I've ever known. But when I see other people's upbringings, I think, 'Hmm... mine was rather unconventional. Quite different!'

I think it's helped me to have two unconventional parents, who have always encouraged me to be myself.