I always wanted to be like Mark Messier and I loved Wayne Gretzky, the same as other kids. But it was also really special for me to see the Black players that were in the NHL.
I grew up watching ‘The Lone Ranger.’ I would get up every Saturday morning, earlier than all the other kids, to watch a black and white western with Clayton Moore that hadn’t filmed a new episode since 1957.
A big part of my upbringing was being with an instrument and kind of figuring myself out through music. So I feel a strong desire in any way that I can to help do that for other kids.
Truly, from a very early age, I started distancing myself from other kids, not out of willingness, but just out of the nature of my energy. I liked to do things solely, and I already had a taste of the quest for perfection, which is unusual in a little kid.
I was fortunate enough to make it to where I want to be. There could be other kids as talented or more talented than me in whatever they want to be but don’t have the resources to pursue their dream. Maybe they have to get a job instead to help their mom with the bills.
Because I was a bit smaller than the other kids, my dad knew that winning the ball in the air wasn’t going to be easy for me.
I always wonder what my life would be like if I had parents like the other kids who went to my high school.
I’ve been doing comedy since I was two. You know, kids who make other kids laugh. The sickness had set in! I could make my friends’ parents laugh; I had a sense of what was silly and funny.
Other kids were watching John Elway. I was watching Tom Landry.
I didn’t get trained by the school system like other kids, and when I did concentrate on learning, my mind was cluttered and locked by the programming of the system.
I remember my father, when I was a kid, retiring me on 50. He never used to let me bat past 50. He’d say I had to retire to give the other kids an opportunity.
I used to live with my grandmother. I used to wonder why the other kids in school went home with their mothers and fathers. I wanted to be the guy that got married. I wanted to be the guy with the children and the white picket fence. I never had that.
I always felt like I was mentally tougher than the other kids.
I always was a weird child. My mother told me the story that, in kindergarten, I would come home and tell her about this weird kid in my class who drew only with black crayons and didn’t speak to other kids. I talked about it so much that my mother brought it up with the teacher, who said, ‘What? That’s your son.’
The other kids wanted to play Destiny’s Child, but I wanted Anita O’Day.
I had long eyelashes and the other kids used to say I wore mascara.
I was the kid who was too geeky for the other kids.
Basketball gave me an avenue to live my dream, and I just want to help other kids live their dreams through me.
In the 70s and 80s, Dad was ‘the most hated politician in Britain’. When I started at Holland Park school, the papers turned up and there was a photograph of me published – skinny me in white shorts lining up with lots of other kids for PE. And I was 10.
When you’re young, you know, you want to do all the things other kids are doing. Play video games. Sit in the house and eat potato chips. Just play or whatever.
As an introverted kid who lived in the middle of nowhere, my stories made up the whole of my social life. That meant that while other kids cultivated hobbies like skateboarding or playing the piano, I sat at home scribbling in notebooks.
For most of our young lives, my family was baffled by elementary school bake sales, to which we were told to bring in goodies to sell. While other kids arrived bearing brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and apple pies, Chinese families didn’t bake.
Other kids went out and beat each other up or played baseball, and I built electronics.
A shy kid might look longingly at other kids playing in the schoolyard, afraid and unsure about how to approach them, but an introvert is perfectly content on her own.
When I was a kid I was teaching the other kids how to dance the ‘Dirty Dog.’
I ended up gettin’ a little Gibson amp and a bass, because of Gene Simmons of Kiss. Myself and three other kids would pretend to be Kiss – I liked Gene the best.
I would watch ‘Sesame Street’ and see neighborhoods and kids with other kids to play with, and I just didn’t have that. You know, we were on a lake. We just didn’t have that stuff.
I was very spiritual as a kid. I think I felt and thought about things a lot more deeply than most of the other kids my age. I wanted to help people.
I think day care is terrific. Kids get to be around other kids, and they’re playing, and they’re teaching each other. When I was in college, my summer job was being a preschool teacher. I loved it, and after that experience, I said I can’t wait to put my kid in day care because I could see how much they loved it.
Even from the age of about 6 years old, I was kind of made to feel different by other kids – you know, I was a quite pretty kid, and I got called ‘girl’ a lot, and ‘woman’ and all of that. And school is really not a place to be different.
When you see the fans all in together – elation and sadness sat next to each other, kids crying and the other half of the family up there, giving it all that – that’s just incredible.
It was a lot of fun being a child actress. It suited me. I don’t think it suits everybody, but I was in it because I had a passion, not because my parents wanted me to make money. If other kids want to do it, and they really like acting, go for it.
I remember going to Birmingham City matches as a kid and there were these other kids in Small Heath who had their own odd, partly Scouse accent.
At school, I could talk about what other kids were talking about. Maybe I wouldn’t seem so strange if I connected with them on the level they were used to.
I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.
I dreamed of being an NHLer the first day I played. Sometimes the other kids would say there are not many black players in the N.H.L. So I really followed as many black players as I could.
When I was little, I thought everyone in the world liked to read because it was so fun. But then I realised that was not exactly true. I want other kids to read and write more all over the world, because it helps them to understand things better.
No more bare bodies in film scenes for me. For my children’s sake, I must stop. The other kids at school keep throwing it up to my children, and they are not kind.
The records of adopted children are sealed in California. That seal is considered inviolable… The judge ruled that, because I was famous, he didn’t have the same rights as other kids.
As a child, I was a victim of bullying because of my cultural background. I didn’t look like all the other kids. I had a funny name.
I’ve always been a daydreamer. When the other kids were playing, I was listening to the roar at Yankee Stadium – I was always attracted to the roar of the crowd.
I grew up with a special-needs brother, and the separation from other kids is so extreme. We’ve got to break down those barriers.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a pro wrestler. Other kids wanted to be cops and astronauts, but I wanted to be Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage, Brutus ‘The Barber’ Beefcake, and Jake ‘The Snake.’ I wanted to be those guys! I used to tape matches on my trampoline and body-slam my brother.
I was a typical K-Swiss guy with sweatsuits. I was a ball player, so the ballers, we wore our game shorts to class. We didn’t really have a fashion in high school like other kids.
The way other kids would watch ‘The Little Mermaid’ or ‘Sesame Street,’ I would watch ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’
When all the other kids were playing sports after school, I wanted to sing and dance and act.
I was really talkative as a child. The priest used to pray for me not to talk so much because I was distracting the other kids.
My mother sent me to speech classes, but the other kids still teased me. I was shy. I stooped. Instead of talking, I kept journals. That’s where my love of words comes from. I majored in journalism.
My life has definitely changed since ‘Modern Family.’ The show has made me more responsible, I really want to be a good role model for all kids so I have to think about what I say and do and how it looks to other kids!
I was nervous to even talk to other kids in my class. I would hide in my room when my parents had people over.
I had always sung in choirs. Even when it was something to be laughed at or made fun of, you know, in school. And I was always the kid who was picked at the Christmas concert to sing the solo, you know, while the other kids snickered in the front few rows.
Like many other kids, I liked watching anime.
Local companies don’t have to internalize their costs, and few actually do, but they tend to more often because the owners live there and they have to show their face in town, and their kids play with other kids.
In junior high P.E., I was way too shy to take a shower in front of the other kids. It was a horribly awkward time – body hair, odors… So I’d go from my sweaty shirt back into my regular clothes and have to continue the day.
If you’re a student that likes to, you know – that wants to go into the trades and have an incredible job, and you’re a student that loves the electricity or whatever it may be, in all honesty, a lot of times when you walk the halls people may – other kids may look down on you a little bit. It’s not fair. It’s not right.
