Growing Up

I'm on the younger end of Gen X, and for me, growing up gay was not cool.

I was just a big fan of tattoos always growing up, and I wanted something cool that symbolizes what I've been through in my life, and everything on my chest and my back is like a collage.

I laugh at what I used to think was cool when I was growing up. In all seriousness, I thought having braces was cool.

When you're growing up, I think there's this idea that the coolest people are the ones who are really rude and feverish. But I've come to realize that isn't cool.

Growing up in a cold place, in Southern Ontario, Woolrich was a brand of choice for us because it was always warm and comfortable. The parka with the fur on it was standard fare for us. It's extraordinary that they have kept up with the times. Beyond the parka, they have changed, and they have some pretty hip, cool items which I wear.

Growing up, I didn't feel cool; I didn't fit into any crowd.

I regret not having had more time with my kids when they were growing up.

Growing up, I had the weird fantasy list: I wanted to be Alice Cooper, Steven Spielberg, and Stan Lee. You have to have almost psychotic drive, because you're going to have years of failure.

My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn't have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don't be afraid to fail.

Before I was married, I didn't consider my failure to manage even basic hand tools a feminist inadequacy. I thought it had more to do with being Jewish. The Jews I knew growing up didn't do 'do-it-yourself.' When my father needed to hammer something he generally used his shoe, and the only real tool he owned was a pair of needle-nose pliers.

As a child growing up during the Korean War, I knew poverty. I studied by candlelight.

When I was a youngster growing up in South Dakota, we never referred to the national debt, it was always referred to as the war debt because it stemmed from World War I.

My father was an electrical engineer who worked at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh. When I was growing up, my mother wrote humor columns for the local paper. She was the Erma Bombeck of Murrysville, Pa.

I grew up as a very sarcastic person. I was always the class clown, and to date girls, I had to be really funny. I was really skinny growing up. I was so thin, I had to run around in the shower to get wet. That kind of thin. So I always had to rely on humor and sarcasm.

My dad has a dry, deadpan sense of humor, and my mom has an unexpected, wacky take on things. They really encouraged laughing at ourselves and the weirdness of situations that come up growing up in politics.

Growing up, in church we had the homily; at home it's what I call the 'momily' - the inspirational and instructive mom-isms that every family has.

I want to share some insight into why someone would want to be a SEAL. A lot of us faced obstacles growing up. I didn't have any type of real nurturing as a kid. I hope people will relate to my story and go, 'Hey, if this guy can do it, so can I.'