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Being a parent gives you historical perspective. You have thoughts about how you fit into a larger generational drama - those who came before and those who will come after.

It is, of course, traditional in children's literature to get rid of the parents.

The fate of a child is in the hands of his parents.

When you have a child, you think about your personal history and what you offer them as a larger narrative, and I realised I knew nothing about my father's circumstances other than what he'd told me.

Each child is an adventure into a better life - an opportunity to change the old pattern and make it new.

The son has always felt like he was a footnote in one of the stories the father tells. The father is an amazing storyteller and one of the tales that he tells is how he met his wife.

I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.

Thousands of years of human history have shown that the ideal setting for children to grow up is with a mother and a father committed to one another, living together, and sharing the responsibility of raising their children.

All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent. After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood.

Of course, you would have to be insane to hope your child grows up to be a playwright or poet. Given the odds, you would have to be quite cavalier about your children's future.