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I expected it to be overwhelming and all-encompassing, but having a kid brings you into the world in a whole different way.

I think it's possible to have been a happy child, as I was, and still question and push back with regard to societal conventions.

If you had an essentially happy childhood, that tends to dwell with you.

The more people have, the less content they seem to be. In America, the cultural expectation that we're to be happy all the time and our children are to be happy all the time is toxic, and I think that really gets in the way of emotional well-being.

I had a very normal, very typical American childhood. My father worked for the government at the Pentagon and my mother was an educator, so we had a very average upbringing, but that's helped me in my writing because I'm writing about ordinary things.

It was a perfectly average well- adjusted childhood, not a bit unlike that of millions of other individuals.

Unlike most other children, - especially unlike those of today - who are eager to become men and women as speedily as possible, I had a terror of growing up, which became more and more accentuated as I grew older.

My upbringing as a child was very atypical.