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Once upon a time, if you wanted to talk about the notion of child abandonment, of a mother not being a good mother, that's built into the mother who sends the babes into the woods, and they use the bits of bread or stones to come home again.

Parents who neglect their children, who don't know where they are, who don't know what they're doing, who don't know who they're hanging out with, you're gonna find yourselves spending some quality time with your kids, in jail, together.

You become a parent when you have a baby, no matter how you get there.

I was not prepared to live as a single parent.

Being a parent is about your survival. Surviving the terrible two's is the most important thing.

That always seemed to be the most critical test that a child was confronted with - loss of parents, loss of direction, loss of love. Can you live without a mother and a father?

However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.

Parents are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fulfill the promise of their early years.

They say that abandonment is a wound that never heals. I say only that an abandoned child never forgets.

To lose your last remaining parent is the toughest thing. It is a very lonely thing.