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My daughter has impressions that she does of me.

I have two extraordinary daughters, who, I can say proudly, are doing very well in school and in piano. Daughters are a father's joy.

But my middle daughter, Kate, is very involved in martial arts, and I was just at one of her competitions.

In football, you're dealing with grown men. In gymnastics, you're dealing with prepubescent teenage girls. There's a huge difference. At that age, you're not confident enough to have a voice.

People assume a lot of things about gymnasts - that the girls work too hard, it's way too much for them, they are too young to work so hard.

See, when I went to the Olympics in '76, the gymnastics people knew that I was good, but everybody else, after I won, everybody was like, 'Where's she coming from? Who is she? What is Romania?'

My 7-year-old daughter is not shy of telling me she can draw better than me, and she's right.

I think the best thing I could ever teach my daughter is that she's not an object or a trophy, and that she can trust in herself and believe in herself and that you are not your things, and you are not your job.

My mom is very confident and she was always a role model of mine.

It's all too easy when talking about female gymnasts to fall into the trap of infantilizing them, spending more time worrying more about female vulnerability than we do celebrating female strength.