I teamed up with the PGA of America to help promote a weekend of golf that raises scholarship money for kids who lost a parent or whose parent was severely wounded in combat.
It may be something that future generations are more open to, but I am pretty confident that for the foreseeable future, using the argument of nondiscrimination, and "Let's get it right for the kids who are here right now," and giving them the best chance possible, is going to be a more persuasive argument.
It seems like people my age are over-protected today, even to the point where a lot of parents refuse to put their kids in the position to make important decisions, to aspire to great things, because they don't want to put them in a position to fail.
I think most cartoonists are solitary, lonely kids who use their work as a way to try to connect with the world. If I had any other skills that were more performative - if I could have been a musician or an actor - I'm sure I would have pursued that instead in order to get that instant feedback and to hear applause.
Near my house in Los Angeles is a waterfall. I love to take the wife and kids, but it's also near a sketchy neighborhood. So there's a lot of gang members that hang out at the waterfall. It's like somebody took an Ansel Adams photo and then put a Cypress Hill video inside it.
I look at some of the kids that I interact with, and they were born with so many disadvantages. And you could start off in your first interaction with them saying, "Unless they get a lot of compensatory help, they're not going to be able to compete; they're just so far behind, and they're wounded and they're hurt."
About 100 things that your kid will do that will surprise you and break your heart and it will be a combination of fact based therapy, medically advised kinds of passages accompanied by celebrity anecdotes and just some funny stuff to lighten the load.
Part of what we have to do a better job of, if our democracy is to function in a complicated diverse society like this, is to teach our kids enough critical thinking to be able to sort out what is true and what is false, what is contestable and what is incontestable. And we seem to have trouble with that. And our political system doesn't help.
People take pride in being Irish-American and Italian-American. They have a particular culture that infuses the whole culture and makes it richer and more interesting. I think if we can expand that attitude to embrace African-Americans and Latino-Americans and Asian-Americans, then we will be in a position where all our kids can feel comfortable with the worlds they are coming out of, knowing they are part of something larger.
My two boys were the same ages as the kids in the show. In real life or in between the breaks I was raising two kids off camera who were not unlike the two kids who were being paid to be my kids.
The toughest part is that when your kid's upset, you're upset. You're rocked until they're not upset. Even when they're not upset, you're like, "I hope that doesn't happen, down the line." You're always nervous because you want your kid to be happy.
As a kid, I'd go into the bathroom when I was having a tantrum. I'd be in the bathroom crying, studying myself in the mirror. I was preparing for future roles.