I was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 20, 1962. My parents were both thrilled and anxious. A year and a half earlier, my mother had given birth to a baby boy who died when he was just three days old. My mother says that I saved her life just by being born.

My parents grew up in Brooklyn and got married very young. My mother, Greta Malament, was eighteen and my father, Arthur Singer, was twenty. My mother married my father because she wanted to be grown up. My father, she says, treated her like she was smart and clever and funny. My father wanted to be free to live his own life. They both wanted to be able to live as they chose and do what they chose... and to get away from their parents. And my mother wanted to have a child.

My sister, Emily, was born two years after my parents married. My family history says that my mother gave birth to my sister so that she could have a little best friend. Emily followed my mother around. My mother treated her like a grown up from the day she was born. Emily listened to everything my mother said and could repeat it. They still talk almost daily.

I, on the other hand, was born to be "Daddy's girl." I watched and learned from my dad. I could recite the team roster of the New York Mets. I learned to play poker when I was six. I read any book I could get my hands on, no matter what the subject, and I loved to watch anything on television. Even today, while my sister and brother and I know that my mother loves us all unconditionally and equally, my siblings believe my father loves me best.

My mother told my sister that it was her job to teach me to talk. So, Emily talked to me constantly. I started to talk when I was ten months old. I learned to walk when I was eight months old so that I could follow Emily around.

My brother, Ethan, was born when I was two. He was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen.

I know that many families have intense sibling rivalry, but we never did. We argued and fought occasionally. Mostly, my sister and brother and I adored each other. We were always friends and we still are. Besides Andrew, they are the people I love most in the world. We help each other when we are troubled or sad. I talk to my sister, who lives in California, at least twice a week, sometimes every day. My mother believes in the telephone and taught us that long distance phone calls are good therapy. We call each other when we have important news and also just to chat about our day.

My parents grew up in Brooklyn. Until he got married, my father had never been out of New York City. I lived in Brooklyn for the first two years of my life and then, when my little brother was born, we moved to an apartment in Queens. The apartment complex in which we lived was huge. There were hundreds of children everywhere of all ages. There was an elementary school a block away from my building, but nowhere for the younger children to spend time. My mother and her best friend, Myra, started a nursery school. I remain in touch with several of the girls who went to nursery school with me.

My mother was better at being a mother to us as little kids. My parents did not have much money so my mother took us everywhere with her instead of hiring a babysitter. By afternoon, three young children can be pretty cranky. If we started to whine or argue, I remember my mother sitting down on the floor so she could be at our level and asking us what was wrong, what was going on, and did we think it was time to go home. It did not matter whether we were at the doctor's office, the supermarket, or a department store. My mother was a care taker. If I had a problem, the first person I would want to talk to would be my mother. Except for Andrew, that is still true. Mommy never criticizes or nags. That does not mean she does not have an opinion about things, and her opinions, when I was growing up, caused many disagreements. But I knew I could tell her anything and she would listen carefully.

My father is an easy going man. I don't remember that he ever got too angry or too upset about anything. He also never got too excited. He was friendly and fun. He was never critical, but then he also wasn't ever very helpful with a problem.

My mother and her parents and my father were teachers. I grew up in a house where learning and reading were extremely important. I worked hard in school because I liked it, because my parents made it clear that I was expected to, and because I knew how hard teachers worked. Because they were teachers, my parents knew how important it was to attend all school functions and conferences. They encouraged me to participate in extracurricular activities. They made me do my homework. When I was in elementary school, my mother was on "late session." That meant she started work at 10:00. She helped us get ready for school; she made our breakfast, packed our lunches, and made sure we did not forget our homework. My father was on "early session." He left for work before we woke up, but he was home when we got home. I think we were lucky.

My parents also had the same vacation schedule that my sister and brother and I had because they were teachers. Often, during summer vacation, my parents took courses or taught summer school. We spent many summer vacations in Ithaca, New York and Hanover, New Hampshire, where my parents taught or attended college courses. My sister and brother and I played in the country towns. Many of my friends had a great deal more material things than we had. Teachers do not make huge salaries. But today, my friends wish they knew their fathers and that their fathers knew them and they envy me.

We moved to Monterey, California when I was eight and lived there for a year. Everyone in my family remembers that year in California as "the perfect year for our family." We took trips up and down the California coast. We lived in a house for the first time. We had a garden. We got a dog. My father was on sabbatical leave and he stayed home and took care of the house while my mother worked outside the home. I learned from my parents that there are no specifically male or female roles in a family and that deciding what works for our family is the most important thing. At the end of my father's sabbatical, we moved back to New York. My parents bought a house on Long Island and we lived there for fifteen years.

In my teenage years, my parents' marriage started to unravel. They disappointed each other more and more, and they argued often. My sister and brother and I had always been very close and our parents fighting drew us closer. My mother believed and had taught us that the only people on whom we could truly rely were our mother and our siblings. We at least believed the part about our siblings and clung to each other. The year after I graduated from college, my parents divorced bitterly. Their marriage lasted twenty- seven years.

My mother and father are both remarried. My stepfather is Daniel Goldberg. He is a retired high school history teacher. For a little while after my parents were divorced, I resented Danny. I blamed him for my parents' divorce. I have since learned, from growing older and being married myself, that the people most responsible for the success or failure of any marriage are the two people who are married. I love my stepfather deeply. He is a wonderful, caring man. He loves me very much. My mother and Danny made me a beautiful wedding at their house in 1986. I am impressed with my mother's ability to marry two men who are decent and kind and feminists. To me, being a feminist is the highest compliment anyone can pay to a man. Today, when I talk about "my parents," I usually mean my mother and my stepfather.

Since I became an adult, my father has been harder to know. He is remarried and happy. At the moment, I talk to him on the phone every three or four days. When I was ill, he called me every day and came to Boston to sit with me and entertain me. I have visited him several times and he visits us. He has very little contact with my sister and brother. For a long time, this upset me. However, I have tried to accept that it is not my role to manage and fix the lives of the members of my family. I enjoy the loving relationship that I have with my father.

My brother, Ethan, is the baby in our family. He is twenty-eight years old now and he still is considered the baby. I adore him. He is a kind and beautiful man. He was taught by my mother, my sister, my father, and me to be a feminist. I do not see him as often as I would like because his job requires him to travel often. He is a freelance sound engineer for music groups. He tours the country, and the world, with the various bands that hire him to make them sound good in concert. He will work for any band that plays what he considers to be good music, in a wide variety of styles: reggae, jazz, rock and roll, blues, folk, and most recently, South African folk music. When a band with whom he is traveling comes to the Boston area, Andy and I always go to see him and hear the band.

Because Ethan is our baby, whenever we talk about him, my sister, mother and I talk as if everything he does is adorable. Lately, he has been talking about marrying his girlfriend of the last two years. My sister and I like her very much. At Thanksgiving last year, she fit right into the love, hysteria, and silliness that erupt anytime my brother, sister, and I get together.