Growing up, 'Cosmo' was my lifeline to the world. A world that I wanted to be in but couldn't get to yet.

When I was growing up as a child, a magazine, to me, was like a finger beckoning me to the future.

When I was growing up, Sunday lunch was my favorite time as a child. We would have a big Sunday English meal, and we would argue about things.

Every time I've been offered a new job, I've automatically said, 'Oh, I don't think you want me for that job.' It's sort of a weird female - or, at least, it is in me - a weird female defense, when, in fact, what you want to do is scream, 'Hooray, I want to do this!'

My mother, whose family was heavily rabbinic, said she wanted me to continue the family tradition in the rabbinate. My father said he wanted me to be a scholar of the Talmud, but he wanted me to make my living in science.

An English journalist called Michael Viney told me when I was 25, that I would write well if I cared a lot what I was writing about. That worked. I went home that day and wrote about parents not understanding their children as well as we teachers did, and it was published the very next week.

Ultimately, for our family, the opportunity to spend increased time together, balanced with a return to academia, was one we could not pass up.

I grew up going on vacations with my family to New York every summer, and it's something that I always looked forward to. They'd take me to theater and shows and interesting restaurants, so I was genuinely really excited to move there.