We're so preoccupied with protecting children from disappointment and discomfort that we're inadvertently excusing them from growing up.

Growing up, I didn't know anything about money other than we didn't have any.

Believe me, I recognize the cultural and anatomical challenges and respect the sacrifices women make in order to balance family and a career, or family with no career, or career with no family.

I don't begrudge a coach for trying to get all that he or she can. I don't resent a school feeling it needs to pay to keep top talent. I'm just afraid to think where all of this will end up because the overall impact seems to be stretching far beyond the scoreboard.

At 20 and 30, we are like travelers in a foreign country, reading the guide book to learn how to behave, to learn when the post office is open. Trivia looms important; critical issues fade into a pastel background, unrecognized.

Be it a village or a city, education is very important, and it always comes into you.

I wasn't that over-the-top, but I got sent to the principal in first grade for talking. And my father was for a long time the president of the Board of Education. That was always a hard note to bring home.

There will not be a billion-shekel cut to education on my watch.