Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm stranded in the wrong time where love is just a lyric in a children's rhyme

I never studied art, but taught myself to draw by imitating the New Yorker cartoonists of that day, instead of doing my homework.

I like to feel that what I'm doing portrays this: a family where there is love between mother, father and the kids. It's a subject that is near and dear to me.

Many of the network television shows have done takeoffs on 'Family Circus,' including 'David Letterman,' 'Friends,' 'Roseanne,' and others, and, in my estimation the use of them is a compliment to the popularity of the feature, which just by mentioning it's name sets up the image of a warm, loving family-type feature.

In Roslyn, Pennsylvania, we started our real-life family circus. They provided the inspiration for my cartoons. I provided the perspiration.

Many of my cartoons are not a belly laugh. I go for nostalgia, the lump in the throat, the tear in the eye, the tug in the heart.

OF COURSE I'd like to be the ideal mother. But I'm too busy raising children.