Katherine Boyle

My dad, coming from the Jesuits, kind of taught our family around the kitchen table the Socratic method, that you need to ask questions, that you can't be afraid of the truth.

He was sort of this philosopher king.

Yeah, not sitting down at the table.

Yes, and not being afraid to be disagreeable.

And I think we're a family of disagreeable people, but it was really inculcated in me from an early age.

I was always just interested in whatever was happening on the news, whatever was happening in the world.

I was a very good student.

My parents were not, they didn't really push me.

It was sort of a self-driven thing.

I always tell the story of when I was in third grade, I got one B in my entire life, and it was in penmanship.

And this is my very hard-ass, amazing saint of a mother sat me down, and she was like, it's okay if you get a B in math.

It's okay if you get a B in reading or whatever, but penmanship means you're lazy.

You are lazy.

And she's like, you are, and it's funny, I have the worst handwriting today.

My dad had terrible handwriting.

Like, you know, some doctor would probably say I have a genetic thing, but she's like, anyone can write.

and you're gonna sit down and you're gonna practice writing, penmanship, an hour a day.

And within three months, I had the best penmanship of anyone in the class.

I was celebrated for it.

But it was moments like that where my parents were just so involved and so good, where they never need to tell me again not to not work hard, or that I wasn't working hard enough, or that I was lazy in some way.