Nora Roberts

I grew up with four older brothers. I was the only girl and the youngest, and I still remember very clearly making their lunches for school, and wondering, Why? And I think I became a feminist at about age 12 because it just didn’t make sense to me that this was my job. Why weren’t they making my lunch? Or why didn’t we take turns? That really did start the wheels turning for me. But my mom, at that time, had very definite ideas of: “This is what girls do. This is what boys do.”

Then, when I was about 13, my father started his own business, and my mother ran that business. And that was kind of an epiphany for her. It changed her attitude considerably. She became more open to the idea that women weren’t just supposed to slap peanut butter on Wonder Bread and make their brothers’ beds.

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