I grew up in a household headed by a very public personality — Joe Paterno. All of my life I’ve been asked about what it is like growing up with a famous father. 

While it was different, most days my life wasn’t dramatically different than anyone else’s. There was still trash to take out, schoolwork to do, and I had to eat all of my vegetables.

My parents were vigilant in seeing that we did not act differently than anyone else, or that we did not receive any undue attention. They were very careful to keep our personal lives just that — personal.

It was not always easy. On family trips at places as near as Hersheypark or as far away as Disneyland, our family time was often interrupted by someone who recognized my father and wanted an autograph.

But I have grown to accept that my father is a person who has given his time and energy to a public profession, and it entails a loss of privacy.

The biggest problem as you grow up is how others treat you or behave towards you.

A few years ago I saw an interview with actor Michael Douglas — the son of actor Kirk Douglas. In the interview he mentioned that children of successful people have a different upbringing because people pay more attention to them because of their parent’s success.

It was a point I immediately grasped as having some bearing on my life.

I can remember bringing back to school an assignment that had to be signed by a parent. When I brought the paper back with my father’s signature on it the teacher said “Maybe I should keep this since your Dad signed it.”

To make matters worse, my legal name is Joseph Paterno. Each year on the first day of school when the teachers would take roll I would cringe when they’d read the name “Joe Paterno,” and I would raise my hand while all the other kids would turn and look at me.

It followed me to Penn State when a professor taking roll laughed and said “This must be a joke. I don’t suppose that Joe Paterno is in my class.” I did not raise my hand, but approached him later to explain that I was that student whose name he had called.

These were minor things compared to the loss of family time, the demands on my parents’ time. There was a constant fight to keep some sense of normalcy at home despite the ups and downs of wins and losses, and the praise and criticism that come with the job. It’s not easy being a fifth grader and having a classmate tell you your father did a lousy job last Saturday.

The reality is that no matter what hand you’re dealt in life there is good and bad. Having a famous father has pros and cons, and they tend to balance out. For all the time you lose your father to the rest of the world, there are other things that you get.

I remember walking into the Vice President’s Suite in New Orleans in 1988 with my father and shaking hands with George H W Bush who had just been nominated for president by the Republican Party. My father was part of a committee to inform the nominee that he had been nominated.

With us that night was my childhood hero, former Dallas Cowboy QB Roger Staubach. I’m not sure if I was more impressed with Vice President Bush or Roger Staubach, but it was close.

My father and I had a good trip together; a trip earned by all the time my father had spent away from his family working to do his job as well as he could.

It is the good and bad; it is recognizing the balance. It is understanding what my parents always told me, “Just because your father coaches a team that wins a few games and gets his name in the paper, it doesn’t make you any better than anyone else. You’ve got to make your own name.”

There is a line in a Pearl Jam Song that refers to a child of privilege as “Born on Third, thinks he got a triple.”

It is a great analogy, and it is something my mother and father fought so hard against. While I’m not sure I was born on third, I would say that being born the son of Sue and Joe Paterno would certainly have put me on base somewhere.

My parents’ approach was to walk out of the dugout and send me back home to bat for myself.

To me that was the best parenting they could have done.