Parent Mentors of Ohio

That Cruise even surmounted the stumbling blocks of his difficult childhood to make any sort of positive contribution to the world is a credit to his steely resolve and his mile-wide competitive streak. He endured a peripatetic childhood, as his electrical-engineer father, Thomas Cruise Mapother III, dragged Cruise, his mother, and his three sisters with him to at least a dozen different towns looking for work. Constantly adapting himself to an ever-changing environment, Cruise developed his athletic prowess as a means of fitting in. Academics were another matter entirely: he was hampered by a form of dyslexia, and, bouncing from school to school, he was hard-pressed to develop or sustain any learning skills. His parents divorced in the mid-'70s, and Cruise became the "man" of the house, as his father dropped off the scene.