My generation of parents like to joke about how we have scarred our children for life! You know, because we denied them fast food or video games or whatever it is they're begging for these days. We know that this isn't really true, that it takes something much bigger to really scar a child, but most of us won't ever have to worry about that. We hope.

Funny woman Tina Fey, however, was scarred as a child, literally -- have you ever noticed the mark on her face? Honestly, I hadn't until I read this story, but I suppose that's because I'm usually convulsed with laughter when I'm watching her on television. But other people had noticed the mark, which runs down the left side of Fey's face, and they had wondered about it's origins.

Turns out, it's a horrible story -- Fey was slashed by a stranger when she was five years old. Her husband, Jeff Richmond, told Vanity Fair, "It was in, like, the front yard of her house, and somebody who just came up, and she just thought somebody marked her with a pen." Fey never talks publicly about the scar, but Richmond says that the scar is a powerful visual for him. "This is somebody who, no matter what it was, has gone through something. And I think it really informs the way she thinks about her life."

Fey has never talked publicly about what happened to her; she says that "it's impossible to talk about it without somehow seemingly exploiting it and glorifying it." But she also adds that the scar has never made her feel ugly. "It's really almost like I'm kind of able to forget about it, until I was on-camera, and it became a thing of 'Oh, I guess we should use this side' or whatever." She points out that "Everybody's got a better side."

Seems to me that if Tina Fey can survive something that harrowing and grow up to be, well, Tina Fey, our kids will do okay if we say no to them when they're being unreasonable.