As a kid, I did some running but especially loved biking and swimming. I grew up on Long Island, and our mom took us all the time to the ocean, so I grew up doing open-water swimming in the Atlantic.
My mom and dad met at UCLA when he as a captain in the Air Force and she was in her junior year.
Trying to be Supermom is as futile as trying to be Perfect Mom. Not going to happen.
When you - when someone dies in your family and you think you're over it, and then you wake up in the morning and it hits you, 'I won't ever see my brother again. I won't ever see my mom again.' And it just kind of hits you like that.
My heroes always are mostly my parents - my father especially, and my mom, who's passed on already. My dad is a very strong man, and by him being educated, and a principal and school superintendent over 37 years, he plays such a big role in my life.
I don't know that I have any role models now that are fixed. Definitely my mom - she's the coolest. She's worked really hard her whole life and I just think she's got a great attitude. Moms just know so much it's so silly.
My mom is just so good with fashion! She always tells me what looks good, what doesn't look good, and she gives me great advice.
When my father came out to his mom, my grandmother said, 'You waited for your father to die; why couldn't you have waited for me to die?' I knew then that I never want to contribute to the corrosiveness of wanting someone to stay hidden.
I'm a mom first.
I remember my mom had a big collection of copies of Saturday Evening Post magazines, and that was really my introduction to those great illustrators.
My mom knows pretty well how I see her.
A lot of the time, unfortunately for women, there's not a lot of complex roles. I don't mean complex like tortured or whatever. I mean complex like there's more going on with them than, 'I'm a mom.'
One day I was like, 'Mom, you wanna sign me at Sony?'
Well, when I was a little girl we had 17 cats once. They all lived outside, and they kept having more kittens. My mom made us put little ribbons around each kitten's neck, put them in a wagon, and go door-to-door around the neighborhood to try to give them away.
My mom is a translator for the school district in Delaware. She'd hear these different stories from working with families there. Those stories stuck with me.
My dad always played sports. He played football. I always wanted to play football because my dad played football, but my mom never wanted me to play football because she said she couldn't take me getting hit.
For me, just being how old I am, I know I don't want to be a single mom. I really would rather make it a two-person job. But I've also come to terms with not being a mother at all. I'm actually really good with either direction that my life can take as being a valid experience.
I feel like I've been very smart in the way that I carry myself and treat myself. I feel like my mom was a big part of that just because she's always let us make our own decisions, and we've known very much about the mistakes and the dangers already of whatever this Hollywood life may be.
My mother was predominately a stay-at-home mom.
The most important thing in my father's life? World peace. Me and my brother. My mom.
I'm a working mom. I've been working since I was 14 years old.
African-Americans are underrepresented.
I had really specific ideas of what kind of mom I was going to be and what kind of things I was going to provide for my child - even down to the organic, wooden toys Birdie was going to be allowed to chew on. Then cut to my daughter being obsessed with every plastic, 99-cent store toy.
I was always a drama queen. I remember playing in the kitchen, trying to get my mom to think I was dead and call the police. When she didn't, I would cry. I was always theatrical. I don't think any of my relatives are surprised.
I started acting when I was, like, three. My brother was really smart, and he wasn't being challenged enough, so my mom put him in the theater class. And I obviously followed him.
In Hollywood, you feel a responsibility to look less disheveled than you are. But I'm a mom, and I'm not good at putting time into prepping.
I feel like I'm a stay-at-home mom, which I was for the five years before this. She's absolutely been my focus. That's the choice I made. Desperate Housewives is perfect for me. I get to go back to work and still be able to take my daughter to school and pick her up.
I lead by example. My kids know what sweat is. They've seen me come home from so many runs and asked, 'What's on your skin? How did you get it?' And I tell them, 'It's from exercise!' So now my son will come home from a bike ride, take off his helmet and say, 'Look, Mom. I'm sweating! I just worked out!'
My mom was at every single game I played as a kid, rain or shine.
I pretty much look like an identical twin of my mom.
I know how to do anything, I'm a mom.
For a kid who's lost his mom and all the rage and grief that no one was able to talk out of me, football was a very therapeutic sport. Very.
Over the years my mom has become a self-taught Biblical scholar.
I had such a great mom and I know that I'd never be that mom. I wouldn't want to bring a child into this world unless I could be.
I'm nearsighted, in part, because I would read past my bedtime in the dark. I didn't want my mom to see that I was still awake.
I don't want to have kids for like 10 years. I still have a lot to do. I don't even know if I could handle a dog right now. I'm so not ready. Someday I'll be a mom but not until I'm in my 30s.
