Rhea Perlman

I never pictured myself in California. I just thought I would be a character actress in New York on the stage. I never really had that stardom goal; I just wanted to be able to work as an actress and not as a waitress.

Lots of kids, including my son, have trouble making the leap from reading words or a few sentences in picture books to chapter books. Chapters are often long... 10 pages can seem like a lifetime to a young reader. Then reading becomes laborious and serious. That's why some of the chapters in my books are very short.

I always wanted my kids to like me and think I was funny, so I made up this story about a kid named Jake and his racecar that he had built from scratch, fully loaded with whatever fantastical gadget he or I wanted him to have at the moment. I loved making up the stories off the top of my head.

Our kids are not Jewish, and they're not Catholic. They're not Episcopalian. They're not Buddhist. They're not anything. We do all the holidays to keep the traditions and the culture going, but I truly don't have a great feeling about any particular organized religion, and I don't think it's right to impose one on my kids.

The most important element of the foster care system is getting kids out of foster care and into a permanent placement so they don't have to spend their entire childhoods in courtrooms, wondering if they will ever have a place to call home.

No child should be raised in a system. A system isn't a parent. Even the system knows this, which is why the Children and Family Services Division puts so much effort into finding permanent homes for the kids who are never going to be reunited with their birth parents.

When I was a kid, I loved having a book in my hand. I still do. I wasn't a fast reader, but I was a steady reader. I read all of The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and Cherry Ames books.

Sometimes a child will get lucky and be placed with foster parents who are loving and supportive and who consider that child their own. But for many, that doesn't happen. Kids are moved around from home to home, to group home and institutions, until they are 18, when they are considered adults and the system is finished with them.

Kids who enter 'adulthood' without any strong attachments to people who know and care about them have a rough road ahead, to say the least.

It can be a huge help to parents considering the adoption of an older child, when college is just a few years away, to know that there are post-adoption resources and specific financial assistance opportunities available to them.

Any good thing that happens to someone you love can only be good for you too.

We live a pretty real life within our Hollywood selves. I'm not working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by any means.