After an 18-year career, I left the film industry, not wanting to become one of those child-actor cautionary tales.

Hello, my name is Lisa Jakub. But most people in a restaurant/dentist's office/yoga studio dressing room, call me 'Hey, you look like that girl from 'Mrs. Doubtfire'/'Independence Day'/'Rambling Rose.' There is a good reason for that. I am that girl. More accurately, I was that girl.

It's estimated that 16 million people in the U.S. have struggled with depression - and I include myself in that statistic. It's real, and it's not shameful, and there is help available. You can bring it to the light, you can tell the truth, you can go to a meeting, you can reach out to a friend. None of us are alone.

My memoir is being published by Beaufort Books and will be available fall of 2015. It's about my unusual life as a child actor and how I made the unpopular choice to leave Hollywood, grow up, and stop pretending.

I want to work with the teachers' union. But as I said out there, we have to put the kids first and we are letting down a generation of California children. It's not acceptable.

I'm not sure why no one wants to admit there's a viable audience out there that believes in God and wants to see a movie with their family. The demand is there. The supply is not.

More and more companies are updating their leave policies to reflect an understanding that being family-friendly is a smart investment in their workforce and America's future.

I fell in love with Erica Kane the summer before my freshman year of high school. Like all red-blooded teen American boys, I'd come home from water polo practice and eat a box of Entenmann's Pop'Ems donut holes in front of the TV while obsessively fawning over 'All My Children' and Erica, her clothes, and her narcissistic attitude.