They did interviews with my wife and daughter-they were genuinely in fear of me having a heart attack working 20 hours a day eating fast food.

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized and I still had a daughter who I adored and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

I don't feel I was ever a 'famous' child actor. I was just a working actor who happened to be a kid. I was never really in a hit show until I was a teenager with West Wing playing First Daughter Zoey Bartlet. In a way that was my saving grace - not being a star on a hit show. It kept me working and kept me grounded.

It's one of the worst-kept secrets of family life that all parents have a preferred son or daughter and the rules for acknowledging it are the same everywhere: The favored kids recognize their status and keep quiet about it - the better to preserve the good thing they've got going and to keep their siblings off their back.

My family truly believes they are better cooks than I am. They see me as Giada not as a celebrity chef. To them I'm just me - their granddaughter niece etc. and they're older and wiser. I like that because it keeps you grounded.

I only tour in short bursts I'm only ever away from my family and three daughters for a month or two.

I understand what it's like to come with your family and to uproot yourself and come to another culture. You need a lot of support. People say 'She's got her daughter she's got her husband.' Yeah but she hasn't got anyone else.

My mother's love has always been a sustaining force for our family and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity her compassion her intelligence reflected in my daughters.

We're very open and outspoken about our faith and our beliefs. We also talk about our doubts our moments of insecurities. We talk about it all day how we're inspired by God. We recognize little miracles every day and that's how we're raising our daughter.

I don't want to feel like a failure to my daughter. She's the best thing I've ever done. Buffy - pretty great and all but Charlotte's way better.

I have three goddaughters - I'm not sure why they trust me because I have no experience with children - but I try.

When I look at my daughter who's 24 she is much more confident than I ever was and her expectations are higher. But I worry that there is a backlash brewing against progress on equality.

I was taught by my father. He was head of the primary school so I went to his school until I was 11 - I was the youngest of four daughters and we had all been taught by him. But I didn't really enjoy my secondary education that much probably because I am a very physical person and don't enjoy sitting at a desk all day.

I'm very jealous of my daughter's education. She's been inspired by her teachers and nobody inspired me as a teenager.

If we help an educated man's daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? - not how she can learn but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?

It's weird to say but every time I look at my daughter and I see this little living breathing thing that came from me that represents all of the hopes and dreams that I would want for her I see a miracle.