Acting advice is a bit like your parents teaching you how to drive a car. You know they're right but you still kind of want them to shut up a bit.

It was all that stuff about taking your parents' car when you're 13 sneaking booze into rock shows and ditching school with your friends. I could relate to that as a former teenager rather than as a present parent.

But I also like to shower my parents with presents. I bought them a beautiful car and a house.

I always loved music. You know my parents said I started singing when I was 4 in the car.

The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh I was proud.

When you read about a car crash in which two or three youngsters are killed do you pause to dwell on the amount of love and treasure and patience parents poured into bodies no longer suitable for open caskets?

It just seemed too weird to me. I don't know maybe they were smoking a joint in the car downstairs from their parents' apartment. I had to go that far to put together a scenario of how they could have possibly recognized me.

Fact: The new '90210' is cooler than the old '90210.' It's the lithe streamlined Skipper to the elder series' venerable Barbie. Gone are the traditional parents - they've been replaced by a hipster mom n' pop who get busted necking in the car.

My parents were what I like to call proper musical fans. Lots of Sondheim was played in the car.

I think a lot of writers male and female write as if their parents were killed in a car accident when they were 2 and they have no one to hold accountable. And unfortunately I don't have that. I have parents who I care about what they think.

I know people think we drive around in these nice cars and we do whatever we want and our parents will pay our credit cards but that's not the case. Sure my parents were generous I got a nice car at 16 but at 18 I was cut off. I've worked really hard. I opened the store myself.

Although my family - parents and sister - all work in the personnel management business their real passion is performing amateur operatic societies and so on.

My parents were dishonest people. If it was my birthday I knew my mother took me to the K-Mart and she stole my toy. She'd put it in the shopping cart and we'd walk out. I was raised with that.

One I built when I was a kid and it was a real miniature of Disneyland. I fell in love with the park when I went there with my parents on my 12th birthday.

I grew up doing all that stuff because I was obsessed with the '50s. I had sock hops for birthday parties. So I've always done The Twist and stuff. It was pretty natural and with my parents doing it all the time I'd just copy them. Not very pretty.

It's odd the things that people remember. Parents will arrange a birthday party certain it will stick in your mind forever. You'll have a nice time then two years later you'll be like 'There was a pony there? Really? And a clown with one leg?'

Parents have become so convinced that educators know what is best for their children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts.

As a mom I know it is my responsibility and no one else's to raise my kids. But we have to ask ourselves what does it mean when so many parents are finding their best efforts undermined by an avalanche of advertisements aimed at our kids.

Dad needs to show an incredible amount of respect and humor and friendship toward his mate so the kids understand their parents are sexy they're fun they do things together they're best friends. Kids learn by example. If I respect Mom they're going to respect Mom.

The beauty of 'spacing' children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones - which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

'Handsome' means many things to many people. If people consider me handsome I feel flattered - and have my parents to thank for it. Realistically it doesn't hurt to be good-looking especially in this business.

Look everything that you experience as a kid is the foundation of how you are today. I was brought up in a working class family in Leeds and when it comes to money both my parents worked hard and instilled the same attitude into me.

My parents have a strong work ethic but their attitude to life their philosophy is: 'whatever makes you happy.'