Patricia Richardson

The truth is, I’ve been going pretty much nuts all year. I constantly have to fight being scattered. I feel like I’m on automatic pilot from fatigue. The hardest thing is trying to be present, living for the moment, for everybody in the family.

You have to be the parent; you can’t be their friend.

Instead of yelling and spanking, which don’t work anyway, I believe in finding creative ways to keep their attention – turning things into a game, for instance. And, when they do something good, positive reinforcement and praise.

I’d like us to deliver a little message to all the men still out there who think it’s the ’50s, and coming home simply means watching television with a beer.

I still get the kids to the doctor and dentist and plan their play dates and buy their clothes.

It was extremely hard going from being a parent of one to a parent of three, because now all these instant decisions have to be made about how you balance out the time and attention between them.

Good actresses can often accomplish miracles, and it is possible to be someone you’ve never been or will be. But in a sitcom, there’s no time.

They see me as being this Super Mom on TV who also can more than handle a difficult husband, and they assume I’m going to be just full of wisdom as a mother and wife myself.

But then my mother, who’s a very selfless, stoic person from a family of Marines, would tell us that what was good for our father was good for us – he would make more money; therefore, we’d be able to get better educations.

I don’t understand that, because I think that what people like most about the show is that they recognize themselves in the characters and their problems, so the more believable the family is, the more we can draw the audience in.

I know it’s a lot harder for women who don’t have enough help, but the truth is, no matter how much money you have, if you want to stay involved with your children and don’t want to lose being a primary parent to them, you’re still in the game.

Getting married and then having children just centered me and grounded my values. It was like a whole new world. It started happening in New York with a little play called Cruise Control, where I relaxed, and then I kept getting work in Hollywood till this series happened.

People who meet me think of Jill and transfer her strong qualities to me.

Tim on the show does a lot of that posturing, of course, and feels sort of threatened by women. But even at that, you do see him cooking, and ultimately he’s a good father because he spends a lot of time with the boys.