Parental Advice From Chris Rock's Mom

By Felicia Pride

Rose Rock is one of the newest celebrity moms to add author to her plate of accomplishments. She raised successful comedian Chris Rock, and her not-playing-around style is inspiration for actress Tichina Arnold's matriarch character on the award-winning television show Everybody Hates Chris.

But I bet you didn't know, Ms. Rock is mother to 10 children and 17 foster children. Yes that would be 27 children in total. She's also an educator, who for the last 17 years, taught and operated a preschool and day care center. She eventually founded Rock This 619, a nonprofit dedicated to youth empowerment.

Ms. Rock ain't playing on all levels.

And now she's putting her years of experience raising and caring for kids into the new book, Mama Rock's Rules: 10 Lessons for Raising a Houseful of Successful Children (co-written with Valerie Graham).

Mama Rock is offering straight-up-no-chaser advice about discipline, boundaries, and choices mixed with personal stories and anecdotes as well as memories from her own children who describe what it was like to grow up in the Rock household. Some of her ten rules include: "I Am Your Mama, Not Your Friend," and "Don't Lie Down with Anything You Don't Want to Live with Forever."

Mama Rock definitely represents that old-school, "don't mess with me or you won't get old" parenting that is sorely missing from today's child-rearing. She says, "To be a parent is and should be a calling. There is absolutely nothing as great, challenging, or rewarding as raising a child."

If all parents felt this way, the world would look very, very different.