Biggest challenge that women face today...
Right off hand, I think, "knowing yourself." Understanding who you are or who you want to be and having permission to be whoever you want to be without having to seek approval from parental sources, peers, the world, global issues, any of those things. To set your own sights on your own passions and to understand who you are. When I coach kids in auditions I always say that and I always look at the scripts as life, but a script is nothing more than a two-dimensional piece of paper. In order to bring a character to life you must bring the third dimension to it and you have no place to go but yourself for that third dimension. In order to understand the character and bring it together it is like the script and life is a recipe for a cake. You need to go into your spice cabinet, which is yourself, and understand your inventory. Understand your spices, your good spices, your bad spices, the weak ones and learn how to combine them. So when you come across a recipe that calls for a spice, you may not have in your inventory, you understand it enough that if you mix a couple of spices together you will get the same flavor. And that means understanding who you are -- knowing your strengths, your weaknesses and understanding your passion -- and being able to say that is not a recipe for me. Or, that is a recipe that I want because it is going to challenge me to work on my spice cabinet.

Good role model for today's woman...
There was a woman who spoke at my graduation from Pine Manor Junior College before going on to Sarah Lawrence. This woman totally inspired me because at the time, during the women's lib thing, most girls in junior colleges were getting married and, at the same time, were embarrassed because they weren't out there with their sisters leading the pack for women's rights to take the corporate world by storm. It was embarrassing just to get married and not have a career. This woman was chairman of the board of the Wisconsin Bank, on the General Motors Board, president of a company and, in the corporate world, considered a mega-hitter and she stood up in front of us that day and said the hardest job she ever held, the most challenging -- cerebrally, emotionally and physically -- was being a wife and a mother and in that moment she gave everyone permission to be what they wanted to be and that no one had the right to tell you what you should be or do with your life. Anything you would decide to do, you do it with a passion and you do it well, whether it is washing dishes, washing diapers or running a board.

Balancing career and family.
I wrote a treatment a long time ago called "Having it All." I am one of those women who everybody says has it all. And I'm exhausted. When you have it all, you got it all -- headaches, stress, tension -- the whole nine yards. And the most important thing is prioritizing. Because when you have it all, you don't have it all the time. And you constantly have to juggle your priorities and somewhere along the line I was putting me as the last priority and I'm at the point in my life right now where I realized that's wrong. You've got to make time for yourself. So, I juggled. I had two shows on separate coasts, two children on the east coast and a husband on the east coast. I was 75 percent of the time in Los Angeles, working in New York on Mondays, Los Angeles on Tuesday through Friday, coming home and being a wife on Saturday night and a mother on Sunday and then repeating the grind. It took its toll. I was invigorated and I loved it, but when you juggle you have to be sure you are juggling which means every chance you get, every second another ball is at the top of the list. And one of those balls has got to be yourself.

Keeping grounded.
My children. Because when you pass on, your resume is not on your tombstone. It is about, "Where's my dinner?" and "Mommy, my feelings are hurt," and "Mommy, I have a boo-boo," and "Mommy, I need you." Both my kids are away at school now, but it is like they are still home because they still need you.

Younger generation facing different obstacles.
Oh, absolutely! Let's just talk about sex today. When we were growing up, we didn't have AIDS. It wasn't a life or death decision to sleep with somebody. That is a huge thing. All we worried about was getting pregnant. We also believed that nice girls didn't get pregnant. But now there is no discrimination with this disease of AIDS. I think that our generation, in raising our children (because each generation tries to better the one before them), are allowing them to be more themselves and to express themselves and sometimes have lifted the restrictions so much that the kids really don't have many guidelines to go on. There is a happy medium. You give a child a path to travel down, make the path nice and wide, they can have the freedom to move within the path but make the boundaries solid so they know where not to wander. There's a lot on the Internet. The deviants of society have so much more at their fingertips now in their homes and that is tough. Growing up today... I don't know if I would want to grow up today. And since September 11, I know I cried for the loss of innocence.

Women today more globally aware.
Again, the Internet made the world a tiny place. Travel has become commonplace now. In my mother's generation, they packed up the trunks and the family went abroad, spent time and travel was slow. There was time to acclimate. They didn't know what jet lag was. Today, everybody hops on planes and goes and does, and it is a very small place. Kids are much more aware that what happens in Saudi Arabia and in Afghanistan affects what happens in New Jersey. The repercussions are felt worldwide now.

Concern with women's issues.
Again, all the information that is out there. There was the woman who went undercover in Afghanistan and showed how women were treated. I think it was such a shocker because you have Britney Spears walking around half-clad most of the time and here are women shrouded in the blue burkhas, and you think what? For that reason, I think it is truly important that our kids are so globally aware and that they understand and appreciate what they have here. But then there is a removal of innocence that is so important for kids to have for a while.

Environmentally conscious.
I believe that we are until it affects our convenience. And that is the sad thing. I believe everybody is environmentally aware and wants it to be beautiful, all the rainforests and all the things that we should be aware of in our ozone layers and global warming and all of it is important until it affects our convenience, until we have to give up our Suburbans or Excursions and stop filling them with gasoline, when we can't turn on the lights when we want to, we still want to be able to run our air conditioners all the time. When you are really environmentally aware you have to act on it in your everyday life.

Changes in male/female relationships.
Better and worse. There is no longer the delineation of boys doing this and girls do that, which built a mystique and kept them separate. Girls are playing ice hockey, boys are playing field hockey. There is a level playing field between these kids now that I think builds an interesting respect between the sexes that is so essential and was so missing until now. And you don't have men as the bread winner anymore. You have to have two working parents in order to give your kids what your parents gave you. This generation is raised understanding they are going to lose to a girl or girls are going to lose to a guy. Respect level between sexes is much more even right from the get go. But then where does the mystique come in? What kind of relationships do they have these days? Where does marriage fit? Is it an antiquated system? You don't have women getting married to have children anymore. If a woman can't find a man that she needs to be with, then there are sperm banks. Then you have AIDS on top of that, that strains the relationships. My daughter was raised playing ice hockey and everything her brother did. For that reason, she is not really interested in an exclusive boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. She just likes having guys as friends. She feels that when that special person comes along he'll be for the right reasons someone that she can respect.

What empowers you?
That is a tough question. I was raised in between those eras of women's lib and I came from a family of all girls and I had a difficult sort of family dynamic between my mother and my father. We were raised with the admonitions don't get your head too swollen, be very polite, respect your elders -- no, no, no, it is not important what you think, only important what other people think and it has taken me years to overcome that and say, it is okay what I think without being obstinate and pig-headed and brash. So, what empowers me is learning my self worth and when you learn your self worth and you learn what your full potential is as a person and a human being and you feel it in every nook and cranny then you can give. And when I give and can make a difference in someone's life -- THAT is very empowering.

Defining beauty.
From the inside out. Beauty to me is goodness, peacefulness, enthusiasm and passion for whatever happens to be there at the moment. Passion for life to me is beauty. When you are passionate about life, you have to be passionate about everything you do in life and everyone you meet and that brings an inner beauty.

Who lives up to that definition?
Catherine Hickland. She is a genuine, full soul. Everything she does she does from excitement for her own personal passion but if it can better other people's lives that is the bonus, the icing and it is great.

Career choice affecting family life.
Well, my family life affected my career choice. To begin with -- yes. I have a dysfunctional family. I was born wanting to be an actress. I took on other cerebral activities because my mother and father said, "You want to do what? No, we are paying for your education, you are going to do this." Then I supported myself when I graduated from college and said I would do it on my own. Then when I got married, that was a negotiation unto itself because I didn't marry anyone in the business (thank God). That has its drawbacks too, trying to get them to understand the passion you have for what you do. Then in order to have children, I couldn't run off and do movies or Broadway. I tried. I would take a few years off from a soap to do the Heidi Chronicles or to do sitcoms, but then ultimately in order to raise my children the way I wanted to raise them, I had to be present and accountable and that kept soap operas firmly implanted in my career.

Message to next generation of women.
I have delivered commencement addresses at all girls' schools and there are so many messages. Don't define yourself by your gender. Don't let other people define you by your gender. Define yourself by your passions. Don't limit yourself to your result, to the vision of the result you want but enjoy the journey and leave the ending open.

Best advice your mother gave you.
The most interesting way she gave me advice was through example. She always taught through example. It was never, "Do as I say, not as I do." The one thing she always used to say to me was, "Never build your happiness on someone else's sorrow."

If you could do one thing better, what would it be?
For the last five years, I have been struggling and I mean really struggling with self worth and self-esteem and putting myself first, understanding that it is OK. I am just now finding out who I am and saying it is OK who I am. I don't have to be who everyone else wants me to be. I am the mother I want to be. I love them from the bottom of my soles and they know that and they know that my husband does to and they know that ground zero is safe and firm and good. But when you have been in all these different roles in your life, the hardest thing to do is to understand yourself and that is what I struggle with. As time goes on, your spice cabinet changes too so that I keep taking inventory, that I keep allowing myself to change and to evolve, to grow and that it is OK to do that.

Do today's soap characters reflect the times?
No. I feel that they reflect an antiquated time which is fine. The stories we tell sometimes go beyond the norm. It is not about the stories we tell but how we tell them. Until we really sit down and tell the stories the way soap operas used to tell them, we are missing out on where we are today. It is not the far fetched situations but how characters navigate their way through the stories that breaks your heart or makes you laugh or makes you relate to the characters. We don't emulate heroes on our shows. We have too many bad people who are conniving and manipulative and they end up becoming our heroes because they are funny or unpredictable and you are never sure what is going to happen. We don't honor the heroes of the show. We have heroes in our life and soaps don't focus on them. Everyone knows Osama Bin Laden's name. Not everyone knows Beamer's [Todd, who was one of the heroes of United Airlines Flight #93] first name. It used to be like Bob Woods but he has now beat up R.J., for no apparent reason, almost to a pulp. He has abandoned wives. It is mind-boggling. They don't build heroes. My character was a heroine on the show and they had her do stupid things because it would promote characters and give them longevity on the show. My character was used to push stories, but they lost sight of the heroine aspect. There are stories that I have even pitched about good people making really hard decisions and having to struggle with the choice they have to make after going through the decision. When Michael Malone (he's now back at the helm as a consultant since this interview) was writing our show, we did a rape storyline where the cheap girl in town gets gang raped and then I have to defend the rapists and I destroy her on the stand in my zeal to prove innocence and just before closing arguments I find out they did it. And now what? They are about to walk free and I have annihilated this poor girl because of her past history. Even the town prostitute has a heroic side to her. The lawyer who was the hero suddenly has a human side and has to step up to the plate. She calls it a mistrial. She can't bring herself to finish out the trial. People sacrificed their heroism to do the right thing. And we don't have that anymore.