Jodie Foster has been working in front of a camera since she was three-years-old, but it was her Oscar-nominated role as an underage prostitute in Taxi Driver that put her on the map. She didn't win that one, but has continued to work steadily and, in my opinion, is one of the best actresses working today.

But 45-year-old Foster hasn't given her whole life over to work. The Yale-educated actress has nicely balanced her fame with a rather normal-sounding home life. She's very private about some aspects of her personal life, but doesn't mind talking about her kids, 9-year-old Charles and 6-year-old Kit.

"Boys are easy," she tells Parade.com. "I mean, there are just a lot of bruises when they're young. With boys, you get a lot of accidental jabs in the eye and stepping on your feet, and those tantrums they cause when they don't want to leave the toy store."

"They go to school all day, and then one wants to do T-ball and the other wants to do karate, so they're actually gone until four-thirty," Jodie says. "I want them to have curiosity about things they don't know, and a desire to see places bigger than where they grew up."

Jodie Foster is a terrific actress and clearly a very smart lady. Not only do I respect her talent, but I also admire the way she managed to navigate the pitfalls of childhood stardom without turning into a tabloid fixture. Just how did she do that? She actually credits work with keeping her on the straight and narrow. "I had my little rebellions, but they were minimal. So I ask, 'Why didn't I rebel more?' Then I remember - because I was responsible for someone else. That's why I couldn't rebel. That's why I couldn't get lost for days on end. I always had to work."

To me, that statement epitomizes what makes Jodie Foster special. That same pressure could also send a person in the opposite direction and land them on the front page of Star magazine. A lot of young celebrities today would do well to look to Foster as an example of how to do it right.