Shirlee Smith

Shirlee Smith is a children's advocate, an opinion columnist and author, and currently the producer and host of her own television show, "Talk About Parenting with Shirlee Smith", which debuted in 1994. Smith first gained the public's attention when her social issues column debuted in the Pasadena Star News in the late 1980s. She is the parent of four adult daughters and a teenage foster daughter, and has three grandsons and one great-granddaughter.

Early life Born in Los Angeles, CA, Shirlee is the second of Bernice and Eugene Pickett's four children. Bernice was a domestic and sometimes a "live-in"; Eugene was a waiter on the Southern Pacific Railroad and sometimes a waiter in fashionable Los Angeles restaurants. Early years were on the west side of Los Angeles, she attended the 37th Street Elementary School.

Career path

Newspaper columns Since 1980, Smith has written opinion columns in the Pasadena Star News and "Talk About Parenting" which became a non-profit organization in 1997.

Smith founded the charity, Talk About Parenting.

Book Smith is author of “They’re Your Kids, Not Your Friends", published in English in 2001 (Sorin Press) and in Spanish in 2005, "Son Tus Hijos, No Tus Amigos"(Panorama Press.