I remember my stomach hurting a lot as a kid and being hungry. I wasn't being fed properly.

In my later teens, I realised this and would tell my mother, "You're supposed to have three meals a day." She said, "You can have as many meals as you want. Go cook something."

This woman had no job yet couldn't provide three meals a day to her children. I wasn't asking for eight course meals. Here's are some simple menu ideas, though.

Breakfast: cereal or a bacon sandwich. Even a grapefruit would be better than nothing

Lunch: Sandwich or whatever. Microwave some leftovers. I don't care.

Dinner: Cook a meal. It can even be a "ready meal" or whatever they're called in the UK. Frozen dinner. Not all the time but sometimes.

That's it. One meal a day is all she had to prepare. And of course, if there are leftovers from the previous day you can have that. Or takeaway food.

Realistically, when you consider leftovers, ready meals, and takeaways, she only had to cook two or three times a week.

And I'm not talking about huge meals. She made the same sort of meals that I make today. Brown some meat, put the seasoning in, you're done. Chili. Tacos. It's about 10 minutes of preparation, let it cook for 30 minutes, serve.

She couldn't do it. Why not? Didn't have the time? Too many Judge Judy episodes to get through?

I couldn't imagine. The good Lord hasn't blessed me with children but I like to think that if I had children I'd, you know, raise them. Clothe them, feed them, pass my knowledge onto them, go places with them, cultural enrichment, enroll them in activities.

I wouldn't just sit there and watch inappropriate American daytime television from 8 am to 6 pm. "My teenage daughter dresses too sexy". "Stripper fights". "Gay drug addicted Club Kids exposed".

Then of course more shit television from 6 pm until she went to bed.

That was her parenting. Day in, day out.

"Come on, Baron. Maybe she was depressed because her husband died."

She was like this before he died. There was no change in behaviour. She never did shit.

My father never did shit either but at least he was working.

I think the aspect of parenting that I'd be most interested in are the teaching moments. Share your wisdom with your children. Help them to better navigate the world. "You're not doing well in school? Here's what I think would help." "Bully on the playground? This is what I did." "Stool problems? Eat granola cereal."

You're helping somebody be the best person they can be. What's better than that?

I guess Ricki Lake was just too enthralling. What's she up to now? Hey, she's only 10 years older than me. That's surprising.

Her talk show ended in 2004. In 2012, she made a comeback but the show was cancelled within a year.

Here's what her 1993-2004 show was about, according to Wikipedia:

During the series' run, its primary focus was on dealing with personal subjects like parenting skills (including single mothers who are accused of having the lack of experience of taking care of children), romantic relationships (both marital and non-marital), LGBT issues (like discrimination, same-sex couples who want to have children or straight people attracted to a person who is a LGBT or the other way around), racism and prejudice (even within their own race and gender), interracial relationships, family discord, revealing secrets, and social topics of the day (like money, looking for work or being on welfare).

OH THE IRONY!