By Dan Ewald | Crosswalk

Debra Barone went out to get a job and got fired because she was no good. She hired a babysitter and found that her kids had more fun with the sitter than with her. She freaked out when her sister decided to become a nun. She went overboard trying to impress her mother who came for a visit. 

As Debra Barone on the Top 10 CBS hit Everybody Loves Raymond, Patricia Heaton plays Americas favorite TV mom. June Cleaver or Harriet Nelson, she isn't. Debra gets sick. She's a bad cook. She gets frustrated with her well-meaning husband Ray (Ray Romano) and schedules an afternoon alone just to have a good cry. Perhaps that's why we like her so much. So does the Academy of Arts and Sciences, which gave Heaton an Emmy Award this year for best actress in a comedy. 

Like her character, Heaton also is a mother of four young boys: 6-year-old Sam, 5-year-old John, 3-year-old Joe and 1-year-old Daniel. Unlike her character, Heaton balances a career outside the home, struggling to give her boys a non-Hollywood upbringing like the one she had in Cleveland. 

She describes her childhood behavior as bratty, manipulative and show off-ish. Her dad was a sportswriter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer while her mom quit a thriving career to raise Heaton and her siblings. 

It was a very traditional upbringing, Heaton says of her Catholic family. At least it seemed to be just that until her mother died suddenly when Heaton was only 12. 

The loss sent her reeling into depression and grief, emotions that erupted in her 20s, when she went through rebellion against God and the values of her youth. While living in New York, doing theater and odd jobs, she found herself partying late on Saturday night, then getting up for church on Sunday morning. 

The religious acts were just that, she confesses, an act out of a sense of duty to God. 

Through years of grief and depression, though, God broke through, reminding her how much He loved her. That door of faith was always open, she says. She just didn't always step into it. 

After marrying English actor David Hunt in 1990 (they've recently co-founded a production company called Four Boys Films) Heaton says she has begun to find balance in her life. She tells love -- within your family and in Christ -- brings meaning to life. And her favorite script? God's Word. 

Q: Is your life all limousines and movie premieres?

Patricia: It's none of that! Somebody once said to me, Oh, you must have such a glamorous life. But I don't go anywhere. I get up early, go to work at 10 a.m., then come home, fix dinner and do whatever with the kids, and start over again.

Q: Still, there have to be difficulties doing it all.

Patricia: I've struggled with the issue that my life is my children's life. It's all in the everyday, small stuff. It's not so much about making sure you're there for their birthday party or a school play as much as the daily things: getting them breakfast, helping your 2-year-old get dressed. A lot of moral lessons and training for life happen in the routine of every day.

When I was growing up, my home was very Christ-centered, and I'm trying to give my children the same thing. I'm not talking about just knowledge.

In LA, there's a real push to get your kids into the right schools. Parents here want to jump-start education for their kids. While I feel education is very important, without Christ, education doesn't matter. Wisdom is different from knowledge. You can know a lot, but if your heart isn't focused with Christ at the center, then everything ultimately doesn't work.

Q: So how do you instill in your children that love for God and faith in Jesus?

Patricia: We read Bible stories, and I try to introduce Jesus into the conversation as much as possible to make it a part of their thinking¡ªa God-and Christ-consciousness.

One thing I want to do better is pray for them more. There's so much power in that. And I want them to see my joy in Christ, even when I've faced depression. More than anything I want my children to have a personal, daily relationship with the Lord.

Q: That desire of yours defies many Christians' stereotype of Hollywood women. You know, that you can't be an entertainer and passionate for Christ. And vice versa.

Patricia: Yes. What we do here is important, and yet it's all very fleeting in comparison to eternity. Christ guaranteed we would have problems as soon as we start following Him, but also that there would be some meaning in these things.

The point in Christianity is that your life is in submission to God. By the power of His Spirit, the process of our life can be to become like Him¡ªas opposed to having an agenda and hoping if we add God into the mix, He will help us accomplish that.

Unfortunately, a lot of people everywhere, and especially in this town, add on some kind of spiritual thing to help their life work better. They make their spirituality a part of their life as opposed to the core. Jesus is not a crutch, though. Jesus must be your life.

Q: How do you know when you're in submission to Christ or not?

Patricia: Anxiety comes up when I'm not in submission. An issue I'm dealing with lately is, "Do I have too much money, and am I being a good steward of it?" In fact, I was talking to a friend about tithing-just giving your 10 percent as opposed to giving until it actually starts costing you something, which is what I think tithing is all about.

The acquisition of stuff is really not scriptural. I struggle to keep it simple. But obedience, sacrifice and modesty are not real popular buzzwords out here [in Los Angeles]. I have to keep reminding myself: If you give your life to God, He doesn't promise you happiness and that everything will go well. But He does promise you peace. You can have peace and joy, even in bad circumstances.

Q: So fame hasn't really affected your life?

Patricia: Nobody recognizes me. Or at least very rarely. The one time I got recognized, I was in a dress shop here in L.A. where a woman came in and said, Didn't you just have a baby? Aren't you on that TV show?

I said, Yes, I am, and the salesgirl leaned over the counter and said, Aaah, excuse me, but your credit card is at its limit.

I don't get recognized that much because on the show I'm wearing an awful lot of makeup, and someone has done my hair. But in my life I don't wear any makeup, and my hair is sort of flat and straight. It's a blessing, really. I used to think I wanted the recognition.

Q: When did that change?

Patricia: When I married and had kids of my own. Your mind is always on your family then. You realize they are what matters. You want them to have everything, especially the things you didn't.
When my mom died I felt I was on my own, that I had to fend for myself. I didn't get to say goodbye. Her death was very sudden because of an aneurysm in the brain. One morning she said, I'll see you at lunchtime. I came home for lunch, and she wasn't there. She didn't die right away, but within a couple of days. I didn't get to see her in the hospital.

Q: What does that do to a 12-year-old?

Patricia: I've always been an independent person, but that independence was framed in security. Suddenly my sense of security shattered. It started me on this cycle of grieving and falling into depression, feeling a void for my mother.

Q: What have you missed most?

Patricia: That I didn't get to know her as an adult.

Q: What's your favorite memory of her?

Patricia: When I was 3 or 4, the UPS truck came to the house, which rarely happened. My mom answered the door, took the package and said, This is for you. I opened it For me? -- and it was this tea set she ordered off the back of a cereal box. I was ecstatic, jumping around, and I remember saying, I love you, Mom!

Q: What did you miss about your mother that your father couldn't give you?

Patricia: Guidance with things like getting my period and career stuff. She was a little more sensitive to the fact that I was performance-oriented. Still, at that time, my dad was making the best decisions he could.

I acted out later on. I got depressed in high school and had to take medication for that. It came up again when I was living in New York after college, doing theater and odd jobs. I lost myself in partying and had to see a therapist. The underlying problem was grief.

Q: Has God helped you deal with the pain?

Patricia: Well, God would if I bothered to ask for it once in a while. He has a whole basket of goodies for me, but I dont check in with Him enough. I get distracted and caught up in busyness, and He has to give me these little wake-up calls.

Q: That business must make it difficult not only to portray a wife and mom on a prime-time show, but to do the job at home in real life, raising four kids. How does any woman do all this?

Patricia: I was so unaware of how much giving is involved. Even if you're the type of person who takes to homemaking, its still a lot of work and very repetitive. Now that I've become a mother, I can see what my mom did and how devoted she was - and I don't think it was something she enjoyed that much. She was college-educated and worked as a writer in New York for a while. But once she had children, she stayed at home.

Q: Do you feel that's the way to go?

Patricia: Its so -- dare I even say it? -- ideal. Its great for the mother to be at home. A lot of people will hate me for saying that, and a lot of other people will say, Then why aren't you at home?

On our show my hours are very reasonable. I often don't have to go in until 10 or 11 a.m., and I'm usually home by 5:30 p.m. And I get weekends off and a break from the end of March through August.

Q: So why do you think the husbands on TV are always bumbling and the wives cooler? Why are the men presented that way?

Patricia: Because - it's TRUE? (laughs) Though one of the things we're trying to show (on the show) more is Debra's own failings and vulnerability. Things like the fact that she's not a good cook. We did an episode where she goes out to get a job and she gets fired because she's not good. They hire a babysitter to help out and she finds out she hates the fact that the kids have more fun with the sitter than her.

She and Ray go away together and she freaks out because she thinks Ray thinks she's a boring housewife. So, (the writers) aren't completely patronizing toward the adolescent husband. Though mostly he's a sort of bumbling idiot.

Q: How does it feel to have such a high profile and regular job.

Patricia: You have to try to keep prudent and stock some cash away. But it's hard, for so many years I literally had nothing. I was always somebody's roommate. Most of my friends from college became dental hygienists or went into retail, a lot went into sales. They all started getting married and having kids and buying homes and I was still living like a college student. After 15 or 20 years of that, when you finally get some money, you have a lot of catching up to do, materially.

I have a dear friend who owns a company that summarizes depositions. I used to do it. I always say to them, "I just want you guys to know, I may be coming back to you." I do have moments where I say, 'Oh, this will be okay, I don't have to worry about going back to that kind of work." But then I think, you never know...

Q: In accepting your Emmy Award, you thanked God "for thinking me up and my mother for letting me come out."

The remark was more than just words. You are also honorary chair of the pro-life organization Feminists for Life.

Patricia: It sounded like a group I wanted to be in. Their focus is the most appropriate approach to a very difficult subject. I am currently working on putting a website together for me individually and for Fourboys Films and to promote Feminists for Life. It's a group of feminists that are pro-Life and as Hollywood is such a hotbed of pro-Life activity, I'm currently the only member here in LA. :)

So, I'm working on trying to put together a Hollywood chapter. But, it's difficult to find anyone in the Hollywood community who is either pro-Life or will admit to it. It's a group that's not only pro-Life, but it's against the death penalty and tries to rectify the root causes and reasons for why women have abortions. Such as, afraid to lose their jobs, afraid they'll have to drop out of school, non-support from the father or their families.

So we're trying to create an environment where women don't have to choose between their careers or education and their children.

There's an address if anyone is interested. It's... Feminists for Life; 733 15th Street NW, Suite 110; Washington DC 20005 and the phone number is (202) 737-3352.