Shirlee Smith is a children's

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. List of country legal systems, Different countries and legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a ba ...

, an opinion

columnist A columnist is a person who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Column (periodical), Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs. They take the ...

and

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

, 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 A social issue is a problem that affects many people within a society. It is a group of common problems in present-day society that many people strive to solve. It is often the consequence of factors extending beyond an individual's control. Soc ...

column debuted in the

Pasadena Star News The ''Pasadena Star-News'' is a paid local daily newspaper for the greater Pasadena, California area. The Pasadena ''Star-News'' is a member of Southern California News Group (formerly the Los Angeles Newspaper Group), since 1996. It is also part ...

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 The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

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. The family then moved to

Boyle Heights Boyle may refer to: Places United States * Boyle, Kansas, an unincorporated community * Boyle, Mississippi, a town *Boyle County, Kentucky *Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, a neighborhood Elsewhere * Boyle (crater), a lunar crater * 11967 Boyle, ...

, to the home of Lily Pickett, the fraternal grandmother. Here, Shirlee attended sixth grade a
First Street School
Next wa
Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School
where Shirlee and sister Beverlee were two of only four

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

students at the school. Shirlee graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1954. She attended

Los Angeles City College Los Angeles City College (LACC) is a public community college in East Hollywood, California. A part of the Los Angeles Community College District, it is located on Vermont Avenue south of Santa Monica Boulevard on the former campus of the U ...

where she majored in

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

and met her first husband. The marriage fell apart after the birth of their second daughter, she moved back home with her mom, who quickly found Shirlee a small house of her own to rent. Shirlee applied for

welfare Welfare may refer to: Philosophy *Well-being (happiness, prosperity, or flourishing) of a person or group * Utility in utilitarianism * Value in value theory Economics * Utility, a general term for individual well-being in economics and decision ...

, then married her second husband and had four more children. Her second child died in 1959, at the age of two, due to

sickle cell disease Sickle cell disease (SCD), also simply called sickle cell, is a group of inherited Hemoglobinopathy, haemoglobin-related blood disorders. The most common type is known as sickle cell anemia. Sickle cell anemia results in an abnormality in the ...

. Her fourth child, her only son, died in 1983 as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident. The couple separated when Smith was 30. Smith has fostered "a dozen" infants. She enrolled at

Pasadena City College Pasadena City College (PCC) is a Public college, public community college in Pasadena, California. It was founded in 1924 as Pasadena Junior College. History Pasadena City College was founded in 1924 as Pasadena Junior College. It originally o ...

, then graduated from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

Career path

Newspaper columns

Since 1980, Smith has written opinion columns in the

andSan Gabriel Valley
newspapers. Her columns have also appeared in

the Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper in the U.S. and the larges ...

the Oakland Tribune The ''Oakland Tribune'' was a daily newspaper published in Oakland, California, and a predecessor of the ''East Bay Times''. It was published by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group. Founded in 1874, the ''Tribune'' ro ...

, the

Los Angeles Sentinel The ''Los Angeles Sentinel'' is a weekly African-American owned newspaper published in Los Angeles, California. The paper boasted of reaching 125,000 readers , making it one of the oldest, largest and most influential African-American newspaper ...

, and th
Pasadena Weekly

Cable TV show host and producer

In 1994, with a small grant from the "City of Pasadena

she launched the cable television program "Talk About Parenting

which became a non-profit organization in 1997. According to

The Root (magazine) ''The Root'' is an African American–oriented online magazine. It was launched on January 28, 2008, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Donald E. Graham. History ''The Root'' was owned by Graham Holdings Company through its online subsidiary, T ...

, Smith "takes a no-nonsense approach to raising happy, balanced children." 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.

References

External links

*
2010 appearance
on

Dr. Phil Phillip Calvin McGraw (born September 1, 1950), also known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality and author who is best known for hosting the talk show '' Dr. Phil''. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased ...

KCET Local Hero
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Shirlee Living people American columnists Writers from Los Angeles University of California, Los Angeles alumni Year of birth missing (living people)