The way Melissa Joan Hart explains it, she's been on her own since she was 14, when she was setting the coolness standard for teens on Nickelodeon's Clarissa Explains It All.
"I mean, I had a guardian for a while, but I never had a curfew or anything like that," said Melissa.
Uh-oh, Mom.
"Not at all," said Melissa. "(My mother) did a really good job. She raised me to be very open with her and tell her what was going on. She would always tell me what she expected from me, and I pretty much fulfilled her expectations, I guess. We had an open relationship. We really trusted each other.
"We have a great relationship even now."
So great, in fact, that mom and daughter have formed a company called Hartbreak Films. Their first production, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, debuts at 7 p.m. Sunday on Showtime, and Melissa is the star.
Melissa and her mom also pitched the witch to ABC, which has agreed to make a primetime Sabrina series for airing this fall.
The movie is a strictly G-rated, by-the-comic-book portrayal of a girl who learns on her 16th birthday that she has an unusual birthright: She's a witch with magical powers -- and responsibilities that go with those powers.
The wholesomeness of the film "is something I wanted, definitely," said Melissa, who turns 20 this month. "The character is too precious, too innocent. We wanted to stay true to the Clarissa fans, also. We wanted Sabrina to be something they could watch and enjoy."
The story follows Sabrina as she lives with her two aunts and a mysterious black cat. (Sabrina's parents are traveling abroad.) When the timing is just right, the aunts reveal to Sabrina that they and she are witches.
This takes Sabrina a while to believe, but when it all sinks in, she starts to have fun with her powers. She casts spells on her sneakers to make them go fast, discovers something interesting about that black cat and even learns how to fly -- which reminded Melissa of a painful day on the movie set.
Determined to fly, Sabrina practices her takeoffs by jumping off a porch. "It was the only thing I had to do that was a little bit tough," Melissa said. On one particular jump, she landed so hard that the ball of her bellybutton ring came off -- nearly followed by the ring itself.
The movie is also about Sabrina learning when to use her powers and when not. There's this cool boy, a senior, you see.
Well, maybe you should watch for yourself.
The series will start taping this summer. In the meantime, Melissa is concentrating on her studies at New York University. Her busy work life has caused her to skip some semesters, so she's still a freshman at NYU and hasn't decided yet on a major.
Melissa's folks divorced during the making of Clarissa.
"That caused a little bit of heartache in my life, but basically it made me a better person," said Melissa, who is the oldest of five children. "I was always a little scared of leaving my little hometown and all that. But once my mom moved the kids to New York City, I got to grow up there. And I consider that one of the best experiences I ever had."
She's been acting since she started appearing in commercials at age 4.
"Starting that young became second nature for me," she said. "I wanted it, and my mom wanted it for me. Being that young and doing that, everyone wants to know if I missed out on a normal life. Well, that was my normal life.
"So I wouldn't take back anything today, because I like who I am and I like where I am."
Melissa is most famous for playing Clarissa in Nickelodeon's Clarissa Explains It All, but she's done a lot of other work, too.
She's been in plays with William Hurt (Beside Herself) and, on Broadway, with Martin Sheen (The Crucible). She has been in such TV movies as Family Reunion and Christmas Snow and has appeared on Saturday Night Live.
In May she'll star with Daniel Baldwin in the NBC movie Twisted Desire. She'll play a girl who, with her boyfriend's help, kills her parents.
"I'm very evil," she said. "It was very fun to play because it was so different for me."
So what advice does Melissa have for aspiring young actors?
"The first thing to do is get an agent or a manager to look out for you and get you on auditions. And never lose sight of who you are. You have to realize it's a tough business and you have to have patience, and you have to learn to take the failure.
"Not everyone's going to get a series. It took me 10 years (from her start at age 4) to book a series.
"And you've got to remember who you are in life, because your career could end the next day."
If Melissa were really Sabrina and had a witch's powers, she says her first trick would be "to get my boyfriend to move from Utah to New York."
She met James Fields, 22, while filming an episode last year of the CBS series Touched by an Angel. Fields was born in El Paso and raised in San Antonio.
They see each other at least every month, Melissa said. "We just went to Hawaii for our one-year anniversary and his birthday."