Rose Rock

Rose Rock, mother to 10 children, including comedian Chris Rock, and 17 foster children, is a real-life supermom. She is an educator specializing in pre-school and special education. For 17 years, she taught and operated a pre-school and day care center in New York and South Carolina. Rock is also the founder Rock This 619, a nonprofit youth empowerment organization.

Rock is the host of the weekly Myrtle Beach, SC radio program, The Mom Show. She has appeared on a number of television shows as a guest and “celeb” mother including Saturday Night Live, 60 Minutes, The Early Show, Fox After Breakfast, and Oprah. A highly sought after speaker, she shares her enthusiastic parenting philosophy at schools and with parenting groups across the country.

In her book, Mama Rock’s Rules: Ten Lessons for Raising a Houseful of Successful Children (Collins/ foreword by Chris Rock), Rock shares the funny and highly practical lessons she’s learned as both a parent and school teacher. Mama Rock’s Rules speaks to parents in a unique voice and offers strategies for teaching a child to be self-reliant in this world. Her experience as a former teacher, day care administrator, and informed advocate for youth and families, gives her advice a sassy blend of maternal spirituality and a “don’t mess with me or you won’t get old” sense of authority. She explains why parenting and friendship are different as well as discussing the importance of boundaries, discipline, choices, and consequences. Rock does not shy away from the hard questions and isn’t afraid to discuss strong ideas about sex, love, and responsibility. As her daughter, Andi Rock says, “She keeps it real, she keeps it too real.” Rock’s breadth of experience and no-nonsense, life-affirming voice, make her a mama to be reckoned with!

In her talks, Rock shares her philosophy of responsible parenting. Drawing on her wealth of child rearing experiences, she demonstrates why parents need to be consistent, even when it means being unpopular, for their children’s own good. She also urges moms, dads, and other caretakers to talk and listen to their little (and not-so-little) ones, to pick their battles, to give themselves time-outs, and, sometimes, to just let kids be kids.

“Being a parent is not about being right, it’s about doing right,” Rock stresses. “It’s about serving as a steadfast role model for your children, no matter, what. Children really do look to adults as examples and guidance (you just never meet a teenager who would admit it).”

With humor and authority, Mama Rock’s Rules tackles the everyday challenges of parenting while reinforcing the goal of nurturing tomorrow’s upstanding, outstanding adults.

Ten Lessons for Raising a Houseful of Successful Children

Push Unable Off the Table

I Am Your Mama Not Your Friend

Reading is Righteous

Don’t Lie Down With Anything You Don’t Want to Live With Forever