Maria Shriver: "Where's my job packet?"

My colleague Vanessa Kaneshiro just produced this terrific interview that our boss, Rick Stengel, conducted with Maria Shriver. It's part of our 10 Questions series; we compile questions for notable people on Time.com, conduct the interview before an audience and then print the answers in the magazine. Who told you TIME was old school? We're omnimedia, baby.

Anyway, check out the interview with Ms. Shriver. I love the part where she talks about what she tells her children: that she loves them for who they are right now—not who they'll become. "They don't need to achieve anything for me to love them," she says. "They don't need to go to a fancy college or become president of the United States." In most households, that last would just be a turn of phrase; in hers, achieving higher office must really feel like part of the game plan.

The funniest bit is when she talks about how she adjusted to her role as First Lady of California. Of course, there's no "job packet" for that position, no orientation, no HR pep talk. When she arrived, she was seated in an office called Special Project of the Governor, and told to evaluate Christmas decorations. Her response: "Are you kidding me?"