Melissa Joan Hart Talks Poop and Paparazzi

June 6, 2008— -- These days, you are more likely to find actress Melissa Joan Hart at home, in the bathroom, potty training her two-and-a-half-year old son Mason, than hanging out at the glamorous Ivy, the Los Angeles restaurant and celebrity hot spot.

"Children really like their poop," the former "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" star said, while discussing with ABC News Radio the challenges of teaching Mason the virtues of "going potty."

It's a far cry from her days of club-hopping and partying — club-hopping and partying that went barely noticed.

"I went through a phase where I went out every night, even when I was working on "Sabrina,'" she said.

Hart credits a "steady family structure" for keeping her in check and teaching her right from wrong. "I was always home at a certain time," she said. "I gave myself a bedtime and that sort of thing."

While a strong moral center was helpful, the 32-year-old mother of two acknowledges that had she been going out now, she might have been the star of a viral video or two.

"I went out a lot and if TMZ or all these paparazzi were following me back then, it might have looked like I was a Lindsay Lohan, you know?" she said.

Hart is in no way disparaging Lohan. In fact, she thinks Lohan is talented, calling her a true "star." But the diminutive potty trainer is amazed at just how much the competition among the Internet tabloid press has changed in just a few short years.

"Just since Mason was born two years ago I didn't have any paparazzi following me trying to snap pictures of my son," Hart said. "Ever since I had Brady [in March], I had one paparazzi shove a camera through me and my friend into his stroller so she could snap a picture of him."

As if that wasn't bad enough, photographers followed her family to the local Starbucks.

"Sixteen of them followed me five blocks taking the same picture of my husband, me, and my two boys walking the stroller down the street," Hart said. "I don't know what they're trying to catch or why they had to follow us all these blocks but they probably could have gotten the shot in 10 seconds and gone and sold it.

"Never did I have them follow me before," she added. "Even, like, in the height of my career."

But Hart has found room in her heart for the guerrilla celebrity snappers.

"When you're out there sometimes they are your friends," she said. "Sometimes you have to rely on them when you're all by yourself and you're in a situation. They're like, 'Hey, watch out for that step.'" Or 'Here, let me help you get that bag you dropped.' They can be kind of helpful."

For that reason alone, Hart believes "every celebrity girl" should have her own "guardian paparazzi."