Last night I caught Barbara Walters interview with Oprah. Along with dispelling silly rumors that have been floating around that she is a lesbian, I was pleasantly surprised that she talked about why she never had kids.
In 2000 I came so close to being on Oprah…The reason she ultimately did not have me on her show when Families of Two came out? I was told that she decided she did not want to talk about why she had no kids. She has said that the girls at her African school are her kids, but has not said much personally about it over the years. But last night she did give a few details….
She basically says she did not have them because her professional life was so demanding it would not have been fair to her kid. Walters even opened up about how she had problems with her daughter, as Barbara was gone a lot when she was growing up.
Oprah’s message is that her professional life really has come first. She might have had a desire to have a child (she was less clear about this), but one thing she did know is that bringing a child into the kind of life it would mean for the child would not have been in the best interest of the child.
A nice example of making a responsible decision about having children!
The interview is worth the watch – She is quite a person!
I enjoyed the interview however I wish that they would have stayed on the subject a little longer. I think the last thing she said about having no regrets needed to be driven home a little more forcefully. I wonder just how much correspondence she’ll get from just that single statement?
She has been pretty tight lipped about it in the past so good she said anything at all really. Having said that, I agree with you that being even clearer about no regrets about no kids would have been great…Still, how she talked about it reflects responsible decision making about kids–thinking of the life of the kid first–need to hear more of that from influential people like her ~L
I believe that when Oprah was a teenager she became pregnant (through sexual abuse) but the baby was stillborn. I am not sure how much that (if it is really true) would have factored into her decision not to have children, but one could understand why she wouldn’t want to face the small but real risk of such trauma again.
I know she has spoken to being sexually abused but I did not know about a stillborn baby. I sure think that that would influence her decision not to have kids–even if she really wanted them, getting pregnant and the whole bit could bring up lots of pain…