In a new interview, Oprah Winfrey says she holds no regrets over her choice not to add ‘mother’ to her ever-expanding list of expertise.
“I didn’t want babies. I wouldn’t have been a good mom [sic] for babies,” Oprah told Good Housekeeping U.K. in the magazine’s April issue. “I don’t have the patience. I have the patience for puppies, but that’s a quick stage!”
But that doesn’t mean that Oprah, who at 14 gave birth to a son who died in the hospital just weeks after being born, hasn’t functioned as a mother figure for thousands.
Instead of bearing her own children, Oprah chose to channel her maternal instincts on a very global scale – through her iconic talk show, of course, and also by founding the South African-based Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in 2007.
The academy, which currently has 172 girls enrolled ― 20 of whom attend college in the United States and have come to think of her residence as a home away from home, strives to end poverty through education.
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“It is more rewarding than I would ever have imagined,” she said of her work with the academy. “I was doing this to help them, but it has brought a light to my life that I can’t explain.”
“When people were pressuring me to get married and have children, I knew I was not going to be a person that ever regretted not having them, because I feel like I am a mother to the world’s children. Love knows no boundaries. It doesn’t matter if a child came from your womb or if you found that person at age two, 10, or 20. If the love is real, the caring is pure and it comes from a good space, it works.”
Oprah celebrates the opening of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in 2007.
And here’s the graduating class of 2011!
In the interview, Oprah, who has been with her partner Stedman Graham for over thrity years, also touched on how she’s feeling since losing over 18kgs.
She said: “[My weight] has been the go-to comfort for me. You use it as your coat and your shield, and it keeps you from doing things.”
“You don’t have to go to that party because you don’t have a dress to wear and nothing is going to fit you.”
“But the wonderful thing for me is that I reached a point where I no longer wanted to hide.I know that sounds strange for somebody who is in the public eye, but it was my shield and my shame.”
Brava, Oprah!
