Oprah Winfrey is this year’s recipient of The Hollywood Reporter’s Sherry Lansing Leadership Award. In her cover story for the magazine’s “Women in Entertainment Power 100” issue, she opened up about her decision to forego having children and why she doesn’t regret her choice.
“If I had kids, my kids would hate me,” said the 59-year-old media mogul, actress, and former talk show host. “They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them.”
Winfrey also revealed that she’s never found the idea of parenthood particularly appealing, even when she was a little girl. She went on to admit that she’s always had different dreams than her peers.
“Gayle [King, Winfrey’s best friend and mother of two] was the kind of kid who, in seventh grade Home Ec class, was writing down her name and the names of her children,” she recalled. “While she was having those kind of daydreams, I was having daydreams about how I could be Martin Luther King.”
There’s no doubt that Oprah has had a stellar career and tons on her plate. Despite that she has always been questioned about not getting married or having kids.
Oprah is not alone in her decsion. Many women admit to choosing their careers over motherhood. What is your stance on this? Do you judge women who choose not have children?
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