PHOTO: GETTY
Over the course of her storied career, Oprah Winfrey has acted as a mother figure to many of us, helping us to be better, more responsible and thoughtful human beings.
But in a new interview with Good Housekeeping U.K., Winfrey says having children of her own would not have been a good idea.
“I didn’t want babies. I wouldn’t have been a good mom for babies. I don’t have the patience. I have the patience for puppies, but that’s a quick stage!”
Winfrey, who at the age of 14 gave birth to a son who died a few weeks after he was born, also spoke about her decision not to have children in a 2013 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“If I had kids, my kids would hate me,” she said. “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.”
But that is not to say that Winfrey is not motherly.
In Good Housekeeping, Winfrey says she acts as a mother figure to the 172 girls currently attending the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Johannesburg, South Africa.
“It is more rewarding than I would ever have imagined,” she said of her work with the boarding school she founded in 2007. “I was doing this to help them, but it has brought a light to my life that I can’t explain."
Over the years, many have wondered aloud if the media mogul would ever marry her long time partner, Stedman Graham, and have babies. But Winfrey says she's never let such chatter bother her because she was sure in her path.
"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," she said.
"Love knows no boundaries," added Winfrey. "It doesn’t matter if a child came from your womb or if you found that person at age 2, 10 or 20. If the love is real, the caring is pure and it comes from a good space, it works.”
H/t: People
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