Oprah Winfrey Reveals Why She Doesn't Have Kids

'I wouldn't have been a good mom for babies'
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 24, 2017 10:33 AM CST
Oprah: 'I Wouldn't Have Been a Good Mom'
Oprah Winfrey says she has no regrets about not having kids.   (Photo by John Salangsang/Invision/AP, File)

If you've ever wondered why Oprah Winfrey doesn't have children, wonder no more: "I didn’t want babies. I wouldn’t have been a good mom for babies," the 63-year-old tells Good Housekeeping UK. "I don’t have the patience. I have the patience for puppies, but that’s a quick stage!" She says that's why it's "perfect" that she can be a mother to the girls attending her Leadership Academy. "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 2, 10 or 20. If the love is real, the caring is pure and it comes from a good space, it works."

As People notes, Winfrey did have a son, when she was just 14, who died in the hospital a few weeks after his birth. In 2015, according to news.com.au, she revealed that she had given the boy, who was the result of a rape and was born premature, a name: "I had a little boy named Canaan. ... And I named him Canaan because Canaan means new land, new life." Winfrey has also previously said that if she had kids, they "would hate me" and would have ended up on the equivalent of her TV show talking about her, "because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them." (Oprah recently signed on to 60 Minutes.)

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