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But I still always felt the absence of a mother.

We didn't know that Mother had gone through a passionate love affair or that Father suffered from severe depression. Mother was preparing to break out of her marriage, Father threatening to take his own life.

I think we've moved to thinking of parenting and pregnancy as something in which you should lose yourself.

Think about one of the most powerful influences on a young child's life - the absence of a father figure. Look back on recent presidents, and you'll find an absent, or weak, or failed father in the lives of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

I often find that the best parents are the ones without children.

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.

My mother left behind three daughters when she went to America and started a new life. I certainly felt abandoned when my father died of a brain tumour; I felt he had abandoned me to this terrible, volatile mother and I had no protection.

Being a parent is about your survival. Surviving the terrible two's is the most important thing.

To lose your last remaining parent is the toughest thing. It is a very lonely thing.