A baby! I hated babies. I, who for two and a half years had been the center of a tender universe, felt the axis wrench and a polar chill immobilize my bones. I would be a bystander, a museum mammoth.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'd go to the library so I could sit in a big, quiet room and listen to pages being turned. There was a boring librarian who everyone in fifth grade hated. But I loved her because when she would read us stories in her soft voice, she'd turn my head into a snow globe.
Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.
I'd gotten myself into a kind of journalism that wasn't really compatible with rearing an infant. I'd been a foreign correspondent for a long time and had this subspecialty in covering catastrophes. It had spoiled me a little because you have a tremendous amount of autonomy, and I couldn't really see being an editor in an office.
What if you could be anything, or anybody, you chose to be? Think about it. What would you choose to be?
I love being a mother; I hate being a housewife - the cooking, the laundry - because it takes away time I could be with my kids.
I had the best of both worlds when I was a kid. I'd spend a quiet week with my mum, then I'd go to my dad's property in the Adelaide Hills, where there were all these kids and animals running around.
I always hated being a child. I always felt like an adult trapped in a child's body.
My mother, she made sure all of us were treated the same and had the same opportunity to grow and develop, so that when we left the house, we could fly on our own. And she also knew when we got out into the world, we'd treat others that we came across with that same treatment and respect.
My mother loved children - she would have given anything if I had been one.
Someone who was a part of my life. Probably the only one that really mattered.