Chelsea Handler is reflecting on what it means to choose not to become a mother.
The talk show host, 47, was joined by Becca Tobin, Jac Vanek and Keltie Knight of LadyGang on her podcast Dear Chelsea, through which she and her rotating guests provide advice to callers. This week, a nutritionist called in to share that she is struggling with infertility and the knowledge that she will likely not become a mother.
Handler, who is childfree by choice, said that just because one isn’t a parent doesn’t mean that they won’t have children in their lives.
“I have so much availability for not only my nieces and nephews … but for other children in the world, because I don’t have my own. If I had my own I would be all about them,” she explained. “I look at it like this — because I don’t have my own children, I’m able to send strangers to college. I’m able to support kids that I’ll never meet, in countries that I’ll never even visit. But I’m able to give so much because I don’t have my own family and to me, that is my purpose. I would be a s***y mother. I would be selfish. I would want everything to be great for my kid and forget about all the other kids in the world.”
Handler acknowledged her decision not to have kids earlier this year, when she responded to Pope Francis calling life without children “a form of selfishness.” The Chelsea, Lately alum wrote in an Instagram post at the time, “Me: I choose a life that is child-free and I feel fulfilled.”
Handler also spoke out about not wanting kids in a 2013 episode of The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet.
“I definitely don’t want to have kids,” she said at the time. “I don’t think I’d be a great mother. I don’t want to have a kid and have it raised by a nanny. I don’t have the time to raise a child. Childhood was heartbreaking enough for anybody. I don’t know that I could handle my own child, especially if I had a girl, going through what I went through growing up. Not that it was so traumatic, but in many ways, it was, in your own way.”
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