“I have a perfectly happy life without children”, the outburst of Ana Paula Padrão about the decision not to be a mother

Motherhood is still a subject that plagues many of us women. After all, the more the years go by, the more we are asked about future children. Each one leads life in their own way: while some dream of this moment, for others the idea never even crossed their minds. Journalist Ana Paula Padrão owns many accomplishments within the profession and speaks openly about the subject, including on her social networks. The presenter chose not to be a mother, and continues with the decision in a very calm and serene way.

We, from awesome.club, we understand that the decision to become a mother is something personal. With that, we brought the point of view of Ana Paula Padrão, who chose a life without children and without giving in to the pressures of society.

Ana Paula Padrão may be known by many as the host of MasterChef Brasil. However, her career encompasses many other things. The journalist has worked for several Brazilian broadcasters, winning awards for her work. She graduated from the University of Brasília and started her career on TV Brasília, at the time affiliated with Rede Manchete, in 1986. However, she did not stay there for long, gaining space on Rede Globo the following year.

At Globo, she achieved something that many in her field aspire to: becoming an international correspondent, in New York and London. It was also there that Ana Paula achieved feats that few people achieved, going against the thinking of those who doubted her competence. With so many positive experiences, she was soon invited to take over as executive editor and presenter of Jornal da Globo. Still at the station, she even shared the Jornal Nacional bench with William Bonner, Chico Pinheiro and other professional colleagues.

But Ana Paula did not take root on the channel and, some time later, she went to a new home, SBT, where she remains for four years. She made her debut on the newspaper SBT Brasil and then hosted SBT Realidade, a documentary program with special reports. However, it was not there that the journalist decided to remain, migrating then to Record, where she ran Jornal da Record alongside Celso Freitas for a few more years. The journalist’s stay at the station was also not very long. “I couldn’t stay four more years at Record. I chose to dedicate myself to my companies, after all, if I give birth to babies I have to take care of them”, she said.

With such a well-established career and an enormous certainty about life, it is not surprising that Ana Paula Padrão never stops taking new flights. One of them was migrating from telejournalism to entertainment, facing the challenge of presenting a gastronomic reality show, MasterChef Brasil. The program, which mainly launches amateur cooks, has versions in several countries and has already reached the first place in the index of most watched attractions on Brazilian television. “I gained a children’s audience and they stopped asking me to go back to wearing the bobbed hair from the days of Jornal da Globo”, she said.

Contrary to what we can imagine, Ana decided to go beyond the small screen, conquering other territories. The journalist has a portal for tips, Tempo de Mulher, which addresses topics aimed at the female audience. And she doesn’t stop there. In partnership with the reporter Natália Leite, from Record TV, she started Escola de Você, a project that brings a series of online courses on self-knowledge. “We based ourselves on philosophy and sociology concepts and translated them into an accessible language”, explains the presenter.

Career has never been an impediment to motherhood, after all, we just have to look around us to realize how many mothers there are who work outside the home, doing a double shift, working inside and outside the home. For some, this is a dream come true, but for others, the feeling is different.

Even with a career as consolidated and unique as Ana Paula’s, the subject of motherhood is still on the agenda and she speaks sincerely about the subject. “I have had a perfectly happy life without children. The things I’ve seen in the world, the places I’ve visited, the career I’ve built, maybe it wouldn’t have been possible if I’d had kids,” she revealed.

In a sincere post during Children’s Day, the journalist was even more incisive about life without children, stating that a trajectory without children is not empty. But those who believe that she did not consider getting pregnant during her lifetime are wrong: “I even thought about getting pregnant some time ago, when age sounded the alert ‘now or never’! Some failed attempts, however, made me understand that I was inventing a frustration that did not exist before”.

She says that she was never a teenager who dreamed of a house full of children, and even when adulthood arrived, the thought did not run through her mind. Still, many around her claimed that, at some point, desire would come. For Ana Paula, however, this never happened. She even underwent treatments to get pregnant, but at the same time, she questioned herself: “Do I really want to be a mother or am I being forced to fulfill the social role expected of a woman?”

For the journalist, being a mother is not a problem, but she believes it is important to point out that not being a mother is not a failure nor does it make her incomplete or sad. “Having had the possibility to live my choices fulfills me because they match who I always wanted to be,” she wrote. Although she did not have children, Ana Paula Padrão generated other fruits. She “mothered” many projects, helped inspire many people, and most of all, she never looked back with regret.

With so much assertiveness when it comes to motherhood, it would be strange if she spoke about age differently. For Ana Paula Padrão, being over 55 is no reason to feel depressed and discouraged. On the contrary, she feels better than she did at 30, but she admits that the choices she made in the past helped her to be who she is now, both emotionally and physically. “I know that I belong to a privileged generation of women who reached 50 actively contributing to social processes and starting to live according to their own choices for the first time in history”, she pointed out.

The journalist also claims that getting older is more than getting old, it is also an accumulation of wisdom. “Millennial societies value the elderly for what they have instead of despising them for what they no longer have. We have a long road ahead of us, but while we don’t change collectively, I decide here, individually. I will not be judged by my body, by my looks, by my marks. I will remain visible for what I produce,” she completed.

Is motherhood a necessity for you? What is your opinion, in general, on the subject? Do you know someone who chose not to be a mother and that was never a problem? Share with us in the comments!