Harriet Walter is just one of those magnificent British character actors who ends up popping up everywhere. You’ve seen her in Succession (she plays Logan’s ex-wife), Ted Lasso (Rebecca’s mother), Downton Abbey, Star Wars, The Crown, Call the Midwife, Sense & Sensibility and a million other film and television shows. She’s enjoying a late-career revival because of her recurring roles in Lasso and Succession, but she’s been around for decades and she’s amazing. Well, Walter participated in one of those “day in the life” interviews with the Times of London, and she’s funny and eccentric, and she also talks breezily about why she’s happily childfree. Some highlights:
She sleeps in: “When I read A Life in the Day and someone says they’re up at 6am and in the gym by 6.15, I feel like a failure. I don’t go to the gym and I’m rarely up before 8.30. Having said that, I go for a brisk walk every morning to kick myself into the day.
On ageism: “I don’t think it should matter what anyone looks like. I get tired of talking about ageism in this industry, but I still come across things that make me angry. The judgmental straitjacket that is applied to older roles for women: the wicked mother or aunt.
Why would an aristocratic woman fall for Logan Roy? “Which I suppose brings us on to Lady Caroline [Kendall, Roman and Shiv’s mother in Succession]. Would I call her wicked? She was brought up in that loveless, English upper-class milieu and escaped to London in the 1960s, looking for some druggy adventures and a bit of rough. I imagine her meeting Logan at a party and being fascinated by how rude he is.
Why she isn’t a mother: “I never had children — does that mean I can’t play Lady Caroline? I sometimes wonder if I could bring something else to the part if I had. The fact is I never felt cut out for it. In my mid-forties I embarked on a relationship with a man 16 years older than me [the actor Peter Blythe]. He died at 69 and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to let anyone else into my life. Five years on my own changed that. I met Guy [Paul, an actor], we got married and we’re happy. I have friends with children who have been in long marriages and they’re unhappy. I have friends with no children, no partner and they’re blissfully happy. There are no rules.
On Star Wars: “When I saw the original Star Wars in 1977, I was fascinated by scenes where humans, aliens and androids were sharing the same world. That leapt out at me as a metaphor for a multicultural world. Maybe in the future we wouldn’t argue about who we are or where we’re from. I suppose we can still hope.
I’ve wondered how Logan Roy would have ended up married to an English aristocrat and my guess is that the backstory on it was that he was actively seeking legitimacy within British society for a time. Caroline probably liked that he had money and that he was “a bit of rough,” as she says, that he was crude and he wasn’t part of her stuffy world. Who knows though – they were terrible parents and their kids are idiots. As for Walter’s talk of not feeling cut out to be a mother… I love that, and I love that she didn’t feel societal pressure to get married and have a kid just because every woman of her generation was doing the same. Some women aren’t cut out to be mothers! And some women who are mothers aren’t cut out for it.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Dame Harriet Walter arrivals for National Theatre Up Next Gala in London, United Kingdom.,Image: 672446421, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- Dame Harriet Walter arrivals for National Theatre Up Next Gala in London, United Kingdom.,Image: 672446475, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- Dame Harriet Walter arrivals for National Theatre Up Next Gala in London, United Kingdom.,Image: 672446502, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: – / Avalon
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- Harriet Walter attending the opening night of Orlando at the Garrick Theatre, London. 05.12.2022,Image: 742565463, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Roy J Baron / Avalon
I’m glad this is changing, although it probably feels a lot different depending on where you live. So far very few of my friends have kids or are interested in having kids. I think it will end up being less than half when all is said and done. I also live in a city and most of us are queer, but I think the sacrifices outweigh the rewards more and more every year (I am one of the ones with kids, mine are 4 and 6).
wow. that’s interesting. idk if you mind speaking to how your views of motherhood has changed through the years. as someone that wants kids but not sure if that’s more societal pressure and having friends who all have children or mostly me wanting children bc of a skewed/rosy view of parenthood, i struggle to figure out what are the realities of it. i know it is hard but everyone i know seems to shrug it off and say the rewards are worth it and it gets better.
I’m a parent who struggled for a long time with whether to have a kid. It’s incredibly difficult and expensive in the US because all the systems are broken, but also there’s incredible joy in it and a completely different kind of love, and I’ve never regretted it.
+1 to Lucy. My children’s mere existence brings a light to my life. My life was bright enough before, but they added a shine. It has not been all sunshine and roses but I love watching small people grow into bigger people and I felt the pull of eternity in some ways.
But I definitely support people’s decisions. I think more people should sit with whether or not they actually want children, at all points on the socio-economic spectrum. Children are not a box to be ticked or an ego boost.
I am happily childfree. I get asked about it frequently by young people and they usually ask “why?” (out of genuine curiosity, not being rude). I tell them I’ve spent my life taking care of other people and don’t want to take care of children, I want to spend my money on my life not on someone else’s, I want the freedom to make life changing decisions without having to factor in someone else’s wants/needs, and I want to know where my damn tv remotes are whenever I want to watch tv/dvds.
That last one usually gets a laugh. 😁
Interestingly, every time I explain this to a young person they are surprised and immediately see having children a little differently. Most of them have heard the usual, pressurey stuff and have never really thought about whether or not they *want* children. Hopefully, our conversations will help them look at the topic more carefully so they can craft *their* life and not one that others think they should have.
Same here. I’m in my early 50s and never wanted children. I was fortunate in that two of my aunts already were childfree, so there was precedence in my family and never got pressure from my parents. I had a few acquaintances here and there question my choices but for the most part I’ve been left alone. I met and married a man who shared my position.
Like you BlueNailsBetty, I’ve been getting questions from younger people about my last name (I never changed it when I got married) and being childfree. The questions are simple curiosity and one admitted to me it was because I was the first person they met that didn’t conform to what they were taught and they didn’t even know it was an option. I also went back and got my masters degree in my 50s. It’s a nice feeling to show that your life isn’t decided at 30 and you can do whatever you want.
I really love that women are speaking out on the choice of children or no?
For all the changes needed in society, Choice is at the top of the list for women.
So many people who have children, in past decades, did so bc it was expected or unreliable birth control. Also married bc it was expected. If you became pregnant, you got married. If you wanted to or not.
I could go on and on about this.
Move forward in acceptance for everyone, live and let live, show understanding and kindness. And if you can’t do that, Mind Your Own Business.
A great point. Reminds me of the time I told some other moms that after our second I had had a tubal ligation and one was especially appalled. “Why?”
Because two is all I can afford financially and mentally at the age of 26, Wendy. Are you gonna pay to reverse my surgery and feed my kid and pay my therapy and childcare bills, no? Then STFU.
I’m 39 now. There are times I am sad we didn’t have two more. I do love kids. But in the end this was the best choice for our family. I would not have been able to give the two kids we do have the life I wanted to give them if we had had more. But hey, you know, we aren’t supposed to talk about that stuff.
Yes, we “only” had three and I’m sad about that sometimes, too, but I knew I could not grow another human or give the emotional attention another child needed. I keep saying if someone leaves a baby on our doorstep we will keep him or her, but that’s about as far as I go.
I am a mom of two and I am more often than not drawn to friendships with child free people. I have found that many parents tend to lose themselves and as a result become hypercompetitive and exclusionary. Not my thing. I am usually on the outside/periphery of parent groups. The friendships I have are either with one or two people I knew from childhood, one or two from college, and more recently as an adult, people who are older and have grown children or people near my age with no children and no desire to have children.
This week I have been struggling with the fact that for most of my life I’ve felt unwanted by my peers. Like there is something wrong with me. Why don’t other moms like me? I shouldn’t be bothered by it, but it makes it difficult to help my kids maintain friendships when their friends’ parents close you out.
But I am grateful for the people who are my friends. Who like me, like my kids and husband. That’s what matters.
Sorry just wanted to add another perspective of why being a parent complicates things. It really feels like in order to fit in as a mom you have to erase yourself and I will never be willing to do that.
I think it’s so important to have honest conversations about parenting and all that surrounds it whether child free or otherwise. But that makes people uncomfortable. Being able to say “I don’t think I can hack it” takes guts bc we still live in a very misogynistic society. Not every woman wants to be a caregiver. Why can’t we accept that?
“I think it’s so important to have honest conversations about parenting and all that surrounds it whether child free or otherwise.” Thank you. It’s not something one thinks about, but having children entails the possibility of spending one’s middle and elder years listening to your middle-aged children complain that you uniquely chose to have children to torment and to make miserable.
I had the good fortune to interview Harriet Walter and she is so—everything. Erudite. Insightful. Witty. Intelligent. Natural. She blew me away and not for one moment did I think she had any particular designs to shape the interview in any way.
@Sass Your comment really affected me. That all sounds very confusing, frustrating, and difficult. I’m not a parent so I can’t directly relate to your experience, but FWIW you sound like someone I’d be thrilled to be friends with!
@Deesea thank you, that’s very kind. What you said made me cry a bit. I’m just having a hard week, so this article and the comments are really hitting me.
There is a lot of toxic positivity culture entrenched in motherhood. If you don’t pretend it’s what you live for every day and it’s the greatest thing about your life all the time, people call you “negative”. I do think some of that is they’re afraid to express it because they are worried it makes them a bad mom for saying “sometimes being a mom sucks.” Guess what? Sometimes it sucks! It changes your body, your brain, your income, how people view you, and you never stop worrying about them no matter how old they are especially in a country where people can’t even go to the wrong driveway without getting shot and killed.
@Zazzoo I’m sorry little you had to experience that. No child should ever feel unwanted. No matter how stressed I get I could never let my kids think I didn’t want them. I definitely did and do. But even if I didn’t, I’m not sure I could tell them that bc hurting kids is just wrong. I agree with your comment about how choosing to be child free demonstrates respect for parenthood. It is a big responsibility but many people don’t see it like that. Furthermore I am pro choice and I think the child free community also has core values of respect for life/quality of life and the environment. People don’t see it that way. They see it as selfish which is ridiculous. That’s more of a religious right thing we have been taught to buy into.
@Sass – Thank you. I’m not saying it doesn’t still impact me to have not known a loving, supportive home environment as a child, but I’m now ten years older than my mom was when I left for college, we have a good relationship (as friends. There’s no mythology around us being close when I was growing up), and for that I can forgive her. Her choices weren’t great and she was quite young, emotionally and chronologically. What’s worse I think is parents who who had faults (as most do) but can’t ever acknowledge it and demand their adult children live that fiction. Not to pat myself on the back, but I do try to be understanding of coworkers with school aged children. Some days I’m so tired I just need to be on my own (but I am an introvert) while they go home to cook dinner and help with homework. Honestly, that’s an amazing thing. Parents are human and flawed and make mistakes, but I can see how much they want to be the parents their children deserve and I admire it.
@Sass – I’m an introvert (who spends too much time online). My boomer mom hated being a mom and let it be known. I’ve never wanted children, I’ve always been very secure in that fact, but I still feel weird saying it for two reasons: 1. I genuinely worry people will take it as a criticism of their choices and 2. I also worry people will think that makes me somehow less of a woman (I really hate myself for the this second one. Who cares what people think?)
But here’s the thing. To my thinking, the choice to not have children demonstrates respect and admiration for those who do. I can’t be an engineer or a doctor or a parent. Those are unbelievably challenging roles and I admire those of you who have the ability. But I have a friend from childhood who has expressed similar sentiments to yours. She feels like other moms have judged her when she has interests besides her children. Which is not only crap but why is that still a thing? My own mother reacted in the opposite extreme to an era that thought motherhood should be all encompassing fulfillment. Only when she finally had a career and pursued her own interests did we develop a good relationship (I was 30 by then).
@Sass, I didn’t grow up in the US and wasn’t around US parenting dynamics at all. Made it to 39 without any friends who had kids. Moved to a new city with my infant at 40.
Anyway, your comment made me flashback to a classroom parent potluck when my son was 2. It was at another parents home and the chatter was about finding time to be alone when you have toddlers or something. I decided to volunteer my great hack: cram in as much child-unfriendly stuff as possible in the few minutes you have alone. My big mouth went on on about how I listen to the raunchiest hip hop in my car when alone or play murdery shows on my cell with headphones… The dads looked amused but the moms looked frozen. 😂
I totally get the weird competitive edge. I now just don’t talk about kids. I don’t ask for advice, I don’t share, I don’t do any “mom” talk. I realized I know how I want to raise my kids and solve various issues. I don’t need anyone else’s advice. And getting drawn into those conversations is a trap – you’re now “mom” not a woman with her own identity. I’m probably seen as cold or weird or a bad mom or whatever by those who want to engage in that mutual shame/guilt/competition cycle. I don’t care. And I’m feeling pretty solid about myself.
@Lurker – If you’d grown up in the U.S., I’d wonder if you were the childhood friend I described above. That was exactly her experience with young children. They both had family nearby, so they had tons of babysitters at their disposal and occasionally went to concerts. My friend said other moms were so judgey of that *even though* they were leaving the kids with grandparents or aunts & uncles. That’s so crazy to me. Like, letting the kids have a sleep over with grandparents would be fine (as I’m sure any parent would if they had the option), but it’s not okay for a couple of 30 year olds to go to a rock concert while the kids were having a blast (or at least being safely cared for) with grandparents?
@zazoo, yikes! Your friend needs different friends! Leaving kids with *grandparents* is now bad?? Wtf!
My mom used to laugh about the time she showed up for some parent-teacher group thing, realized she *didn’t know my teachers name* and was wandering around until she ran into a friend who said “isn’t it great that our girls are in the same class?!” To which my mom nodded “yes, yes indeed!” And followed her to the correct teacher. She was/is a GREAT mom who trusted her kids to get their shit done and navigate their lives, and I’m pretty much following that same model of benign neglect.
I think it’s that American parents have been so confused by “experts” and whatever childrearing method is in vogue, that they’ve lost instincts, that sense of when to intervene/when to leave it alone. Yes kids are fine getting muddy and getting scraped knees. But also yes they need vaccinations to prevent potentially dangerous infections from those scraped knees!
Mine was allowed to wear pajamas to school every day for YEARS bc that was his favorite thing to wear. But he had to eat whatever I put on the dinner table, no options and no “kid-friendly” packaged anything. He didn’t know he was supposed to hate brussel sprouts until a classmate told him. He thought that was weird bc they are delicious.
Anyway, this good mom/bad mom thing is a trap. Everything to do with motherhood in the US is a trap, frankly. It pits women against each other, gets women to contribute billions (if not trillions) in unpaid labor, sets goals posts that keep moving… It’s all bullshit.
I’m a mother. I like how I mother. My kid seems to like me, but even if he doesn’t it won’t matter as long as HE grows up into a fully rounded, healthy man with a solid sense of himself. He’ll eventually like me in that case and I don’t care if he spends 12-22 thinking I’m the lamest thing alive.
No one else’s opinion matters, really. And if some mom clique excluding me means fewer friends for my son… That’s fine too. Those kids can either like my son and insist on playdates or they will judge bc their mothers do, and my kid doesn’t need that energy.
When my son was 3 he was in tears bc a kid said he didn’t want to be friends. Ofc I wanted to hug and kiss him and say that little dbag was trash… What I DID do, however, was hug and kiss him and say “that kid is allowed to choose his friends. And I’m sorry he didn’t choose you my love, but this means you can choose a child who wants to be your friend back. You can’t force people to be your friend, and everyone gets to choose who and what they want.”
I was a big lesson to drop (gently) on a three year old, but it’s been one that we strengthened over time. Almost 5 years later, my son’s the cool kid who everyone wants to be friends with bc nothing fazes him – not the latest schoolyard insult, not being threatened with exclusion from a party or whatever else. So paradoxically, he’s invited to everything.
This is really long and rambling, sorry! My philosophy is kids are karma. They show you where you need to work on yourself. If you do that, everything will work out well. The end.
@Lurker – *hugs* It sounds like your kids are having an amazing childhood. Things are different in Europe. There are kids in the U.S. without health insurance. And most kids face an adulthood of economic uncertainty with no guarantees of housing or protections in their elderly years. That’s even without getting into vast racial and socioeconomic disparities, but we live with a myth that anyone can pull themselves out of poverty with grit and hard work, a narrative that suggests being poor is a character flaw. Nevermind the fact that one can work upwards of 40 hours per week in the U.S. and still lack health care and experience food/housing insecurity.
I’m ranting too. But this all adds to the point that being a parent is hard work, especially so in a culture that doesn’t value children or parenthood. I suspect if someone did a study, they’d find out that the judgmental attitudes are derived from the same mentality of sacrifice and hardwork that treats human needs as character flaws.
What I’ve never understood is why people say not having children is selfish. Why is it any less selfish to have children? Why are you having them? Because you want them? Why is that any less selfish than not wanting them?
I can see (somewhat) that raising children will make you less selfish, because your focus changes. But you are raising your own progeny, so it’s doesn’t change the selfishness of the reason why you had children.
“There are no rules”. Precisely. No decision is better than the other. They are both perfectly valid and great ways to live.
Oh but just wait! My great aunt told me after I had my first to have at least one more bc it was SELFISH to only have one child, not fair to leave them lonely.
This was a pointed dig at my grandmother, my mom is an only child but that was a hard choice she and my grandpa made because my mother was a very sick child not expected to live past age 12 and they didn’t know if it was hereditary and didn’t want to bring another child into the world with the possibility that they too might be born sick and suffering.
(My great aunt is a d bag)
But of course this woman doesn’t see that her having three children with an abusive alcoholic and letting my grandmother raise them off/on when she would run off for months at a time is also selfish? Just ridiculous. How is having one kid more selfish than having three you don’t even care about enough to be around them? The irrational judgment that insecurity brings out, I tell you.
They will judge you for having one, but also for having 4. Too little or too much. Too fast or age gap too big. Endless possibilities for shaming and commenting on one of the most private and personal decision of your life.
I no longer allow people to comment (close ones, they know it pisses me off and things get unpleasant) and strangers – well, learned not to care.
I know that if I ever have a second, the age gap will be big. But I also had no mental capacity to parent a high need baby/toddler while pregnant or with a newborn. First and most important I need to be a good mother to a child I already have. And I have seen moms who did get pressured into having 3 babies, while by 2nd you already saw it is a lot for them and now they are completely mentally checked out from parenting and struggle mentally.
The reality is that many young families live far from their families who could support them as parents and you really have to think how you’ll manage with more kids because you still need to work to support them, kids get sick, you never get a break, your marriage suffers etc. So think carefully, not “I’ll manage somehow”. Kids deserve good, loving parents and peaceful homes, and it is heartbreaking to see them suffer because adults couldn’t make adult decisions.
@Anna exactly.
After our second we actually did move very far away from our families and have never had any help we didn’t have to pay for until they were both old enough to go to school. Now they are both teenagers. As I stated above in a previous comment I got a tubal right after the second was born bc even though I was young and really wanted 4 kids, I knew we could not afford more financially or emotionally at that time and didn’t want to risk getting pregnant (couldn’t afford less permanent birth control). I learned early on that as a mom I’m alone in this and it’s up to me to raise my kids to be good human beings (husband helps obviously but I’m still the default parent).
I run my own business now, which makes life easier, but it was a struggle for many years and it would have been much harder if I had had any more children. But I’m selfish for getting a tubal and not having time to volunteer anymore.
Not having children can be seen as selfless and helping the environmental cause. Thinking you have to have your own progeny can also be viewed as vanity and thinking your genes have to be passed on. There are many different ways to argue for/against.
On a slightly different topic, back in the 1980s or 90s, Harriet Walter was one of the romantic leads on the PBS/BBC Peter Wimsey mysteries, set in the 1930s, and she was absolutely amazing. Worth your time to find on Youtube if you enjoy that kind of thing.
Nearly 60 here — never had kids. Wanted them, but never wanted to be a single mother, and didn’t meet anyone until my mid-40s (and he never wanted kids). Also, working gigs and freelancing meant the one time I did get pregnant would have bankrupted me. Luckily for me, my BFF has 5, including a set of twins born the year I was grieving — so there was always legitimately an extra baby who needed a cuddle when I needed to feel necessary. It’s been great — like going straight to grandparent-hood. The kids are all big now, I’m still involved in all their lives.
It’s not a binary! If you like kids, there are kids who need adults who aren’t their parents. If you don’t want kids, there’s a whole world of work and creative opportunity out there.
I love her for being so honest about having kids. I’m going to be 70 in a few weeks. I suffered an ectopic pregnancy at 28. The resultant damage left me unable to bear children, but neither my husband nor I ever felt the lack. I’m an only child, and the only family I have left is one cousin. I have been divorced for 30 years, and only very rarely to I sometimes regret being childless. It usually happens around the holidays when I see other families getting together with several generations, but other than that, I’m not sorry to be where I am. I knew early on that I didn’t have maternal instincts but always assumed kids would come along, because that’s how it was then. More than ever, I’m not sorry I’m not a mom, because if I had kids and grandkids, I would be out of my mind with worry for them, given the world we live in.
Oh she was so good in Killing Eve as well.
I first became aware of Harriet Walter on Succession, but then realized I’d seen her in many things. It’s funny watching Succession and Law & Order UK at the same time. She could not be more different (well, I suppose she’s not maternal in either one, so there’s that, but her LO character might have raised children earlier in life. Her Succession character doesn’t seem familiar with the concept of children).
I’m 70 and as far back as my teens I didn’t want children. Maybe it’s because my family life was less than perfect (NPD/BPD mother and sister) and I took the brunt of their crazy. The overriding feeling I got growing up was one of being picked apart for every little thing I did that wasn’t perfect, but not much praise for things I did well. It did my head in self-esteem wise and took me until I was well into my thirties to shake off. So I get what she’s saying, I never felt cut out for it either, I was concentrating on throwing off the years of damage done to me first before even considering motherhood and just never felt the “urge”. I’ve had cats instead.