First we waited to be together longer, then to find a home. Now I am waiting for my job to be stable enough to be able to go on maternity leave peacefully: will the waiting for the right moment to have a child end? –Agata
Actress Angela Lansbury, who died last week at the age of 96, is known in Italy above all as the protagonist of the show Murder, she wrote. But in reality, before playing amateur detective Jessica Fletcher, Lansbury had a very long and successful career. She was nominated for an Oscar three times – including the first two when she was not even 21 – and she starred with actors like Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman and Spencer Tracy. Yet in the early 1960s, just as she was at the height of her success, Lansbury decided to leave Los Angeles for the Irish countryside. She and her husband had discovered that their two children used hard drugs. It was not a good time to leave Hollywood, but she chose not to accept more films and to live a simple life until her children got back on track. It’s an extreme example, but the message is the same: when it comes to children, the ideal time never comes, especially in a society that discriminates against women. Yet at some point you have to prioritize and do what you feel like. Angela Lansbury went well: when she returned to Hollywood her moment was over, but at that point the doors of Broadway and then of TV opened for her, which would have given her even greater successes.