My mum saw me through acidattack ..now I’ve helped her battle cancer
from one of her diaries and it made me think, ‘Wow, I didn’t know any of this.’
“Once I became a mother, I was approached a lot to do parenting books.
“I’ve read many parenting books and they’re all about sleeping and feeding. I thought, ‘What about writing a book that’s tougher and edgy and gritty with more difficult subjects like what is it like to be a woman in the modern world. What do you do when your child goes through trauma and, similarly, when roles are reversed and the daughter becomes the carer of the mother whether that’s due to old age, illness or trauma?’
“Feeding issues – you cope through that stage. But some of the other stuff that’s thrown at you in life is harder for you to battle.”
Katie also revealed her aspirations for her daughters.
She said: “It is to be educated in a form where you have a loud voice for all the right reasons and high enough self-esteem to trust themselves and believe in themselves.
“Maybe I’ll give them the book when they get older. I think it’s a lovely legacy.
“For my mum and me it’s also defining our own closure of what happened to us as a family. It’s having that affirmation about what happens in your life doesn’t define you, it’s what you choose to do afterwards.
“The book is about taking control and ownership back over the events that happened to us as a family.”
She also set up the Katie Piper Foundation to make it easier for people to live with burns and scars.
Katie said: “The most inspiring thing for me is the people I meet through my charity. They’ve been through far worse in their lives and they inspire me in my life and keep me going.”
She will be going on a nationwide live theatre tour from next month, taking baby Penelope with her, while her mum and husband will take it in turns to help with childcare.
What’s In My Head will see Katie share what helped her remain positive even through the toughest of times.
She is determined not to look back at the difficulties she’s faced, adding: “I’m really about living in the present tense and the present moment.
“Sometimes we can waste time living in the past or we can waste time having anxieties about the future.” ● From Mother to Daughter: The Things I’d Tell My Child, published by Quercus, is available now from all good bookshops and Amazon. Tickets for her speaking tour are available at www.katiepiperandyou.co.uk.