You can be maternal even if you’re not a mum, says Hilary Swank

DOUBLE Oscar-winner Hilary Swank today insists that women don’t need to be a mum in order to be maternal. The actress, who has enjoyed a glittering 28-year Hollywood career, has faced questions over her decision not to become a mother.

In an interview in today’s You magazine, the 46-year-old American says: ‘I feel that I’m very maternal in the people that I care for and all the sentient beings I have around me – my dogs, my horses or just the human beings. ‘And I feel like so much of the time women who either choose not to or can’t have children are somehow seen as not maternal or not mothering and it is a conversation that needs to be had, because… I’ve heard a lot of women say that they’ve been told, “Oh, you’re kind of a failure.” Or, you know, “Didn’t you come here to procreate?”

‘There are so many different ways to procreate! Any type of mothering, any type of nurturing, is being a mother. I have a lot of children around me [through] exes who I was with for many years. For a long while I was with a man who had a son [her former agent John Campisi] and I helped raise him. And then after that there was a bunch of kids and I have tons of nieces and nephews.’

Ms Swank, pictured right for You, has won Best Actress Oscars for playing trans man Brandon Teena in 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry and five years later for her role as boxer Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby. The twice-married star also reveals that she took three years away from films from 2014 to care for her father after he had a lung transplant.