The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane von Furstenberg Read Free Book Online Page A

an arm was more than just bruised. During the week I’d be a tycooness in New York again, striding out the door in my high heels and fishnet stockings. I winked in the mirror, smiled at my shadow, and off I went, to make a living and become the woman I wanted to be.
    From the beginning, I treated Alexandre and Tatiana more as people than as children. I never talked down to them and always encouraged them to express their opinions and take responsibility for themselves. Making me independent is what my mother did for me, and I was, for sure, going to do that for my children. Just as I had started keeping a journal in my childhood, I urged them to start recording their lives and thoughts. They began even before they were old enough to read and write, drawing the events of their days in pictures. We ended the day by exchanging news about what they’d done at school and what I’d done at work during “discussion time” on their beds. I involved them in every facet of my life, including my business. “Ihave my job and school is your job,” I told them. “We all go to work, we all have our own lives, we all have our responsibilities. You deliver on yours and I’ll deliver on mine.” It turned out to be a very good approach. Tatiana excelled at school, Alex did very well, and I managed all right at work.
    I took them with me on trips as often as I could and, in spite of themselves, they became very good travelers. They would often complain or be upset about traveling conditions that seemed dangerous or boring to them at the moment, but those moments from their unusual adventures ended up being wonderful memories and great stories to tell. I remember a trip to the very isolated, prehistoric island of Nias across from Sumatra in the Indonesian archipelago. The tiny little local boat we took was fragile, to say the least. The return crossing in the middle of the night was rough, hot, and buggy. We kept silent as I prayed that we would make it safely to the mainland. Exotic it was, but maybe too exotic, risky, and dangerous, but we made it. That trip ended up in both their college applications in answer to the question: “What was one of the most riveting and adventurous things you’ve done in your life?”
    In such extreme circumstances, and in other, calmer ones, I treasured traveling with my children. Traveling with children is unique because it is about discovering together. You are equal in front of new things and experiences. I always found it a great period of closeness, and I recommend it to parents. You lose the power role a bit and become companions. You don’t have to say look at this and look at that because you’re discovering at the same time—the landscapes you see, the people you encounter, the lines for tickets, the stop for lunch, the unexpected.
    Could I have become the woman I wanted to be without having children? I certainly would not have been the same person. In fact, it’svery hard, impossible really, for me to imagine what my life would have been without them. We actually grew up together. I was twenty-four when I had them both, barely a grown-up myself. I wasn’t old enough to have yearned for children, yet suddenly there they were and my responsibility. I loved them with an intensity I’d never felt before. They were a part of me forever.
    I was helped enormously by their two amazing grandmothers, both of whom were very present in my children’s lives. My mother came to live with us in New York for months during the school year and struck her own loving relationship with them. Egon’s mother, Clara Agnelli Nuvoletti, was just as attentive. The children spent almost every vacation with her, either on the island of Capri, at her house outside Venice, or in the mountain chalet in Cortina. My mother had become a very good friend of Clara’s, and often she went along so my children had two fantastic grandmothers with them.
    How wonderful it was, especially for Tatiana. Alexandre started going