Mindy Kaling Reveals Why Her Desire to Have Kids 'Intensified' After Her Mom Died

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The actress and writer is mom to daughter Kit, 5, and son Spencer, 3

Cindy Ord/MG23/Getty
Cindy Ord/MG23/Getty

Mindy Kaling is opening up about her path to motherhood.

While appearing on the iHeartPodcast Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi, the Never Have I Ever creator, 44, chatted with host Bruce Bozzi, 57, about what led her to want to become a mother.

"My kids are such a huge part of my life and I knew growing up, I was always obsessed with romantic love and obsessing about boys," Kaling said. "Even when I was like, 13 or 14 years old. I was never someone that boys wanted to date or do anything with, so it sort of made the passion and interest more intense, if that makes sense."

"I was very boy-crazy with zero success, so I had this pent-up interest. I always, you know, a lot of projects I write and work on are about women who are obsessed with marriage. Both because I relate to it and because I think it's really funny."

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Related: Mindy Kaling's Daughter Kit Receives Receipt (And Cash!) from Tooth Fairy: 'Keep Up the Good Work'

"And there is also a desperation to it that is, you know, makes you incredibly unhappy. And in my 20s, wanting to find someone, anyone, to settle down with," Kaling told Bozzi.

"But I feel blessed because I was also, if equal to my desire to find a man, I wanted to have children. And that intensified when my mother died," she later revealed. "Because for me, I was like I don't want to be on my death bed, hopefully in my comfortable hospital room or even better, in my own home, and not have anybody around my bed."

"I want there to be kids and I want there to be grandkids. And that to me was way more important than these other sort of shallow things of like, 'I want my six-bedroom house in the Palisades and my kids going to school with my husband who's a surgeon."

"That was all important to me but the thing that was the most important to me was this relationship with my phantom children that I didn't have," Kaling added.

"I pictured I'd be living in New York City and they'd come visit me and we'd walk to go see plays together and then go to the Polo Lounge for dinner. You know what I mean? They'd just hang out with me when I'm in my 60s and 70s."

The comedian continued on, saying that as she got older, she craved a lifestyle change. "All my twenties, I would date guys for two or three years and then break up," she told Bozzi. "In my thirties, I started to really despise going to parties [in LA]. I started to really like the vibe of going to friends' houses when they have kids."

"On one level, I wanted to have children, on another level I wanted my social life to change. I wanted it to look different...I didn't need to be going to some house in the Hills in like Outpost or The Birds, where there is no parking and you walk into a party that is just a bunch of dudes my age who are interested in [younger] women."

Kaling is mom to daughter Katherine "Kit" Swati, 5, and son Spencer Avu, 3.

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