47death made me realise things are not
forever and you can lose people you
care for. I met my husband the same
year my mother died. It was a strange
stage of being in love and in grief at
the same time. A big regret is that
she never got to meet my children.
For most of his professional life,
my father, almost 70 now, has been
in the business world, but he origi-
nally studied literature. He was ac-
tually the first to teach women’s lit-
erature at Aarhus University. I have
two small children, a four-year-old
girl called Uma and a ten-month-
old son named August. I opened
the museum in June last year and
gave birth to my son in August. So
I say I had two babies that year. Asa director, you can’t just open an
institution and two months later go
on maternity leave. Luckily, I have
great staff. I took six months mater-
nity leave, which is short maternity
leave from a Danish perspective. We
normally have a year. My husband,
a curator and art consultant, is now
on a three-month paternity leave, so
this helped me get back on track.
For me motherhood was a great
joy, but it came as a shock. I still
wish sometimes that I didn’t have to
plan so much; that I could do what-
ever I liked, travel, or work all night
if I had to. Having kids doesn’t mean
your life stops, it’s just that you can’t
be so impulsive. Everything needs
to be planned. And I think that’swhat bothers me the most and my
husband as well - it’s the horrible
logistics of planning each day. But I
can’t complain. Denmark is an easy
country to have kids. Every week is
different, either I’m travelling or my
husband is - or all of us. There’s al-
ways something new. When we don’t
travel, we get up at six in the morn-
ing. One of us stays at home with the
baby, and the other bikes with our
daughter to the kindergarten, which
is about five kilometres away. Either
of us will drop her off and then head
to work, where we stay until about
4pm. Then we pick her up and re-
turn home to make dinner. She plays
with some friends and at 8 or 9pm
the kids are in bed.My mother’s death made me
realise things are not forever
and you can lose people you
care for.
47 Portraits LETTERS FROM COPENHAGENdeath made me realise things are not
forever and you can lose people you
care for. I met my husband the same
year my mother died. It was a strange
stage of being in love and in grief at
the same time. A big regret is that
she never got to meet my children.
For most of his professional life,
my father, almost 70 now, has been
in the business world, but he origi-
nally studied literature. He was ac-
tually the first to teach women’s lit-
erature at Aarhus University. I have
two small children, a four-year-old
girl called Uma and a ten-month-
old son named August. I opened
the museum in June last year and
gave birth to my son in August. So
I say I had two babies that year. As
a director, you can’t just open an
institution and two months later go
on maternity leave. Luckily, I have
great staff. I took six months mater-
nity leave, which is short maternity
leave from a Danish perspective. We
normally have a year. My husband,
a curator and art consultant, is now
on a three-month paternity leave, so
this helped me get back on track.
For me motherhood was a great
joy, but it came as a shock. I still
wish sometimes that I didn’t have to
plan so much; that I could do what-
ever I liked, travel, or work all night
if I had to. Having kids doesn’t mean
your life stops, it’s just that you can’t
be so impulsive. Everything needs
to be planned. And I think that’swhat bothers me the most and my
husband as well - it’s the horrible
logistics of planning each day. But I
can’t complain. Denmark is an easy
country to have kids. Every week is
different, either I’m travelling or my
husband is - or all of us. There’s al-
ways something new. When we don’t
travel, we get up at six in the morn-
ing. One of us stays at home with the
baby, and the other bikes with our
daughter to the kindergarten, which
is about five kilometres away. Either
of us will drop her off and then head
to work, where we stay until about
4pm. Then we pick her up and re-
turn home to make dinner. She plays
with some friends and at 8 or 9pm
the kids are in bed.My mother’s death made me
realise things are not forever
and you can lose people you
care for.
Portraits LETTERS FROM COPENHAGEN