Priyanka Chopra's mother Madhu Chopra has opened up about making some mistakes as a parent. In an interview with Bollywood Hungama Madhu said that she sent Priyanka to a boarding school when she was seven years old, and then to the US when she was 12. Priyanka's brother Siddharth was mostly raised by their grandmother because Madhu was helping Priyanka set up her acting career.
However, Madhu added that neither Priyanka nor Siddharth have ever accused her of abandoning them. Asked about sending Priyanka to the US, Madhu told the publication, “I used to miss her a lot. We didn’t have mobile phones in those days, so the only time we’d connect was when my younger sister would call. Priyanka was staying with her. We were in the Army then, and phones weren’t available easily to everybody. We’d talk maybe once a week or in 10 days. It was very tough. And before that, I’d sent her to boarding school, which was also very tough.”
She added, “We weren’t worried, because she was staying with family. But she was a teenager, and it’s important to spend time with parents at that age. It isn’t easy for relatives to understand a child of that age like her parents can. And it isn’t easy to take care of someone else’s child. Hormones are running wild at that age, you have to be really careful. She left at the age of 12, she returned when she was 15 or 16.”
Madhu told the publication that Priyanka started preparing for her boards as soon as she came to India. “I didn’t spend much time with her, she was closer with her father. Priyanka was beloved. She was the first girl in the family, and everybody loved her. I often regret the steps I took. She was four or five years old when she snapped at her father. I realised that these were the same words I’d use on her, and it made me doubt my parenting. Perhaps I wasn’t doing the right things. And when she was seven, I put her in a boarding school without my husband’s approval, without my family’s approval. I didn’t counsel Priyanka either. Those four years were very tough… But neither of my children have accused me of abandoning them."
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