Kim Cattrall: 'I'm still a mother - even though I never had children'

The 59-year-old actress is the guest editor on Woman's Hour Takeover week today, where she discusses ageing, choosing not to have children and being single in later life.

Cattrall conceded that men may be too intimidated to ask her out.

Asked by host Jane Garvey how easy it is to chat her up, Cattrall said: "I would say it's pretty impossible."

"I'm not your average single woman. I come with, as do all men and women of a certain age, they come with baggage," she added.

"It's hard for everybody. To be single at this age is really difficult, because you know so much more about what you want and what you don't want and what you'll put up with, and you've been there and done that so many times at this point. I have anyway.

retired

"I feel in that area, romantically, retired."

Cattrall, who has been married three times, also opened up about not having children, and revealed she finds being referred to as childless offensive.

"It's the less that is offensive - childless - it sounds like you're less because you haven't had a child," she said.

"I think, for a lot of women from my generation, it wasn't a conscious choice. It was a feeling of, 'Well, I'm on this road and things are going really well, I'm really happy, I'll do it next year, I'll do it in two years, I'll do it in five years'.

"Then suddenly you're in your early 40s and you think, 'Maybe now?'

"You go to your doctor and she says, 'Yes we can do this but you have to start to become a bit of a science experiment here because we have to find out how you can stay pregnant.'"

But the star says she still feels like a mother.

"I am not a biological parent, but I am a parent. I have young actors and actresses that I mentor, I have nieces and nephews that I am very close to. There is a way to become a mother in this day and age which doesn't include your name on the child's birth certificate. You can express that maternal side, very clearly, very strongly. It feels very satisfying."

Woman's Hour Takeover week begins with Kim Cattrall on BBC Radio 4 today, at 10am.