In an odd interview, Dr. Norman Swan, an ABC health correspondent, spoke about the ladies in his life and admitted that being divorced twice is “mildly humiliating.”
Since ABC’s Health Report debuted in 1985, Dr. Swan has been as its anchor. However, during the Covid epidemic, he rose to prominence for his staunch advocacy of lockdowns and mask regulations.
He has now spoken up about his grandmother, his mother’s mental health, his ex-wife, and the discrimination women face as they become older.
The 69-year-old doctor, who is of Scottish descent, said that he lost his virginity to a girl two years his senior at the University of Aberdeen.
But he didn’t feel “more secure sexually” or have more “mature” relationships until he had his medical degree.
When he was 25 years old, he relocated to Australia to finish his paediatrics studies. In 1982, he started working as an ABC health reporter, and he subsequently rose to the position of general manager of Radio National.
While there, he employed Geraldine Doogue, who later rose to prominence as a journalist and broadcaster in Australia. They remain good friends today.
He said that as soon as he met Lee Sutton, his first wife and a fellow paediatrician, he “knew she would be an outstanding mother, which she has been to our daughters Anna, Georgia, and Jonathan.”
Dr. Swan often has a fairly secluded existence. So much so that he seldom pays his award-winning son Jonathan Swan, a political reporter who works for Axios in the US, any attention.
However, now that his new book So You Want to Live Younger Longer? is out, he has taken the chance to be more open about himself.
Being thrice married (and divorced) is moderately humiliating, he said to the Sydney Morning Herald.
“I’ve heard guys complain that the women in their life are the reason they’ve been married more than once, yet 50% or more of the cause is us, the males,” says the woman.
His best friends to this day are women, he said, and he only learned how to be friends with them via a left-wing youth organisation he joined at the age of 15.
“I am horrified by males who talk horribly about women. What exactly is that rage about? he asked.
After his great-grandfather was slain in anti-Jewish riots in 1905 in Odesa, Ukraine, Dr. Swan’s grandmother Yaris fled to Scotland from eastern Europe.
Although the family had moved to a slum, by the time he was a child, they were regarded as middle class.
Every Thursday, Yaris would take him into the city to “schmie,” which is Yiddish for go window shopping.
We weren’t planning on making any purchases, but she and her pals would dress up as we window-shopped at department shops before enjoying high tea. He said, “I used to enjoy that.”
Dr. Swan considered his mother, Nanette, to be “difficult,” and he believes she may have exhibited symptoms of borderline personality disorder.
Despite this, he loved spending time with his grandmother.
He said that although she enjoyed to be the centre of attention, she also had a very dark side.
“I assume there could have been abuse in her early childhood, but she never talked about it,” he said.
Dr. Swan’s father, Leon, said she sometimes “become really violent” over an entirely harmless remark.
Despite the “wonderful moments” when his mother was happy, Dr. Swan left his home as soon as he could to pursue his interest in medicine.
Dr. Swan discusses how women may have a harder time ageing in his most recent book.
While he acknowledged that he is not against individuals getting cosmetic surgery, he said that “as a culture we are considerably less nice to women in terms of appearance and how they age.”
According to Dr. Swan, both of his grandparents paid close attention to their appearance throughout their lives.
Women have informed him that they do this for other women, not for males.
They are not at all concerned with what men think of them. They dress in accordance with what other ladies think of them, he remarked.