Peaches Geldof's heartache over parents' divorce
Peaches Geldof is determined to provide a stable home environment for her baby son after her own childhood was rocked by the divorce of her parents Bob Geldof and Paula Yates.
The 23 year old socialite became a mother to Astala in April (12), and married the tot's father, musician Thomas Cohen, in September (12).
Geldof admits the wedding was important to her because of her own
experience as a child of a broken home following the breakdown of
The Boomtown Rats star's marriage to the late TV presenter.
She tells Britain's Elle magazine, "(Astala's) birth was like a
rebirth for me, and I honestly never thought anything in my life
would ever be good. I'm obsessed with getting it right. The second
I held him it was like this missing piece of my life being put into
place; everything started to heal.
"The very worst thing that happened to me started with my parents'
divorce, it really affected the rest of my life. Even if it's an
archaic idea I want Astala to have a mummy and daddy together
forever. It's a commitment. I want to be a good wife, a good
mother, a good person."
Opening up about how she handled her parents' mid-1990s split,
Geldof adds, "My parents had gone through a very public, bitter
divorce and I was very much old enough to see what was going on.
People talked about us and I knew it was horrendously bad.
"I was completely aware of the whole situation, the transition of
my mother who was amazing... who then turned into this heartbroken
shell of a woman who was just medicating to get through the
day.
"On top of that, there was my father who was very embittered and
depressed about it and for us children, an environment that was
impossible, veering between a week with my mother that was complete
chaos, and then with my father, which was almost Dickensian -
homework, dinner, bed - because he was trying in his own way to
combat what was going on at my mother's.
"It was like living on a permanent see-saw and very scary and sad.
Those feelings have always stayed with me, they just never went
away."
Yates died from an accidental heroin overdose in 2000.