His public statement:
Note: the anecdote is sourced from “Mao” by Michael Lynch, a biography I have not read.
This is a really insightful view into Mao’s life and totally counter to the idea we’re sold of him as an uncaring father and a totally cold, calculating larger-than-life narcissist.
Heartbreaking… and shows that he would not spare himself the pain felt by families of his countrymen, in the same way that western nepotist rulers exempt their children from all danger in times of war, while being willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of the poor.