Jane Pauley Says Goodbye

May 30 -- In a candid interview, Jane Pauley talks about fame, the future, her children, and why she decided to leave NBC. Following are excerpts of an interview Pauley gave to 20/20's Barbara Walters.

On Retirement

BARBARA WALTERS: Are you scared at all?

JANE PAULEY: No, I'm not the least bit scared. Um, can I rephrase that? At the moment I'm not the least bit scared. Uh, a couple weeks ago I started revisiting some of the things that I had said back in February when the announcement first came out, and oh, there was some attention and I, you know, gave some interviews and, uh, uh, probably repeated myself often enough that I, um, I heard myself over and over saying something about how comfortable I was making bold decisions. And, you know, I started thinking, "You're out of your mind!"

On Her Children's Reaction

WALTERS: How do your kids feel about your giving this up, being home?

PAULEY: I don't think they'd notice if I wasn't. Uh, they are teenagers, after all. I was frankly a little surprised at my daughter's reaction and she didn't know what I was thinking. This was last fall when we were together with friends. Old friends. Who always, you know, say, "How's it going, Jane? What's happening?" So Shannon would be sitting next to me and I took this opportunity to answer that question in the fullest possible way. Here's what I'm thinking, and here's why. The whole conversation was really intended for her. I sensed that something was happening beside me. So I said "Do you want to go upstairs?" So we went upstairs, just the two of us, and were eventually joined by her brother, so it became a little threesome.

WALTERS: Twin brother?

PAULEY: Yes, and she started to cry. Not a sob. But just a little, little tear. She went, "Everything is changing." She meant, you know, she's off to college now. She even won't forgive me for this but her brother's room wasn't his room anymore. But that was just for her another sign of change. And so me not being on television, I was on television her whole life, it was just another aspect of change. But I think teaching her the lesson that life is about change and that change can be good. That is, if you can, you can manage change and sometimes change comes and that's part of life.