Kelly Clarkson Says Motherhood Makes Her Feel "Next-Level Confident" https://t.co/rO5uHF4zfl pic.twitter.com/EIqBo9AleJ
— Good Housekeeping (@goodhousemag) November 15, 2016
Kelly Clarkson has a new children’s book out which she’s named after her oldest child. It’s called River Rose and the Magical Lullaby and includes a new children’s song she’s recorded, which you can hear at www.hc.com/riverrose. It’s very pretty and haunting, but you would expect that from Kelly, she makes excellent music. Kelly is interviewed in the December issue of Good Housekeeping and she gets quite candid. She talks about being a mom, about feeling guilty because she’s working and yet still feeling incredibly competent about the level of work she’s able to accomplish in a day. She also opens up about her relationship with her husband of three years, Brandon Blackstock, and about her career. I like reading interviews with Kelly, she knows her own mind and she’s in control. Kelly and Brandon have daughter River Rose, two and a half, and son Remington, seven months.
Why she turned down two record deals before American Idol:
“They were like, “You have to lose 20 pounds and basically sign your life away” — and I was small then, by the way. I don’t want to start a relationship with somebody who says something like that. And this is my gift, and they wanted to take all the profit from me working my butt off. Why would I?”On her difficulty dealing with sudden fame:
“I was in a very dark place for a long time. It’s just so hard to have normalcy. I love to sing, and I love to talk to people at meet-and-greets. It’s just all the crap that comes along with this job…I don’t love traveling, because I’m never home. It’s hard when you have a family.”On making time for her marriage:
“We try our best. Brandon and I have a date night every night — we’ll get the kids to bed and go out by the lake with a glass of wine, and the next thing we know, it’s 2 A.M. We’re tired in the morning, but we need that time to stay connected.”On how motherhood has empowered her:
“I sound like such a tool, but becoming a mother has made me next-level confident. I’ve never felt more empowered. I feel like my 20s were spent walking on eggshells making sure everyone felt loved and not really expressing my opinion. As a mom, you just don’t have time, so you get straight to the point.”On if she’s ever thought of giving up singing
Oh, all the time. I mean, I’m always going to be a singer, but the level I’m at … I have constant guilt. I don’t have to work; I think it’s because I have that option that I feel the guilt. But it’s important for my girls, especially, to see me as a woman accomplishing all these things while nailing it as a mom. I always come back to that.
I swear I’ve heard Kelly tell the story about how she was told by record executives to lose weight, but she’s always been so chill about body shamers that I could be remembering other quotes she’s given about it. Mom guilt is real and I feel it quite a bit and yet only have one child.I also relate to what she’s saying about feeling more confident, but for me it’s more about age than having a kid. The older I get the less f-ks I give. Also, it may sound strange that she calls Brandon’s daughter from his first marriage “our 15 year-old girl,” but she’s called his two kids her own before and their mother seems to be ok with that.
Photos credit: WENN, Fame and Good Housekeeping
You and every other mom with a blog Kelly. Eye rolls for breakfast anyone lol
I know. Stahhhp.
Yeah. I’m sorry but YAWN. Next topic.
I love her. She is so sweet and charming and kind. I can just tell!
I love Kelly and I find it terrible anytime a working mom says she feels guilty. My mom and dad said something similar to me recently…that they tried to make time when they could but they both had to work to give us what we needed.
Which is terrible. Kelly is in a better position than most but the sentiment is the same
I understand some women’s struggle with mommy guilt, but I’ve never had any stay at home mothers in my family so I’ve never experienced it on any consistent basis. Working has always just been something mothers do, just like fathers. There are times when I am tired and unable to summon the energy to play for hours on end or fall asleep during movie night, but it is okay. The children will be fine.
Both my parents have worked three shift jobs when we were little. Sometimes both of them were away for the night (with no option to change the shift for either of them) and we would sleep alone, Those were the night we had a lot of fun. We missed them but in the morning we were ok as usual. I mean our parents were so tired that we had no time to complain. We had to eat and go to school and study and shut up. My parents didn’t even care about our grades. Their moto was : You are doing everything for yourself not for us so… But they were lucky because we were good kids and we lived in a safer time then.
I get missing your kids and wanting to spend the day with them (especially as babies) but I don’t understand feeling guilty. My mom worked full time, with lots of overtime, and I never thought to be upset by it. She was there if I needed her later on in the night. We don’t need to be around our parents 24/7 to develop into great human beings. Neither my mom and dad felt guilty about it either, which makes me believe it’s just a new phenomenon. They had to do what they had to do!
I like Kelly. But I’m getting weary of this constant narrative. It’s like what people feel like they have to say to be a “good mother”.
If you are so burdened by guilt, Kelly, then stop your career for a while. Unlike some working parents you have no financial burdens to constrain your choices. Don’t think so? OK then, count your blessings and stop promoting guilt as something every mother needs to be drowning in constantly.
I totally agree with you. It is getting ridiculous. People who need money don’t have the privilege of feeling weighed down by guilt. They are happy to put a roof over their children’s heads, feed, and clothe them. Why have children if you are going to continue to promote this mentality?
Thank you. I don’t get having constant mommy guilt if you are working. If you are constantly feeling guilty then either don’t work at all or get a part time job that works for you and your families schedule. Did I have guilty feelings – sometimes yes, but was a very rare thing and usually about not being able to go on a field trip with the child or something else related to school. Got over it quickly. My children turned out fine as did my brothers and i (whose mom was a stay at home mom until I was in 8th grade). You do what you have to do for your family.
I don’t think it’s mommy guilt about working per say. For me it is not being able or having the time to do enough. I don’t have the time to do everything I want for my kids and I don’t have the time to do everything I want to do for work. When I am one place, I am thinking about the things I want or need to do for the other. It is the constant war between my two worlds.
Yeah I am so over it too. It’s like the checklist of being a mummy in 2016:
*preach about what food you do or do not feed your kids
*talk about how #blessed you are and that your children are miracles of joy
*talk about how horribly guilty you feel and make other women feel as though they too should be guilty if they’re off at work
BOOM, trifecta.
SO OVER IT. Where is the dad guilt? Nowhere, because they don’t have to adhere to this stupid narrative.
how sad that talent is not enough, that hard work is not enough. What a terrible message to send. Those companies have so much power and yet can’t even try to change the way we see people who are looked up to.
Kelly always seemed nice and kind and honestly, her talent and personality is enough and it always was.
My mom stayed home and she felt shamed about that. Kelly alluded to start staying home as a bad example. I guess motherhood is either guilt or shame. Kelly seems really together and that’s probably more important than working or not working.
there really are no winners. I’m a stay-at-home mom and though I chose this and really do like my situation as it works well for my family, I do have days when I feel the guilt/shame over not working, not “contributing to society”, etc. I get a little ping of sadness when working moms talk about how great it is for their daughters to see them going off to work.
it sucks that women are made to feel kind of shitty for whatever “mommy” choice we make, whether it’s to work or to stay at home or to not have kids at all.
Having followed Kelly’s career from the get go….she’s always been body shamed. She had record deals before Idol but like she said they wanted her to look a certain way and make music a certain way. Even after she won Idol, she was body shamed.
To be quite honest with you, none of this surprises me. After the Breakaway era, she took a step back and I remember her saying that even though she was an international superstar she was very depressed because she never saw her family. I don’t think folks realize just how popular she was. In 2005 (I think that was the year) she brought in like $100 million and that was before the social media nonsense that makes folks like Selena Gomez or Taylor Swift so popular.
I’m glad that she’s happy now though and I’m always on the look out for her to drop some new music. She’s a guilty pleasure of mine and her voice in my opinion is the best in the business.
I hate how it’s the norm now for working moms to have to feel guilt or associate guilt with working. I work full time since my daughter is three months, now three years old, and I don’t feel guilt. Not one ounce of it, at all, ever. We don’t have to feel guilty. I work for myself, for my family, to be a good example for my daughter. I work because it makes me feel human, equal. We need to stop forcing women to feel some sort of guilt if they don’t stay home, breastfeed, give birth vaginally, have their own kids vs adopt, or even having/not having kids at all etc. You don’t need to feel anything but amazing about all that you do as a woman and as a mom.
+1000000
AMEN.
I wouldn’t judge a woman who does not hold a job on the basis they are not a good example. But I see the opposite done so often—the guilt, guilt, guilt line that celeb moms in particular seem to trot out, that make it seem like it is some unnatural state of being for mothers to hold jobs. Or that a woman is selfish, materialistic, choosing work over family—I have a kid and would happily quit my job, or even lie down in front of a train, for him if I had to, but luckily, I have not had to do either. I manage to take care of my kid and go to work both.
I fear that same line of thinking– if you have kids and work, you must be so torn, guilty, tormented– is used to justify policies like no paid parental leave, etc.—hey if mommies are so darn guilty for working and hate every minute of it, why not make it easier for everybody and just engineer things so they give up those jobs or never seek them to begin with?
Sorry to rant, but ugh………………!
I would never judge a mom who doesn’t work. Good for her and props for being able to handle it. I know I couldn’t, but it’s amazing that others can, and that’s why it’s okay to be your own type of mom.
She can stop making music – I’d personally be very supportive of that decision.
I honestly find her to be one of the most dull artists out there. She has a nice voice – but her songs are so bland, and so ‘dr waiting room’. WHO is buying her music? Whenever she comes on the radio I either turn it off, or switch stations.
“She has a nice voice….WHO is buying her music?”
Have you ever heard her sing live? She’s popular and she’s been around for so long because her voice is phenomenal. That’s why people buy her music. I agree with you that her latest album was somewhat mediocre but quite frankly I’d rather have someone who is actually talented keep producing music than the monotonous computer generated crap I’ve been subjected to in the past 4-5 years.
I’ve bought her music. *shrugs*
Kelly is lucky enough to have a choice about whether or not she wants to step away from her profession to be a “full-time mom.” [Though every mom *is* a full-time mom.] Most people don’t have the luxury to choose. As a mom who stepped away from career and had two of three kids go (far) away to school for the first time this year, I’m struck by the lack of discussion about what happens to women who do step away from career.
The best anyone can hope for is to have balance…to not give yourself totally away to any one area in your life, and not lose touch with yourself.
This mommy guilty stuff is getting really old. Eye roll.