Gwen Stefani got candid about the “really incredible but really hard” experience of being a mom.
The singer, 51, opened up about the joys and challenges of parenthood on DJ Khaled’s podcast, “The First One.”
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“I don’t take it lightly and I’m so grateful that I have them, and I got to have three boys,” she said. “I don’t know why God chose me to be surrounded by boys my whole life, but here I am just surrounded by them, and I just feel really blessed. It’s really fun.”
Stefani shares three sons with her ex-husband, Gavin Rossdale: Kingston, 14, Zuma, 12, and Apollo, 7.
Like many parents, she has been juggling parenting with working from home and Zoom calls during the pandemic, and she said she often feels guilty when she can’t spend time with her kids.
“I think it’s really hard to do it all, and impossible to do. And every single day … I feel guilty,” she said. “Yesterday, I was so guilty because I had a day off with the kids and then I got on a Zoom about doing a video or something, and it was going on and on for like an hour and a half, and I was like, ‘What am I doing? I’ve got to get off the Zoom, this is my day with my kids,’” she said. “Like, so much guilt all the time.”
“It’s hard to be in the moment, too,” she added. “You’re with your kids and you want to be doing your thing, and then when you’re doing your thing, you want to be with your kids. It’s hard.”
Stefani also reflected on having her first baby at 36, and the process of adjusting to her role and identity as a mom.
“I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I’m going to be a mom? Like, that’s going to be weird when people tell me I’m a mom. That word just sounded weird,” she said. “But I got over that really fast, and all I ever really wanted was to have kids. I have this incredible mom, and my parents are still married and they were such an incredible example of true love and respect. And you have that growing up, it’s like, I want that, I want to be that, I want to be my mom when I grow up.”
Stefani also opened up about how she and fiancé Blake Shelton have been connecting through music.
The “Slow Clap” singer said that she and Shelton definitely “bounce off each other” with musical ideas, and said she values his musical taste because he has “a really good ear for hits.”
However, she revealed that they don’t write many songs together.
“I wish he would write with me, but he doesn’t really write anymore,” she said. “We’ve actually written three songs together. We wrote a Christmas song together, and then we wrote two other songs.
“But he just doesn’t like writing that much. It makes me so mad,” she added with a laugh.