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Sheryl Crow reveals she is 'not a cool mom' as she opens up about adoption

Crow spoke to Hoda Kotb for the 'Making Space' podcast about motherhood, adoption and more.

Sheryl Crow may be a touring musician with a shelf full of Grammys, but she told Hoda Kotb she's "not a cool mom anymore."

Living in Nashville with sons who are 11 and 14, Crow said the kids think, "You just don't know Mom. You don't get it."

Sheryl Crow opened up to Hoda Kotb about motherhood and what led her to adopt her two sons in Hoda's latest episode of "Making Space."
Sheryl Crow opened up to Hoda Kotb about motherhood and what led her to adopt her two sons in Hoda's latest episode of "Making Space."NBC

But on the latest episode of the podcast "Making Space with Hoda Kotb," Crow said she's honored to be their mom.

"You don't get the wrong kids. It just doesn't happen that way. And my kids so clearly not only picked me but picked each other and man, what a cool honor," she said. "I tell my kids all the time, 'I am so honored to be your mom.'"

Crow was 45 when she adopted her first son, and 48 when she adopted her second. Now 59, she said her age helped keep her from being pulled in a lot of directions at once.

"I had the gift of getting a lot of things out of my system before I had my kids, or before I got my kids. So there wasn't anything that I felt like I was missing," she said. "If I stayed home and something was going on I just didn't feel like I was missing anything, that I wanted to be anywhere else, and that's a gift."

It was her mother who suggested that Crow have babies on her own, after breaking up with Lance Armstrong and undergoing breast cancer treatments. Her mother told her if she adopted, "you have a family around you who will stand at the alter with you at baptism and say, 'We are his community, or her community.'"

"I tell my kids all the time, 'I am so honored to be your mom.'"

That support gave Crow "the life raft" not to feel that she needed to be married and stable before she could have a family of her own.

"The story I was telling myself limited what I thought I could have, until somebody stepped in and said, 'Wait a minute, your story doesn't have to look like your mom and dad's story,'" she said. "Families look like all different things."

Showtime is releasing a documentary about Crow next year that will show how she got started in music as a 25-year-old teacher, and detail the sexual harassment she faced early in her career. She said sitting for interviews for the documentary was "very emotional and very exhausting."

"I always feel like those things should come out after you're dead and gone," she said with a laugh. "So I'm hoping I'm not ushering in like the back nine of my life."

To hear the entire conversation, download "Making Space with Hoda Kotb" wherever you find your podcasts.

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