Kelly Clarkson’s Most Relatable Parenting Quotes: ‘No One Can Do It Alone’

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Kelly Clarkson's Most Relatable Parenting Quotes: 'No One Can Do It Alone'

Words of wisdom! Kelly Clarkson has four kids at home on top of her hugely successful career, and the singer has opened up about the highs and lows of parenting many times over the years. The American Idol winner started dating talent manager Brandon Blackstock in 2012, and the pair tied the knot in Tennessee one year later. Clarkson and her then-husband welcomed daughter River and son Remington in 2014 and 2016, respectively, ahead of their June 2020 split, and Blackstock also has two children from his previous marriage to Melissa Ashworth — Savannah and Seth. The family of six showed up at the UglyDolls premiere in April 2019, and the Voice coach showed the sweet moment off on Instagram at the time. “So happy to have my family with me for the Ugly Dolls movie premiere,” she wrote. “Such a great movie with a wonderful message!” The “Broken & Beautiful” singer sported a pink dress with puffy sleeves on the red carpet, and her children were also dressed to impress. Remington and Seth rocked patterned suits, while Savannah and River opted for rainbow dresses — sequins for the elder, and bows for the toddler. While the three-time Grammy winner winner loves gushing about her kids, Clarkson was not a fan of pregnancy. “Honestly, the first one was really rough, and I was like, 'Oh, it can't happen again,' [[and no, it happened, like, way worse [the second] time," she revealed during a 2016 radio interview with Australia’s KIIS FM. “I just get hospitalized, and I have to get fluids. It's just, like, my body was not made to be pregnant. That's real-talk right there. Pregnancy isn't easy.” Keep scrolling to read the most relatable things Clarkson has had to say about her brood since giving birth.

Credit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Kelly Clarkson's Most Relatable Parenting Quotes: 'No One Can Do It Alone'

Words of wisdom! Kelly Clarkson has four kids at home on top of her hugely successful career, and the singer has opened up about the highs and lows of parenting many times over the years. The American Idol winner started dating talent manager Brandon Blackstock in 2012, and the pair tied the knot in Tennessee one year later. Clarkson and her then-husband welcomed daughter River and son Remington in 2014 and 2016, respectively, ahead of their June 2020 split, and Blackstock also has two children from his previous marriage to Melissa Ashworth — Savannah and Seth. The family of six showed up at the UglyDolls premiere in April 2019, and the Voice coach showed the sweet moment off on Instagram at the time. “So happy to have my family with me for the Ugly Dolls movie premiere,” she wrote. “Such a great movie with a wonderful message!” The “Broken & Beautiful” singer sported a pink dress with puffy sleeves on the red carpet, and her children were also dressed to impress. Remington and Seth rocked patterned suits, while Savannah and River opted for rainbow dresses — sequins for the elder, and bows for the toddler. While the three-time Grammy winner winner loves gushing about her kids, Clarkson was not a fan of pregnancy. “Honestly, the first one was really rough, and I was like, 'Oh, it can't happen again,' [[and no, it happened, like, way worse [the second] time," she revealed during a 2016 radio interview with Australia’s KIIS FM. “I just get hospitalized, and I have to get fluids. It's just, like, my body was not made to be pregnant. That's real-talk right there. Pregnancy isn't easy.” Keep scrolling to read the most relatable things Clarkson has had to say about her brood since giving birth.

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Missing Moments

“I have a lot of mom guilt,” Clarkson revealed in a 2016 Redbook interview. “If you’re a mom, you want to be with your kid every day. You don’t want to miss a moment, you want her to need you and want you and not want somebody else. But I think it’s really important not only for my little girl and our 15-year-old girl and our boys to see that a woman is capable of kicking ass while also being a kickass mom. I’m not gonna BS you, that’s hard.”

She added: “There are days where I cry and I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I can handle all this!’ or get it all done. But at the end of the day, 99 percent of the time, it’s awesome and it’s worth it, and that’s what I say to myself.”

Credit: Courtesy of Kelly Clarkson/Instagram

Feeling Fearful

“Literally, having children has brought fear to my life,” Clarkson also told the outlet. “That sounds horrible, I know, but before kids I was fearless. Now I go to bed and I have nightmares of someone just grabbing my little girl and running. It’s always about me not being able to protect my kids somehow. I’m a mama bear .... Just recently our nanny told me that an older kid was mean to my daughter at the park and that she just crumbled. I’m glad I wasn’t there, because I wouldn’t have handled that well. I totally went off on that 6-year-old in my head!”

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Girl Power

The NBC personality is setting a great example for her baby girl! “I try to just be a confident female for her ― and I believe actions obviously speak louder than words, it’s an old saying but it’s very true,” she told Redbook. “It’s a turn on [for my husband] that I’m a pretty badass female; boys that I dated before, they got intimidated by it, [and] that’s not fair to me because I work very hard. So I’m glad our boys and also our girls have a man to look [up to], who shows them, ‘This is how you treat a woman, this is how you respect a woman.’ He takes his daughter on dates and shows her, ‘This is what a guy should do.’”

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All Done

No more! “Oh God, those tubes are gone!” Clarkson said on KTU’s Cubby and Carolina in the Morning in 2017 when asked about having more kids. “That’s blasphemy. We don’t even speak of it. We’re both fixed in our own ways, yet still we’ll probably get pregnant again somehow.”

She added: “I always feel bad because I have friends who have a hard time getting pregnant and I’m just like, 'Guys, I have the worst pregnancies ever, it can’t happen again!'"

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Informed Citizens

“I think it’s a very crucial time for anyone with kids,” the Texas native told Refinery29 in 2017. “All of those things that are happening in our political arena, or in the entertainment industry? Well, there’s bullying, there’s sexual harassment and there’s a rape culture in schools. It all starts young. So right now we have a unique opportunity to use what’s happening to ask our kids, ‘Do you think this was right or wrong? What do you think should have happened?’ It sounds obvious, but that’s the only way, long term, this world is going to get any better.”

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Help!

“No one can do it alone,” Clarkson also told the outlet. “The kids have grandparents who are awesome, and we both have great assistants, because Brandon manages me and Blake Shelton, so that’s two pretty busy careers. And then we have two nannies who help us tremendously. They’re the greatest gifts ever. We have our little village that helps us keep everyone’s head above water and also aren’t afraid to say, ‘Hey, you guys are taking on too much.’”

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Confidence Boost

“I’ve always been a confident girl, I’ve always felt sexy and intelligent,” Clarkson told Refinery29. “But after becoming a mother, the amount of s--t that you get done, you’re so impressed with yourself! It’s the most empowering feeling, because it makes you want to worry about the pettiness and trivial things a lot less.”

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FOMO

Clarkson is no stranger to this familiar feeling. “When you work, you miss things,” she admitted on the Today show in 2018. “And then you see pictures. It’s awesome because you see them, but then you’re like, ‘Aww you get to do the fun stuff, and I’m working.’ But I love my job.”

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Balancing Act

Finding that middle ground! “I don’t want to be one of those pop star moms that doesn’t see their kids,” the River Rose and the Magical Lullaby author also revealed on the show. “They’re almost just like an accessory. I want to hang out with them and be there ... It’s hard to be a really good mom and a really good person at your job, but I do have a village of people. I have to release control and just say, ‘I’m not going to be able to be there for everything, and it’s OK because I’m showing my daughter and my son and our kids that you can do both and achieve great things. If you work hard, you can play hard.’”

Credit: Courtesy of Kelly Clarkson/Instagram

Crushing Hard

Too cute! “My daughter is obsessed currently with Chris Martin. She’s in love with him,” the four-time mom said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2018. “When I say obsessed, I mean the boy from the video, not Chris Martin now. She doesn’t understand that he’s not the boy in the ‘Yellow’ video. … I’m like, ‘You need to slow your roll!’”

Credit: Courtesy of Kelly Clarkson/Instagram

Showing Her Support

When asked if she’ll have an opinion about River’s sexuality, the Academy of Country Music Award winner told Pride Source, “Oh, I don’t care. I mean, here’s what I hope for her. I just hope she finds love. … As long as she’s happy, I don’t care either way, and neither does my husband.”

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Sibling Rivalry

Clarkson told Ellen DeGeneres all about her babies and their fighting tactics in 2018. After being bossed around, “[Remington] will just full on punch [River],” she said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “I don’t know what to do. Cause you want him to defend himself. She’ll wait until your back is turned and she’ll push him. She’ll push him down and think we won’t figure it out.”

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Low Expectations

“I seriously hope [my kids] are tone deaf,” Clarkson admitted to Us Weekly in 2018. “I’d be like, ‘I’ve heard better, but it was solid.’ And don’t want to do that. I hope they’re like teachers or doctors or something. It’s a hard industry.”

Catch Kelly on The Kelly Clarkson Show premiering September 9 on NBC.

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Shush

In September 2019, the American Idol alum told Christina Aguilera that her daughter doesn’t want her to sing bedtime songs. “I’m like, ‘People pay for this,’” Clarkson said. “It’s kind of awesome because it keeps us humble. Our kids don’t care at all.”

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Keeping It Real

“I think parenting changes you in the best of ways,” the Kelly Clarkson Show host, 37, told Us in February 2020. “It’s made me stronger, but it’s definitely hard. It’s the hardest job out of all the jobs. … I think it makes you selfless. It makes you really prioritize.”

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Desperate Times

“So our plumbing froze up at our little cabin in Montana and, no joke, I just used my toddler’s potty,” the singer tweeted in March 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. “And just like that I have no pride or shame! Each day brings something I thought I’d never do hahahaha.”

Credit: The Kelly Clarkson Show

Loyalties

Clarkson’s kids were angry with her when they saw the Trolls World Tour trailer, she admitted in April 2020. “My kids, they were just so concerned I was a mean one because in the preview it looked like I was mean to y'all because I was at first,” she told her costars Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake at the time. “They were so mad. They were like, 'We can't even, you're not our mom because you're mean to Poppy.'”

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Hard Work

“He had a speech problem because he had this ear problem when he was a baby. We didn’t know,” the singer told People of Remy in May 2020. “But way deep down in his ears, he got clogged up with a ton of wax where we thought, almost, he was deaf because he spoke as if he was underwater.”

Clarkson went on to say, “We found [out] it was something simple, but it pushed him back almost nine months. So we’ve been working really hard with his speech and he’s still doing his speech therapist via Zoom. The big milestone for us is Remy getting to really find out his own personality and his identity because it’s been frustrating for him to not be able to really vocalize his emotion.”

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Something to Celebrate

"Happy birthday, baby,” Blackstock told his wife in an April 2020 family video via Instagram. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

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Mixed Feelings

“I so want another child, and my husband is like, ‘No! We have four!’” Clarkson told Gordon Ramsay when his son Oscar crashed their May 2020 interview. “You get baby fever when you see them and you're like, ‘Oh, I miss the chubby little legs and the little face.’”

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Calling It Quits

Clarkson filed for divorce from the Tennessee native in June 2020.

Credit: Courtesy of Carter's

Give Yourself a Break

While sharing her best parenting tips with a handful of lucky new moms during Carter’s ShowHER Love virtual baby shower in June 2020, the "Piece by Piece" singer reminded them that it's important to give yourself grace as you adjust to having kids. "Whether you are a working mom or a stay at home mom, let yourself off the hook," she said. "You are still getting it done, you are still productive. It's just working through time management as a new mom. ... There are moments when you will want to cry so hard — and that's OK! But just try to laugh and let it go."

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Tough Talks

Clarkson spoke to 50 Cent about having racism conversations with their kids in June 2020, saying, "My little girl, [River], is 6 and [when] she catches something, like the news, I just have to explain it simple. It’s just like, ‘Well, there's right and wrong. And this person was wrong and that's why they're crying.' … And I think everybody needs to have that uncomfortable conversation that [racism] exists and that it's wrong."

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Brave Brood

"My children are in my arms and we are awake too early because of that earthquake, but now they’re discussing how their ninja skills would totally help in this time,” Clarkson tweeted in July 2020. "I’m just happy they’re more interested and curious about it and less scared. Hallelujah!"

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New ‘Do

"I put a purple streak in my daughter’s hair today and I swear to you she thinks she is as cool as Prince now,” Clarkson tweeted in August 2020. "Full on air guitar, singing at the top of her lungs, that is what’s happening. And before I get attacked for being the worst mom ever, it’s safe, organic paint.”

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Take That

When a troll tweeted that Clarkson must not have “time for her kids” in August 2020, the singer clapped back, calling herself “a great mom.”

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Awkward

Clarkson finds it “weird” when her kids sing certain songs of hers in the car because they’re based on her relationship with their dad. "I've never written about my life to where my kids are, like, singing along,” she explained to Willie Geist in September 2020.

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Perfect Priority

Clarkson told Extra in October 2020 about “protecting” her children during her divorce. "We have a lot of help as far as therapists or child psychologists because we want to do it right,” the singer explained to the outlet. "Everyone's sad and it's OK to be sad."

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Memory Lane

The Kelly Clarkson Show host told Emma Roberts that her pregnancies were both “horrible” in November 2020, explaining, “Every time I see someone that looks like they’re happy, I’m like, ‘Good for you!’"

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Smart Cookie

Clarkson gave her daughter “points for comedy” in a November 2020 episode of her talk show, telling the audience that River will "just pretend she's frozen so she doesn't have to do what they're asking her to do” in Zoom class.

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Tough Stuff

The "hardest part” of divorce is caring for her kids, Clarkson said during a November 2020 episode of her talk show. "I think, as women especially, we're trained ... to take it all on, and you can deal with it, and you're fine, but it's your babies that you worry about,” she explained.

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Arts and Crafts

“Making stuff … [is] therapeutic,” Clarkson said during a December 2020 episode of her show. "When I color with my kids, I'm doing it because it's fun with them and they love it, and they ask me to do it. But it's [also] really soothing, oddly. I used to laugh at people when I saw adults with coloring books. I didn't get it. Now, I am one of them. It's really therapeutic and this has been a hard year."

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Learning Curve

"It's tough," Clarkson said of coparenting during a February 2021 episode of her show. "I know with me and Brandon, it's just a difficult thing because we're in different places, and it's like, we both agree on the main things, but it's a hard thing when you're not together all the time, for me personally."

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Deja Vu

“Our third night in a row to watch Encanto ha!” Clarkson wrote via Instagram in January 2022. “My kids are obsessed and I don’t mind, it’s so good.”

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Riding Solo

“I’m a single mom, right? So, I’m either at work or with kids,” Clarkson told Extra in May 2022 about how she celebrated her first Mother’s Day after finalizing her divorce. “So my nanny — I literally almost cried — like, she walked into the kitchen and was like, ‘Hey, for Mother’s Day, I’m going to give you the gift of time and you can just do whatever you want.’ I almost broke down, I was like, ‘What??!!’”

She added: “I had the best day, and it was amazing.”

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Working as a Team

In August 2022, Clarkson reflected on taking a trip with her ex-husband and kids for the summer.

"It’s obviously been a rough couple years so it was really important to me to, like, shut down for a minute," she said on Today. "The kids were with me and with their dad. It was nice because they usually have to travel a lot because of our separation so we were both in Montana so, it was the first time I think my kids felt more centered as well."