Dolly Parton chose her career over having kids — and doesn’t regret her choice at all.
“I haven’t missed [having kids] like I thought I might,” she candidly explained to Saga magazine in a recent interview.
“When you’re a young couple, you think you’re going to have kids, but it just wasn’t one of those burning things for me.”
“I had my career and my music and I was traveling.”
“If I’d had kids,” the 77-year-old country superstar added, “I’d have stayed home with them, I’m sure, and worried myself to death about them.”
Parton, who has been married to her husband Carl Dean since 1966, also said bringing kids into today’s society wouldn’t sit right with her with “everything that’s going on.”
The “9 to 5” hitmaker shared a similar sentiment when speaking to Mojo magazine in September.
“I’m almost glad I never had children,” she bluntly stated.
“I worry myself to death about my little nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews.”
“My husband and I, we just think of ourselves as each other’s child. He’s my only child, and I’m his only child.”
Parton also said she doesn’t see the world “making any progress,” which further gives her comfort in her decision.
“Nobody’s willing to listen to anybody else,” she lamented. “Everybody already knows everything.”
“You’re going to teach your children the same thing, whether it’s right or wrong.”
However, she feels connected to all the kids she’s helped through her Imagination Library program, which has given kids around the world nearly 227 million free books as of this writing.
“I always say God didn’t let me have children so that all kids could be mine,” she proudly noted to Saga magazine.
Notably, Parton’s multi-hyphenate goddaughter Miley Cyrus has also said she doesn’t feel moved to have children.
While Parton may not be giving out advice on how to raise children, she has spoken about the longevity of her marriage a handful of times.
Last December, she explained exactly why she thinks she and Dean lasted through the years.
“I like it when people say, ‘How did it last so long?’ I say, ‘It’s stay going,'” she told ET Canada.
“He’s not in the business, so we have different interests, but yet we have the things we love to do together.”
Parton continued, “So, it was meant to be, I think. He was the one I was supposed to have and vice versa.”
