Kelly Clarkson wonders if she's trying to make up for her own childhood with her devotion to family life.
The 32-year-old singer's parents Jeanne and Stephen got divorced when she was five, with Kelly living with her mother, her brother Jason going to stay with their father and her sister Alyssa living with an aunt.
The star and her husband Brandon Blackstock got married in 2013 and welcomed their daughter River Rose into the world last June, with Brandon also having children from a previous relationship. Kelly is surprised by how much motherhood has altered her.
"My best friend always says, ‘You just want to create the family you never had.’ I might be doing that,” she told People magazine. “In defence of my family, it happens. People fall out of love, and people go separate ways. People are human. I’ve accomplished a lot, but I guess the biggest success I want is that whenever I die people will say, ‘She was so successful as a mother, and as a wife.’ That’s kind of my big goal.”
The singer describes the process of getting married and becoming a stepmother as a huge 180 in her life. She hadn't ever really considered being a parent and didn't think it was on the cards for her, so when it happened it took her breath away.
Things can be hard now as she has so much to juggle, but this new life has made her realise that perhaps things don't begin and end with her job.
“I love what I do, but I feel like I relied on my career a lot for my self-worth. And now I’m more than that,” she said. “I’m a mother and a wife and have this whole other thing going on.”
Although the star recently blasted celebrities who claim not to have nannies, she wouldn't leave her baby when she was travelling. That means River Rose has already become a globe-trotter, with Kelly previously explaining she is the ideal tot for a musician as she sleeps through anything.
"She's so weird man, she loves music to go to sleep to, like loud music," Kelly explained. "She's the perfect tour baby; she'll go to rehearsals and when we're all playing she loves it and she can fall asleep and then right when the music stops she starts crying. I really want her to be a doctor or something, but that's alright."
