Dolly Parton is indisputably the mother of country music. While Parton serves as a maternal figure to many musicians and even the Godmother to Miley Cyrus, in her personal life, she and her notoriously private husband, Carl Thomas Dean, have never had a baby of their own.
On Saturday, December 23, in conversation with Exceptional, Parton revealed that she doesn’t regret that decision even now, at the age of 77. “I haven’t missed it like I thought I might,” she said. “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.”
Parton added, “If I’d had kids, I’d have stayed home with them, I’m sure, and worried myself to death about them. With everything that’s going on, I’d hate to be bringing a child into this world right now. I always say God didn’t let me have children so that all kids could be mine.”
During her chat, Parton also emphasized that her outreach work through Imagination Library has allowed her to support children worldwide. The initiative helped to deliver 220 million books to children across the globe. Find more information here.