From her new Vogue interview:
“Getting to the studio and not being able to make it happen, but missing out on being at home, missing out on putting the kids down. What’s more important? I felt so guilty,” she tells the magazine. “‘I am letting everyone down in the studio right now; I’m letting down my kids; I’m letting down myself.’ Because time was so precious.”
One of the ironies of Stefani’s life is that she has inadvertently re-created the dynamic of her band in her family. “I have all these boys in my house!” she says. And when she talks about her relationship with Rossdale, it does not sound dissimilar to her feelings over No Doubt’s staying power. “It’s pride,” she says of their sixteen-year relationship (the couple just celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary last September). “You feel proud. There are just so many rewards that come with it. You have to work at it. But, actually, it’s fun to get to this point. Because you learn so much about somebody. It’s like these wars that go on and then you kind of get through it to the other side, and it’s like, Wow. And obviously, you get stronger. And then having kids takes the whole relationship to another place. It is the ultimate collaboration. Both of us have such strong opinions about how it should be, and it’s really fun to do it together.”
In 2011, Rossdale’s band, Bush, released their first album in ten years, and then went on a nearly year-long tour to support it. For the first time since having children, Stefani was on her own. “I mean, he was there for me mentally, but physically? These boys are physical. They wake up and they start punching each other!” She laughs. “One thing we’ve had in our relationship the whole time is that we can have it both ways: together, not together, and it’s fine. But when you have kids? It’s not so great. They need him. Once you have a family, it’s just so obvious how everyone needs each other. So it’s really nice to have him back.”
“It’s superfun being a mom, but it’s not what you think it’s going to be. And it’s really gradual. At first, your life is totally the same. You have this cute little thing that you get to drive around everywhere and you’re so proud and it’s amazing. And as they grow older, it really does start to change your life. Like, Oh, my God, they have school, they have to get through first grade, they have to learn to read.” She laughs. “It starts getting so serious, and you’re like, Aaaaaaah!” She takes a sip of wine. “And to do all that while sustaining this insane childhood of my own. . . . I’ve never had to grow up in a way. When you think about it, we were in college together, and then we made our first record, and then we just took off and stayed in this bubble. Time kind of stops when you’re in a band. It’s this suspended childhood, and it’s really awesome, that part of it. But then when you have a family of your own, it forces you to go into the adult world a little bit more.”
As usual, Gwen Stefani is totally on-trend: Like Marissa Mayer, the new president and CEO of Yahoo, who gave birth and was notoriously back in the boardroom two weeks later, launching a thousand essays and blog posts last year, she is struggling with trying to “have it all.” One difference, perhaps, is how physically demanding Stefani’s job is. “I did my first solo record and went on tour while I was pregnant. I would want to throw up during certain songs. Certain outfits would make me sick. It was torture. I toured until I was four and a half months pregnant, showing. I came home and had Kingston, and when he was eight months old, I went back on the road. I nursed him for fourteen months, so I would literally do my hair and makeup, go back to the bus, nurse him, put him down, and walk out onstage. And I did that for 100 shows.”
