Why Dolly Parton couldn't ever become a mother and how that made her a bigger singing superstar
While Dolly Parton does not regret not having kids in her life, the road to abandoning the hopes of motherhood and focusing on becoming a superstar was not an easy one for her.
After marrying local Nashville contractor Carl Dean in 1966, the 'Jolene' singer started dreaming about starting a family. She even had names picked out for her future children — Carla if it was a girl. The couple even began wondering if the kids would inherit Dean's model looks or Parton's petite height.
"We'll probably start our family or start trying next summer," the country icon excitedly stated in 1967, Mirror reported. "I'd like to have at least four children. I'd like to have six if we can afford it and if things go well."
Unfortunately at the time, Parton was not aware of her gynecological condition which was causing internal bleeding. As a result, by the early eighties, Parton had not conceived yet.
After she collapsed on stage in Indianapolis, she was finally diagnosed with endometriosis — a health complication that caused the lining of the womb to grow on other organs. Her dreams of conceiving a baby by natural means came to an end after she was forced to undergo a partial hysterectomy at the age of 36.
The realization caused Parton to fall into a deep depression. She started binge eating, drinking recklessly and at one point, even considered taking her own life. “Suddenly I was a middle-aged woman. I went through a dark time, until I made myself snap out of it,” Dolly explained in 2017 book 'Dolly on Dolly: Interviews and Encounters with Dolly Parton'.
Parton's decision to undergo surgery did not bode well with many of her family members. Things got worse when she decided that she and Dean will not be adopting any children. Although it took some soul-searching, she finally came to terms with the fact that she was never going to be a mother and turned all her focus to achieve heights of success in her singing career. And now, Parton does not regret not having children of her own.
"It wasn't meant to be. Now that we're older? We're glad," she told the Guardian in 2014. "I would have been a great mother, I think. I would probably have given up everything else. Because I would've felt guilty about that, if I'd have left them [to work, to tour]. Everything would have changed. I probably wouldn't have been a star."
Even though she never got to have her own kids, Parton is surrounded by children all the time as being one of 12 siblings meant she had plenty of opportunities to become an aunt and grandmother to many kids.
"I'm the perfect grandma, I'm the perfect aunt, I'm the perfect babysitter, because I don't have children. So I bring them over to visit me by choice. They don't get dumped on me," she told Huffington Post. "I got tree houses. I got caves. I love to babysit because it gives me a chance to play."
She is famously a godmother to popstar Miley Cyrus.