When Maddie & Tae first settled on the title for their new album, Through the Madness Vol. 1, they had no clue just how much “madness” the year ahead would bring. Taylor Kerr welcomed her first baby in January, quite a bit earlier than her expected spring due date, and just a week before the project’s release.
Thankfully, both Tae and her daughter Leighton are getting stronger after a “terrifying” unexpected hospital stay. But as she watches her band mate and best friend settle into motherhood, Maddie admits it’s daunting to consider the prospect of having a child of her own someday while maintaining a busy music career.
“You’re trying to run a business, you’re trying to make fans, you’re trying to release new music — and throw a baby into the mix,” she tells Kelleigh Bannen in an installment of Today’s Country Radio. “…And you need [your body] for both jobs.”
Plus, there’s the plight of being a working parent, torn between spending time on work and spending time with family.
“And I feel like it’s hard as women to…I feel like you’re going to feel guilty either way,” Maddie continues. “If you’re not with your baby and you’re working, you’ll feel guilty. Or if you’re with your baby, you’re not working. I just wish that guilt would go away.”
That’s something that Maddie & Tae had to deal with early on in Tae’s pregnancy, when they realized they had to start planning around the impending new family member.
“I think there’s this pressure on female artists…in the music and entertainment industry in general,” she adds. “Actresses, musicians, everything, that you can’t do it all. And I don’t know why we as a society think [of] women as that one-dimensional.”
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