Dolly Parton Never Had a 'Burning' Desire for Kids Amid Longtime Marriage to Carl Dean: 'I Had My Career and My Music'

Dolly Parton doesn’t seem to regret not having kids.

In a recent interview, the country legend spoke about her decision to choose her career over having a family, despite her 57-year marriage to husband Carl Dean.

“I haven’t missed [having kids] like I thought I might,” she revealed to Saga Magazine in a recent interview.

“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,” she explained.

“I had my career and my music and I was traveling,” she stated.

“If I’d had kids,” the 77-year-old said. “I’d have stayed home with them, I’m sure, and worried myself to death about them.”

Parton, who originally tied the knot with Dean in 1966, added that bringing kids into the world at this point in time would not sit right with her with “everything that’s going on.”

In September the “Jolene” vocalist spoke with Mojo Magazine sharing a similar sentiment.

“I’m almost glad I never had children,” Parton told the publication. “I worry myself to death about my little nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews.”

“My husband and I, we just think of ourselves as each other’s child. He’s my only child, and I’m his only child,” the 10-time Grammy winner noted.

She also said the world isn’t “making any progress,” which allows her to feel secure in her decision.

“Nobody’s willing to listen to anybody else,” Parton explained. “Everybody already knows everything.”

During the final episode of What Would Dolly Do? Radio on Apple Music 1, Parton spilled why her husband has chosen to take a backseat when it comes to her career.

“Carl has never been in the limelight and all, never wanted to be in it. He don't like it,” the blonde beauty told co-host Kelleigh Bannen. “He went to one thing with me early on, when we first married, to a BMI Song of the Year [event], and he came out of there taking off his tuxedo, his tie and all that and said, ‘Don't ever ask me to go to another one of these damn things because I ain't going.’ I never asked him and he never did.”

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