Janet Jackson Talks Parenting Son Eissa: 'The Biggest Thing I’ve Done'

Janet Jackson gushed over the “beautiful impact” her son Eissa Al Mana has made on her life.

“The most important thing I’ve done, the biggest thing I’ve done, is become a mother, and it’s had a beautiful impact on my life,” Jackson, 58, said of her 7-year-old son in an interview with The Guardian published on Saturday, September 21.

“I wanted to have three children, but thought, ‘I should stop there, that’s probably all I can handle.’ Because you have to give all of yourself,” she explained. ”Obviously, you have to work, but you don’t come first anymore. Your life completely changes. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Jackson made her TV debut in 1975 on The Carol Burnett Show where she sang a duet with brother Randy. At the time, she was about the same age as her son is now, but Jackson was adamant that Eissa would have a “completely different” childhood than she did “because I worked and he doesn’t. And that’s it.”

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“I want him to experience being a child because you don’t get to do this over,” Jackson continued. “You’re an adult for the rest of your life, so I want him to enjoy each and every minute of being a child.”

Jackson even revealed in August 2019 that she hadn’t used a nanny for Eissa since his birth in 2017. “It is hard being a working mother,” the singer told Daily Telegraph’s Stellar magazine at the time. “I don’t have a nanny, I do it all myself. Of course, when I’m working someone watches him, but it’s my baby and me.”

In her interview with The Guardian, Jackson also opened up about the impact her parents, Joe and La Toya Jackson, had on her parenting style.

“There are some things you wish your parents had done differently and you say, ‘No, I’m gonna tell [my son] this.’ Because if they had done this with me, it would have been much better for me as a child,” the five-time Grammy winner explained. “I hated it as a kid, but I’m thankful for it now. I have to give credit to my parents for keeping me grounded.”

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Jackson welcomed Eissa in January 2017 with then-husband Wissam Al Mana, but the pair, who tied the knot in 2012, called it quits just three months after their son’s birth. “[She] felt hidden from family and friends,” a source told Us Weekly exclusively at the time of their relationship. “Janet felt like a prisoner.”

Over a year after their split, Jackson enthused about motherhood and her relationship with her young son in an interview with Billboard.

“My son, even in his short 17 months on this planet, has showed me that love, no matter how deeply you believe you have experienced that emotion, can always go deeper,” she told the outlet in May 2018. “Day after day and night after night, holding my baby in my arms, I am at peace. I am blessed. I feel bliss. In those moments, all is right with the world.”