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Janet Jackson juggling motherhood and career

Published:Tuesday | August 13, 2019 | 12:00 AM
Janet Jackson performs at the King Abdullah Sports Stadium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during the Jeddah World Fest concert on Thursday, July 18.
Singer Janet Jackson performs on the fourth day of the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, Somerset, England, on Saturday, June 29, 2019.
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Janet Jackson “does it all” herself when it comes to ­raising her son.

The 53-year-old singer – who has two-year-old Eissa with estranged husband Wissam Al Mana – ­admitted that being a working parent is “hard” but said that she doesn’t want to employ a nanny because her own mother, Katherine Jackson, had no problems raising her large brood without help.

She told Stellar magazine: “It is hard being a working mother. I don’t have a nanny. I do it all myself. If my mother did it with nine children, there’s no reason I can’t. Of course, when I’m working, someone watches him, but it’s my baby and me. It’s not easy at times, but my life has changed. Obviously, my baby comes first.”

Although he is only two, Eissa is already showing signs of following in the footsteps of his musical ­family and refuses to be parted from his beloved violin, an instrument he chose to learn for himself.

Janet said: “He kept taking his drumstick and running it across his guitar. I thought, ‘Why is he playing it like a cello?’ He went into his room and got a figurine of a violin and brought it to me. Then he grabbed his drumstick and guitar and kept going.

“So I came home with a toy violin, showed him one time how to hold it, and that was it. Then I bought him a real violin, and he got so excited. He sleeps with it. He eats breakfast, lunch and dinner with it.

“I show him little kids ­playing violin on the iPad, then he was finding them himself, all these child prodigies. He creates melodies.”