Jhené Aiko was honored at the inaugural Mom Honors Awards held on Wednesday, May 1st, where she took the stage to open up about being a mother.
In a moving speech, Aiko spoke about her realization that motherhood was her true calling, despite her success as a performer. “I always knew that I wanted to be a mom more than anything, That was my dream. And so, I realized on stage at Coachella, I was like, ‘This is great!’ and ‘I love to do this, but this is not my dream.”
She said that being a singer is “something I think I’m cool at. You know what I mean? I’m good, I’m alright. And its fun but nothin fulfills me more than being a mom.”
Aiko’s desire for motherhood was shaped by her upbringing and the strong women in her family who prioritized their roles as caregivers. “I have the type of mom that dropped everything to be a mom, and that was always goals to me. And I saw my grandmother do that as well,” she said.
As the youngest of five siblings, Aiko found herself drawn to the idea of creating her own loving family. “My children, I feel so blessed that they picked me to be their mom. My daughter is 15 now; she just started high school. She just made varsity cheerleading. I still feel like 15 myself. I dont know how this has happened that i am mother of a 15 year old.”
However, Aiko also offered some words of advice based on her own experience. “I would advise not to wait as long If you only have one child. Right now, I have a teenager and a toddler ad that’s the wildest thing ever.”
“No one told me, ‘Hey maybe you don’t want to do that.'”
Despite the challenges of balancing motherhood with her career, Aiko expressed her love for being a mom. “I do not get out of the house much nowadays. I am still breastfeeding my one and a half year old. I have been in mommy world, but i love it. the goal is to get to the point where i can be at home and be at home with the van.”
As the night came to a close, Aiko reflected on the significance of the Mom Honors Awards ceremony and the importance of celebrating mothers everywhere. ” Not only is this way cuter than a Grammy. I think that this is so much more of an honor than those kinds of awards. Cause this is not a competition, this is just honoring mothers. So thank you. I think thiis the most importan job in the world.”
