The Dixie Chicks Discuss Motherhood

May 24, 2006 — -- The Dixie Chicks' new album is perhaps best-known for the political statements in "Not Ready to Make Nice," but children and battles with infertility are also prevalent themes.

"Emily [Robison] and I have dealt with the same issue, infertility, and miscarriage and the whole gamut," said the band's fiddle player, Martie Maguire. "And one of the hardest things in a relationship is you picture where the relationship is headed next after you've gotten married and you've been together a couple of years."

"And you grow up as a woman, I think, thinking you're going to have a child and that it's just kind of your God-given right to the next step. And then when it doesn't happen, you're shocked and saddened, and it's such an emotional journey to go on."

The Dixie Chicks wrote a song called "It's So Hard When It Doesn't Come Easy" about the problems Robison and her sister Maguire had having a child.

"I think you go through almost every emotion. I know my husband felt guilty. I know I felt guilty. For a moment you sit there and think if this doesn't happen, will he love me any less?" said Robison, the band's guitarist. "And those are the self-destructive thoughts that probably you shouldn't be thinking, but I just think it's natural."

"It feels strange to talk about it now because I have got three children, and when they're climbing all over me it's bizarre to talk about infertility problems. But thank God for science. We have been blessed to live in an era when we have been able to do something about it."

The Dixie Chicks now have seven children among them: Lead singer Natalie Maines and her husband have 6-year-old Slade and Beckett who's 1; Robison and her husband have 3-year-old Charlie and 1-year-old twins, Henry and Juliana; Maguire and her husband have 2-year-old twins, Eva and Kathleen. The task for them all is to balance motherhood and music.

"My little one loves music, and he didn't know that that's what I did until the video when the single came out, and he watched it over and over and over," Maines said. "And now when he hears a song, he says, 'Mommy,' and he recognizes it, but he's way into music. He plays the drums."