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Carrie Underwood proves you can be a great mom and career woman

Carrie Underwood has been the queen of the country scene for over a decade now. But the busy working mom, who has two sons with husband Mike Fisher–Isaiah, 4, and Jacob, 8 months–says she wants to inspire other women to strike a balance between career and family.

Underwood wants her fans to know it’s possible to do both, according to Entertainment Tonight.

“I think that’s something people don’t really think about. You see us on stage, and you see the rhinestones and the make-up and the hair; you don’t see all the hours that went into everything else,” Underwood told Entertainment Tonight. “I feel like there’s a lot of women who feel like they have to give up [having a family] to follow their dreams, and hopefully they can see that you can juggle…I’m not gonna lie. It’s hard, but you get people around you who will help and be a part of your family. You can have it all. We are living the dream.”

Underwood has live-in help–including housekeepers and a nanny–but says she handles baby Jacob’s late-night feedings by herself. She said working and raising two kids is hard and exhausting–but that it’s given her more respect for the women she watched do it all growing up.

“It makes me respect those women that I grew up idolizing even more, and I didn’t even know all that they had on their plate,” she said.