Sheryl Crow Says She’ll ‘Go Back to Work Full-Time’ When She’s an Empty Nester: ‘I’m Too Selfish’

Sheryl Crow won’t sacrifice time with her kids.

In a cover story with Variety published on Wednesday, April 30, the “Real Gone” singer revealed the reason why she hasn’t gone back to work full-time.

“I’m too selfish to want to miss any time with them,” Crow, 63, said of her two sons Wyatt and Levi, whom she adopted as infants.

“I feel like my 18-year-old was just born, and he’s gonna be leaving for college in a year,” she said of Wyatt.

Once Levi, 15, is also out of the house, she’ll go back to “work full-time.”

“I have an acute connection to joy when I’m playing,” she explained.

In September, Crow will join Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan for the Outlaw Music Festival on select dates. She would’ve played all of them, she told Variety, but her kids “don’t want to go on the road.”

In March of last year, Crow said her teenage kids find her “cringey” at times — but they’re also fans of her music.

“I actually played ‘Alarm Clock’ for them because that’s the first song that came out on the record,” she said on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “It’s about how much I hate my alarm clock, and it literally was inspired by 13-year-old Levi, because we are not morning people. Across the board. Wyatt jumps out of bed. He’s like, ‘Days on, let’s go.'”

“I also wrote a song called ‘Broken Record,’ and I played it for them and they were like, ‘Mom, you can not put that on your record. No.’ Same with TikTok, ‘Mom, you can not be on TikTok. That is so cringey,'” Crow told Meyers.

Meanwhile, in February 2023, Crow told PEOPLE at the MusiCares 2023 Persons of the Year Gala that her sons were “both musical.”

“I don’t know that either one of them really wants to do that, but they’re both musical, and I’m one of those obnoxious parents who’s like, ‘You have to take piano. Do not argue with me about it,'” she said.

“But my 15-year-old, he’s got a great ear and can play really well,” she added. “I think he will always tinker, but he wants to be a marine biologist, so I don’t know how to compete with that because it’s such an— I don’t even know what they do. So I’m happy for him to go save the reefs. That’s what he wants to do.”