Janet Jackson coping without a nanny for 2-year-old son

Janet Jackson and her son Eissa

Being a working mother is “not easy at times,” Janet Jackson admitted. But if her own mom was able to raise nine children, “there’s no reason,” she pointed out, she can’t do the same.

“It’s tough … I don’t have a nanny. I do it all myself,” the pop icon told the Australian magazine Stella in a recent interview. “Of course, when I’m working, someone watches him,” but offstage, it’s just “my baby and me.”

Janet gave birth to Eissa—her 2-year-old son with ex-boyfriend, Qatari businessman Wissam Al Mana—in January 2017.

“My life has changed,” added the American singer-songwriter, who has just ended her Las Vegas residency, “Metamorphosis.” “Obviously, my baby comes first.”

But all the hard work is worth it, especially seeing that Eissa has already taken an interest in music this early. She figured out her son wanted a violin, because the little kid would often take a drumstick and run it across a guitar.

“I thought, ‘Why is he playing it like a cello?’ He went into his room, 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,” she related.

And Janet hopes to nurture his son’s fascination by showing him videos of children playing the instrument. “I bought him a real violin and he got so excited. He sleeps with it. He eats breakfast, lunch and dinner with it,” she said. —ALLAN POLICARPIO