Swedish singer Robyn is conquering parenting — just like dancing — all on her own.
“I thought it would happen much sooner,” Robyn, 46, told The Guardian in a profile published Friday, March 27, of her path to parenthood. “But then, I think motherhood in a conventional heterosexual relationship, in my life at least, has been really hard to reconcile with what I think I would have to do to make that work.”
After Robyn went through a breakup in 2020, she decided to undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the hopes of getting pregnant. (The “Dancing On My Own” singer froze her eggs when she was 34.)
“I would have been able to accept things that weren’t great in a relationship without children,” she said. “But, when kids exist, every single thing that the other person does is so important. The idea of having children in the relationships I was in felt like a very risky thing to do. I just felt [like] that was more scary than waiting.”
Robyn (real name Robin Miriam Carlsson) ended up waiting until she was in her early 40s to start the IVF process.
“I was older. I didn’t know if it was going to work. I did a few rounds,” she recalled of the process. “It was a f***ing roller coaster, but also it makes you think about things that you otherwise wouldn’t. What is my identity as someone with children, and what is it without? It’s extremely existential.”
Robyn continued, “I had seen myself having a kid in a stable relationship. I was sad to let go of that. It felt like a failure. … I don’t think any human being can say, ‘I have a right to have a child.’ But if you want it, you can’t really question your desire to be a parent. You can question how you do it and who you do it with, but you can’t question the actual need. It’s like saying, ‘Why are we here?’”
According to Robyn, she found IVF to be “pretty hardcore.”
“It’s definitely a challenge, physically and psychologically,” the musician said. “But ‘boohoo, I had to do IVF,’ it’s also a privilege. The fact that it’s even possible! It’s something that costs money, and a lot of people don’t even have the option.”
Robyn welcomed son Tyko in July 2023, now raising her only child as a single parent.
“It’s very, very taxing to be a single mum or dad. I grew up that way,” she acknowledged to the British newspaper, also referring to her parents’ divorce during her childhood. “My mother was tired and she was struggling, and I just didn’t want to repeat things that I’d been through as a kid. I don’t want to expose my mum. She’s a great mum, but, you know, just the lack of time, the lack of energy to be present, to not feel happy with your situation.”
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