Kelly Clarkson's Reaction To Finding Out Her Daughter Was Bullied Is Every Parent

From the moment we first gaze upon our precious newborns, an undeniable parental instinct takes over: Protect this child at all costs. At first, that might mean driving 35 mph down the highway on your way home from the hospital. It could also mean carrying a bottle of hand sanitizer everywhere and forcing anyone who comes within 2 feet of the infant to use it (guilty). When children get a little older, however, it becomes more difficult to protect them from the dangers of world. And celebrities are no exception. So when Kelly Clarkson found out her daughter was being bullied, I can so relate to how she reacted.

In an interview with Redbook for the magazine's new cover story, the mom of two admits motherhood has brought with it an unexpected companion. “Literally having children has brought fear to my life," Clarkson said, according to Us Weekly. “That sounds horrible, I know, but before kids I was fearless. Now I go to bed and I have nightmares of someone just grabbing my little girl and running.” Yikes!

The three-time Grammy winner went on to say she is afraid of not being able to protect her kiddos. “I’m a mama bear,” Clarkson said, according to Us Weekly.

It's probably for the best that this mama bear wasn't around when her daughter, River, encountered a bully at the park. As the singer told Redbook:

Our nanny told me ... that she just crumbled. I wouldn’t have handled that well. I totally went off on that 6-year-old in my head.

Thanks to Clarkson's teenage stepdaughter Savannah, though, it seems the singer already has practical experience under her belt when it comes to helping kids deal with bullies. “I just say, ‘You see all this stuff that gets said about me all the time? Just brush it off. Just worry about your own path, your own front porch, and everyone else can worry about theirs,’” she told People, of her advice to Savannah about cyberbullying. “It’s a shame that you have to teach that, but it’s an important lesson to learn: to let go of the things you can’t control.”

If you've lost track, Clarkson, 35, is mom to 3-year-old daughter, River, and 19-month-old, Remy, with husband Brandon Blackstock. She is also a stepmother to Blackstock's two children from a previous marriage — Savannah, 16, and Seth, 11. And if you ask this mama, that's more than enough. "Oh God, those tubes are gone!” she told KTU’s Cubby and Carolina in the Morning back in September. “That’s blasphemy. We don’t even speak of it. We’re both fixed in our own ways, yet we’ll still probably get pregnant again somehow.”

With three kids of my own, I can relate to Clarkson's overwhelming need to protect her children from life's ugliness. Especially with my firstborn, I've told off more than a few kids at the playground. And then there's this one time I won't ever forget. My little guy was 2 years old, and we were playing at a local splash pad near the end of summer. A young teenager was goofing off and riding his bike through the water — for what reason, I have no idea because there was specifically a sign that read, "No bicycles" — and wasn't paying attention. He nearly ran over my toddler. With a bicycle. I'm a little ashamed to admit that F-bombs flew freely from my mama bear mouth. It didn't exactly help that I was pregnant at the time. Damn hormones.

So yeah. I totally feel you, Kelly. I wish I could say it gets easier as they grow older, but I would be lying. Instead of freaking out over the possibility of your toddler tripping over a step or choking on a grape, you'll be worrying if other kids like him or why he's having trouble behaving at school. The urge to protect our children doesn't go away; it merely changes with the season of life.

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