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" Sara Evans&amp;#039;s new album, Slow Me Down, hits stores on March 11, and we had a chance to chat with the extremely energetic and hilariously candid singer in anticipation of her seventh (!!) record&amp;#039;s debut. Already a mom of three, Evans married quarterback-turned-sportscaster Jay Barker, who has four kids of his own. We checked in with the surprisingly unstressed singer about how she makes it all work.  Seriously, how do you coordinate everything? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a constant balance and takes effort. I hate leaving my children and missing anything that they have going on. It takes a lot of organization, pre-planning, and having a backbone with the people who help with my schedule. Sometimes you sacrifice really big things in your career, but it&amp;#039;s better to sacrifice there than with your children.&amp;quot; Do you ever feel guilty that you do have to leave them? &amp;quot;I definitely guilt myself every time I&amp;#039;m getting ready to leave for a couple of days. I just go like a madwoman, getting everything organized and cooking meals. I never want Jay and the kids to feel neglected because Mommy&amp;#039;s gone. I try to be superwoman, and sometimes I wear myself out. I&amp;#039;ve been balancing my career and children for 14 years, though, and I&amp;#039;m definitely in the grove with it.&amp;quot; How has your relationship with your kids evolved now that they&amp;#039;re becoming teenagers? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve never been one of those moms who said &amp;#039;I wish they&amp;#039;d stay babies forever,&amp;#039; because I love every stage of it, and they have the right to grow up just like I did. But my son and I definitely went through a phase of discovery in terms of &amp;#039;how do we communicate and navigate through your becoming a young man?&amp;#039; last year.&amp;quot; How did you work it out? &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s still afraid of me, which is good! As a parent, it&amp;#039;s your job to discipline your child and make him respect you, because that is essentially protecting them. He knows he can only push it so far with me.&amp;quot; How do you keep things so open and honest? &amp;quot;They all have to turn their phones in at night. They&amp;#039;re not allowed to have passcodes or erase text messages. They know we can look at their phone at any time.&amp;quot; Does it work both ways? &amp;quot;I want to be able to show my children anything I do. I never wanted my private and public life to mix as much as they did when I got divorced. If there&amp;#039;s anything about it in any of my interviews, then I can&amp;#039;t show it to my kids.&amp;quot; Do you have any advice for Robin Thicke and Paula Patton, who just announced their separation, which will undoubtedly be very public? &amp;quot;With anything like that\u2014whether it&amp;#039;s divorce or anything personal you read in the tabloids\u2014you have to remember to take it with a grain of salt. Only the people that are directly involved truly know. The best policy is privacy, especially when there are children involved. I don&amp;#039;t understand people who forget that there are these innocent lives that need to be protected.&amp;quot; What did it feel like to come through something like that? &amp;quot;Jay and I have been married for almost six years, so it feels like another world and another life. It&amp;#039;s not even on my radar. If I talk about it, it becomes a story.&amp;quot; How do you go from work mode to mom mode? &amp;quot;I always joke about how I&amp;#039;m Hannah Montana because I have the best of both worlds. I get off the tour bus, go straight to the ballpark, and instantly become a mom.&amp;quot; Any guilty pleasures? &amp;quot;We watch Modern Family around the clock, and I love Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and House of Cards. Also, the very best show that&amp;#039;s ever been on television, Downton Abbey. I love the Dowager Countess, and Matthew&amp;#039;s mother always makes me cry; there&amp;#039;s something about her that&amp;#039;s so pitiful. Do you watch with your kids? Not everything\u2026 I get tired of how much gratuitous sex they&amp;#039;re showing now on TV. Even Modern Family has things that make me cringe. Sex is an awesome thing, but it also needs to be something that stays private to a large degree. Even the most sexually free-thinking person is a little bit embarrassed by shows like Songs of Anarchy and Orange Is the New Black. So true. We also love the lifestyle blog you have with your sister-in-law, A Real Fine Place. &amp;quot;We started doing webisodes together, and had wanted to start a blog, so we launched it as a place we could talk about fashion and mommyhood. We hope it grows into something big. I love following other people&amp;#039;s blogs!&amp;quot; Country stars: They&amp;#039;re just like us. Sara Evans&amp;#039;s new album, Slow Me Down comes out March 11. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, her website, and her blog. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/interviews/a17137/sara-evans-interview/>