Chap­ter 21 begins dur­ing a deeply trans­for­ma­tive time in my life, marked by the birth of my sec­ond son, Jay­den James, short­ly after Sean Pre­ston turned one. Jay­den radi­at­ed joy from the start, and hav­ing both boys filled me with an almost weight­less hap­pi­ness, as if I were float­ing. My body felt renewed—trim, strong, and free of the strain of pregnancy—making me feel young again, almost like a teenag­er redis­cov­er­ing her­self. Friends noticed the change imme­di­ate­ly. “You look so skin­ny!” one said, and I laughed, say­ing I’d been preg­nant non­stop for two years. But while my fig­ure returned, my sense of iden­ti­ty was far more uncer­tain.

The rush of reclaim­ing my body col­lid­ed with a qui­et ache. I missed feel­ing the boys safe inside me, shield­ed from the world. Once born, they seemed exposed, tiny beings in a world buzzing with intru­sive cam­era lens­es and harsh head­lines. I found myself caught between the pride of moth­er­hood and the fear of how vul­ner­a­ble they were out­side the womb. The joy of slip­ping back into clothes was under­cut by the sor­row of no longer phys­i­cal­ly pro­tect­ing them. The paparazzi inten­si­fied after Jay­den arrived, and we were forced to hide more, to pre­serve the last sliv­ers of pri­va­cy. That’s when spec­u­la­tion erupted—why no pho­tos of Jay­den?

Every out­ing was a tac­ti­cal mis­sion. Before step­ping out­side, I’d count cars parked near­by, know­ing most of them were stalk­ing pho­tog­ra­phers hop­ing for a mil­lion-dol­lar snap­shot. The fren­zy wasn’t just annoying—it felt threat­en­ing. These men had no bound­aries, treat­ing my babies like prizes in a media hunt. My heart raced as we wrapped the boys in blan­kets, try­ing to shield them from the noise and the flash. We had to ensure they could still breathe beneath those cov­ers, while I could bare­ly catch my own breath under the pres­sure. The fear wasn’t abstract; it was in every moment, every move­ment out­side our home.

I gave only one inter­view that year—to Matt Lauer. He recit­ed the harsh ques­tions float­ing in the tabloids: “Is Brit­ney a bad mom?” It stung, espe­cial­ly since no one was real­ly lis­ten­ing to my side. Instead, they talked about me, not to me. When Matt asked what it would take for the paparazzi to stop, I wished he’d direct that ques­tion at them. I would’ve done any­thing to make them go away. Amid the chaos, our house became a haven, at least in part.

Kevin and I had cre­at­ed what felt like a dream home in Los Angeles—right next to Mel Gibson’s place, with Olivia New­ton-John liv­ing near­by. We filled it with play­ful fea­tures: a slide into the pool, a toy-filled sand­box, and a mini play­house com­plete with a porch. It was a child­hood won­der­land, a fan­ta­sy made real. I want­ed the boys to grow up in a place full of laugh­ter and col­or. But in mak­ing that dream a real­i­ty, I start­ed los­ing touch with bal­ance. I demand­ed white mar­ble floors everywhere—against my designer’s advice.

He warned me about the dan­gers: slip­pery sur­faces, hard falls. But I insist­ed. I need­ed it to be beau­ti­ful, to feel in con­trol. That space was my nest, my shield, my expres­sion of love. Yet look­ing back, I see now how over-the-top it became. I was react­ing to the whirl­wind of hor­mones, the pres­sures of fame, and the exhaust­ing devo­tion of new moth­er­hood. My behav­ior became errat­ic. I shout­ed at con­trac­tors, fix­at­ed on per­fec­tion, and pushed myself—and every­one around me—to extremes. The murals of boys on the moon in their bed­rooms? Anoth­er attempt to give them a fan­ta­sy I nev­er had.

I poured every­thing into that home because I want­ed my boys to have mag­ic, safe­ty, and com­fort. They were my dream come true—tiny and per­fect, the embod­i­ment of every­thing I’d ever hoped for. I want­ed to give them the uni­verse, lit­er­al­ly paint­ing it across their walls. But my pro­tec­tive­ness turned sti­fling. I would­n’t even let my moth­er hold Jay­den at first, rationing out brief moments like they were bor­rowed time. That wasn’t fair to her—or to me. I under­stand that now.

In hind­sight, I real­ize I regressed. It was like when Justin and I broke up—I felt myself emo­tion­al­ly rewind­ing. Becom­ing a mom turned me into both nur­tur­er and child. I clung to them as if they were also cling­ing to me. There was heal­ing in it, a soft­en­ing of judg­ment, a real­iza­tion that every per­son starts out frag­ile and trust­ing. Yet there was also pain. It brought up old wounds, par­tic­u­lar­ly from my child­hood and from when my sis­ter Jamie Lynn was lit­tle. I became her shad­ow, emo­tion­al­ly sync­ing with her in a way that wasn’t entire­ly healthy.

There’s a psy­cho­log­i­cal expla­na­tion for it. Experts say par­ents with unhealed trau­ma can relive their pasts through their chil­dren, espe­cial­ly when their kids reach the same age where the trau­ma began. That’s what I expe­ri­enced. But in those days, men­tal health wasn’t part of pub­lic con­ver­sa­tion like it is now. I want to say to new moth­ers today: if you’re strug­gling, don’t bury it in per­fec­tion­ism or mar­ble floors. Seek help. What I was going through was like­ly peri­na­tal depression—sadness, anx­i­ety, deep fatigue—and it was wors­ened by the scruti­ny of the pub­lic eye. Being a new par­ent is over­whelm­ing enough with­out a thou­sand lens­es watch­ing your every move.