Christina Aguilera is speaking out about the continued societal pressure women face to, essentially, have it all -- get married, have kids, slim down immediately after giving birth -- and how ridiculous those expectations are.

“Mothers are constantly expected to be the nurturers, the givers, the providers of a comfortable home,” she said in the latest issue of Women’s Health. “We’re expected to be pregnant, have the kids, breastfeed once we have the babies. And we’re expected to look amazing after baby, right? [We’re expected to] keep our husbands and boyfriends interested — because we’re supposed to get back to sexy and keep things exciting in the bedroom. There’s such a long list.”

Aguilera continued, saying it’s important that mothers find time for themselves: “Having children is the ultimate joy, and I love my kids, but women have to find time to nurture themselves. If someone has a baby, the first thing I'm like is, 'OK, are you taking care of you?’”

Aguilera also implores women to be kinder to themselves, especially when their own line of thinking skews negative every now and then: "I would say to any woman: 'Don't be too hard on yourself!' If you're not feeling confident on a certain day, you have to let that go, and own, 'Yeah, I'm not feeling confident today,' and you move on and try to enjoy the best you can.”

She also touches on working out after having kids, saying, "I'm not into deprivation; I'm not into suffering into getting a great body or the body that you want. I’m into enjoying life, being conscious and aware, but also breathing into yourself and owning what you got.”

One thing that helped Aguilera through her own self-esteem issues was incorporating yoga into her everyday life.

“It takes time, I think, to build confidence and to grow into feeling comfortable in your own skin. It is what you feel inside and how you can exude it and how you own it, sometimes in front of a camera. It's difficult on days when you don't feel it, but it is things like yoga that has helped me to know how to center myself and how to bring myself into that place of awareness and just being able to breathe into my own body,” she said according to a report from E! News. "My whole life, I feel like I've lived many years growing up in this business, from 7-years-old on, and very much a fight-or-flight mode and its things like yoga that brings you outside of that chaotic moment and then draws you inside to connect with what really is meaningful to you and sort of your inner light which then connects with your confidence."

Check out the full interview when Women's Health hits newsstands on February 9.

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