'Fatherhood broke me down': Justin Timberlake gets VERY honest about being a dad

"At first, it broke me down,” he confessed.

"Those first 8 months felt like those old [Ed Sullivan] shows where people are balancing spinning plates on poles, except if you drop one, they die."

Firstly, Justin gets a 10/10 from us for this spot-on parenting analogy ??

And secondly, we can def relate to what he’s saying here. We so remember how that new, life-altering responsibility can be incredibly overwhelming (and stressful), especially when you're running on next-to-no sleep ?

But the star didn't just reflect on the past few years. He also talked about his atypical childhood in the interview, and explored how that affects him as a dad today.

(If you remember, Justin found fame at the age of 11 in The New Mickey Mouse Club alongside Britney and Ryan Gosling, and then went on to become a pop megastar in *NSYNC as a teenager.)

"I have some faint images from my childhood, but no, I can't really remember not being famous,” he told the publication. "I think we can all agree that I did not have a normal childhood."

"You go through your life with your own traumas, big and small, and think, 'It's not that bad, I have a lot to be thankful for, my parents did the best they could,’

"But then you have a child of your own, and suddenly it opens all the floodgates, and you're like, 'No, no, no! That childhood trauma really did f*** me up!’"

He also revealed that he’s not sure whether he’d want a grown-up Silas to mirror his career in the spotlight...

"Would I want my child to follow my path? You know, I haven't been able to answer that question in my mind. If he wanted it bad enough, I suppose I could teach him a lot about what not to do."

But for all the cloudy moments of uncertainty and stress that being a parent can bring, there’s often a silver lining. And for Justin, it seems it’s getting to share what he does with his son:

"Watching him jump around to Can't Stop The Feeling, starting to learn words because of that song - it's the best thing in the world.”

❤️️

Images: Twitter/Fallon Tonight

Read more:

• Justin jokes about price of toddler clothes - but does he have a point?
• Who is Justin's son Silas named after?
• Justin's teary tribute to pregnant wife Jessica Biel