Jessica Simpson was "too nervous" to return to work until her children were settled in school and "in life".

The singer/actress put her career on hold to focus on raising her three kids - Maxwell, 11, Ace, 10, and Birdie, four - with husband Eric Johnson and she's now revealed she didn't want to step back into the spotlight too soon.

She told PEOPLE: "I was too nervous to go back to my career until I felt my kids were confident enough in school and in life. I wanted to be a mom first."

Jessica went on to suggest she's in the cusp of a comeback after spending the summer in Nashville, Tennessee working on new music, adding: "They're [the kids] very excited, and they know that I'm living my dream and that's what I was born to do. To have them experience that with me is going to be really beautiful."

It comes after she told Extra about her plans to get back into music, insisting she didn't want her kids to be raised on the road. She explained: "I really wanted my kids to be raised as normal as possible in the first 10 year. Like, I didn’t want to be on the road all the time, I didn’t want to be gone all the time, and I feel like I’ve given that to them."

She added of her music return: "It gives me chills thinking about it because I know that whenever I open this big old trap of mine, a lot is going to come out and it’s going to be really powerful. I finally feel connected enough to my purpose in music, and I know exactly what it is I want to do. It’s very exciting."

Jessica also teased her new work will have "some of my southern roots back while I am in the recording studio".