Faith Hill Has No Regrets About Putting Family Before Career

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill have always balanced their careers with the needs of their family, prioritizing time with their daughters far above anything else. But now that the girls – 21-year-old Gracie, 19-year-old Maggie, and Audrey, 16, have their own lives, the power couple are slowly able to begin focusing on their own careers more than they have in the past.

“[They] have their own lives now,” Hill tells PEOPLE of their children.

“The girls are old enough now that if Mom and Dad want to focus on music together, it’s less of a problem and more of a kick,” adds McGraw’s former publicist, Holly Gleason.

Hill’s last studio album was Fireflies, released in 2005. The album contained one chart-topping single, “Mississippi Girl,” and three Top 10 hits, including the duet “Like We Never Loved at All,” with her husband. The record took three years to make, because Hill was already spending as much time at home as possible. She still could have continued her run as the reigning female superstar of country music – a title she held ever since the release of her crossover hit, “Breathe,” but for Hill, there were other, more important things she wanted to do with those years.

“We made a choice to do it that way, and we don’t regret it for a second,” Hill says. “They come first no matter what.”

McGraw continued to perform and record, but made it a point to be at as many of his girls’ activities as possible, even when it was an inconvenience for him. But it’s their good friend, Lori McKenna, who wrote hits like McGraw’s “Humble and Kind,” who illustrates just how seriously Hill took her role as a mother.

“I remembered seeing Faith in a lawn chair helping her kids paint, and I’m like, ‘Oh she’s a housewife just like I am,’” she recalls. “And she really is. It’s just that she looks and can sing like Faith Hill!”

The couple have been married for 21 years, and say the secret to their success really isn’t a secret at all.

“Funny, as we get older it’s less about the big gestures and more about just spending the time together at home,” McGraw tells PEOPLE. “For our 20th wedding anniversary, we stayed home, in our pajamas and watched TV. We loved it.”

McGraw and Hill are currently on their Soul2Soul World Tour, hitting the road for the first time without their daughters, who opted to stay home because of their own busy schedules. Find dates at Soul2SoulTour.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Matt Winkelmeyer