At 30 years old, Solange Knowles is at the top of her game. The singer put out her third studio album, A Seat at the Table, in September; it was met with critical acclaim. And her family life — with her husband of three years, music video director Alan Ferguson, and her 12-year-old son, Daniel Julez, from a previous marriage — is going just as well as her career. 13 years ago, though, Knowles' life looked very different, as she reveals in a candid new interview with Elle . The March cover star opened up to the magazine about what it was like becoming a mother when she was just 17. "It was one of the most bittersweet moments of my life," she said, "because I was so in love with Julez, and having spent a lot of time on the road, I yearned to be in one place, to have the opportunity to really ground myself with him." The young mom was living in Moscow, Idaho at the time, with then-husband Daniel Smith. (The couple divorced in 2007, and co-parent their son.) While Solange was raising a little person, her big sister Beyoncé was, in contrast, scooping up Grammys as a new solo artist. So while motherhood was an unplanned blessing in a away, it was also "isolating and lonely, and so cold and dark," Knowles recalled. "And it was just Julez and me most of the time. It was hard to imagine being able to progress in my career in any way." Little did Knowles know that all these years later, her career would be on fire (and her son would be this freaking cute).