Becoming a stay-at-home mom and wife has been one of the best decisions my husband and I have made for our family.
I genuinely love it.
I love being able to move through our days at our own pace. I love having my children home with me. I love that our mornings don’t have to begin with everyone rushing out the door. I love keeping our home tidy, cooking for my family, homeschooling our children and simply being present for so much of their everyday lives.
I also know what a blessing that is.
Not every mother who wants to stay home has the ability to do so. Even in two-parent households, finances, careers, family circumstances and countless other factors can make staying home unrealistic.
So I don’t take this season of my life for granted.
But let’s also clear something up.
I stay at home.
I do not sit at home. 😂
There is a very big difference.
Our Mornings Usually Start Slowly
One of my favorite things about our lifestyle is that our mornings don’t have to start in chaos.
Well…
At least not scheduled chaos. 😂
We ease into our mornings.
My husband and I begin our day together with Bible study before he leaves for work. Later, the kids wake up, we have breakfast, get ourselves together and move into homeschooling and whatever else the day has waiting for us.
My children are 13, 6 and 5, so as you can imagine, they’re in completely different stages of life and learning.
One of the things I’ve loved most about homeschooling is being able to give each of them room to learn at their own pace—within reason, because Mom still has a schedule and we cannot turn one math assignment into a three-business-day event. 😂
But there isn’t the same pressure to make every child fit into exactly the same timeline.
If someone needs extra time, we have it.
If something is clicking quickly, we can keep moving.
If the morning starts a little slower than expected, we adjust.
That flexibility has been amazing for our family.
Our Home Runs on Routine—Not Perfection
People sometimes hear words like “routine” or “schedule” and imagine every hour of the day perfectly mapped out.
That is absolutely not what’s happening over here.
We have three children.
There will be chaos. 😂
But there is also structure.
We have a general rhythm for our days that helps everyone know what comes next. We have time for homeschooling, meals, work, household responsibilities and the other things that make our home function.
Sometimes everything goes according to plan.
Sometimes absolutely nothing does.
Someone wakes up late. An appointment comes up. A child needs more attention. Work takes longer than expected. Something around the house needs to be handled.
Life happens.
The routine gives us something to return to.
That’s probably one of the biggest things I’ve learned about managing our home: a routine doesn’t have to control your life to create order in it.
Our schedule works for us because there’s room for real life inside of it.
Being Home Doesn’t Mean I’m Not Working
This is probably where my version of being a stay-at-home mom looks a little different than people might expect.
I’m also a content creator, blogger and small-business owner.
So somewhere between breakfast, homeschooling, dishes, cleaning, meals, conversations with my kids and everything else happening around the house, I’m also working.
I may be responding to an email from a brand.
Editing a video.
Filming content.
Writing a blog post.
Planning upcoming content.
Working on something for my skincare business.
Taking photos.
Handling administrative work.
Or sitting at my laptop trying to finish one paragraph while someone walks into the room asking me a question they absolutely could have asked five minutes earlier. 😂
That’s the reality of working from home while also being the parent who is home.
There isn’t always a clean line between the two.
Sometimes I’m Mom.
Sometimes I’m the teacher.
Sometimes I’m creating.
Sometimes I’m handling the house.
And sometimes I’m doing several of those things within the same hour.
I’ve Built My Work Around My Family
For a long time, I worked in roles where my time belonged to other people.
Today, I’m intentionally building something different.
I still have professional goals.
I still want to grow as a content creator.
I want to grow this blog.
I have my skincare business.
I want to collaborate with brands, create things I’m proud of and contribute financially through the work I’m building.
Being a stay-at-home mom didn’t make those parts of me disappear.
If anything, it made me think differently about what I want work to look like.
I don’t want to build a successful career that requires me to sacrifice the family life my husband and I intentionally created.
I want to build work around my life instead of constantly building my life around work.
And I’m still figuring out exactly what that looks like.
Some seasons are more productive than others.
Some days I accomplish everything I planned.
Other days, motherhood needs more of me.
I’ve had to learn that both kinds of days can still be valuable.
There Is So Much Work Nobody Really Sees
One of the interesting things about taking care of a home is how much of the work becomes invisible when it’s being done consistently.
The kitchen gets cleaned.
Laundry gets washed.
Meals appear.
Groceries get remembered.
Schoolwork gets planned.
The house gets reset.
Schedules are kept in mind.
Someone realizes we’re almost out of something before we’re completely out of it.
Someone remembers what needs to happen tomorrow.
Someone is thinking ahead.
And then the next day…
You do many of those things again.
There’s rarely a big finish line where everyone gathers around and says:
“Wow. Congratulations. The household has officially been completed.” 😂
Because it never really is.
A home is lived in.
Children need things.
People eat again.
Laundry somehow regenerates.
Life continues.
I’ve learned to appreciate that the work doesn’t have to be permanent to be meaningful.
Being Present Is One of My Favorite Parts
There are certainly challenging days, but one of the things I value most about being home is simply being here.
I get to see so much of my children’s lives.
I get to watch them learn.
I get to notice the little things.
We can have conversations in the middle of the day.
We can slow down when someone needs it.
We can eat together.
I can create a home environment that feels peaceful and comfortable to us.
That doesn’t mean every moment is magical.
Please.
There are three children living here. 😂
There are disagreements.
There are messes.
There are days when everyone apparently needs Mom at exactly the same time.
There are days when I would like approximately twelve uninterrupted minutes.
But even within the chaos, I know this is a season of life I will someday look back on.
I don’t want to rush through all of it.
Being a Stay-at-Home Wife Matters to Me Too
Being a stay-at-home mom and wife has allowed me to be intentional about the kind of home and family life my husband and I want to build together.
I talk a lot about motherhood because, naturally, the kids take up a huge portion of our everyday life.
But being a wife is an important part of this choice too.
My husband and I made this decision together.
Our roles look different, but we’re working toward the same thing: taking care of our family and building the kind of life we want together.
I appreciate being able to create a home that we enjoy coming back to.
I enjoy cooking.
I enjoy keeping our space comfortable.
I enjoy being available to my husband and children.
And none of that makes me feel like I’ve lost myself.
I think that’s important.
Caring for my family is part of who I am, but it isn’t the only thing that makes me who I am.
I’m still creative.
I’m still ambitious.
I’m still building businesses.
I’m still learning.
I’m still dreaming.
I’m still Gaby.
Marriage and motherhood didn’t erase those things.
They’re simply part of the life those dreams now exist within.
I Don’t Think There Is One “Right” Way to Be a Mom
My experience as a stay-at-home mom and wife won’t look exactly like someone else’s, and I don’t think it needs to.
I want to be especially clear about this.
Being a stay-at-home mom works for our family.
I love it.
I’m grateful for it.
But that doesn’t make it the standard every woman needs to follow.
Some mothers love their careers outside of the home.
Some mothers need to work outside of the home.
Some work remotely.
Some stay home full-time.
Some homeschool.
Some send their children to school.
Some families move between several of those arrangements during different seasons.
There are so many ways to build a family life.
This is simply ours.
And I think women deserve much more grace around those choices than we’re sometimes given.
Some Days Feel Productive. Others Don’t.
This is something I’ve had to work on personally.
When you have a traditional job, productivity can be easier to identify.
You completed the project.
You answered the emails.
You clocked the hours.
You earned the paycheck.
At home, productivity can look completely different.
Maybe I didn’t film the content I planned because motherhood needed more of me.
Maybe the blog post didn’t get finished because homeschooling took longer than expected.
Maybe my biggest accomplishment was getting everyone fed, getting through school, resetting the house and making it to the end of the day.
I’m learning not to measure every day by the same standard.
There are days when I absolutely crush my business goals.
There are days when I crush motherhood.
And there are days when everybody is alive, fed and loved, and we’re calling that a victory. 😂
The Chaos Doesn’t Cancel Out the Blessing
There are days when I’m tired.
Days when the house I just cleaned somehow looks lived-in again five minutes later.
Days when homeschooling requires more patience than I feel like I have, work gets pushed aside, plans change and everybody seems to need something from me at once.
I don’t love every moment of being a stay-at-home mom and wife.
But I love this life.
There’s a difference.
Being able to stay home with my children, homeschool them, care for our home and still pursue the things I’m passionate about is something I consider a privilege.
It’s something my husband and I chose together, and it’s something I’m genuinely grateful we’re able to do.
The hard moments don’t make me less grateful.
The overwhelming days don’t mean I made the wrong choice.
And the fact that I love this life doesn’t mean I have to pretend it’s always easy.
The chaos doesn’t cancel out the blessing.
If anything, sometimes the chaos is part of it.
This Is the Life We’ve Chosen
For me, being a stay-at-home mom and wife is busy, repetitive, beautiful, exhausting and incredibly meaningful.
Being a stay-at-home mom and wife isn’t a permanent vacation.
It’s not endless free time.
And it definitely isn’t doing nothing.
It’s repetitive.
It’s busy.
It’s sometimes overstimulating.
It’s beautiful.
It’s exhausting.
It’s funny.
It’s ordinary.
And it’s incredibly meaningful to me.
I get to raise my children closely.
I get to teach them.
I get to build a home I love.
I get to pursue work that matters to me.
I get to build businesses and create while still being present for the people who matter most to me.
Some days are organized.
Some days are chaos.
Most days are probably a little bit of both.
But this is the life my husband and I chose for our family.
And despite all the chaos that comes with it, I feel incredibly blessed that I get to live it.
I wouldn’t trade it. 💚
