For almost 19 years I’ve been blogging here (that’s crazy!) When I first started, I was a young, fiery mom with a passion for sharing my opinions.
Why a large family, why homeschooling, why staying at home with your children…all the things. I built a tribe without knowing what I was doing. People resonated with what I said. They felt heard and seen and validated.
I didn’t know yet that people on the internet were mean.
I didn’t know I’d have an entire site devoted to attacking me and my family.
Over the years I got a little jaded from it, I guess. I felt less courageous. I felt emotionally exhausted from all the hate. Some days I wanted to just hide from it all.
But tucked in this website are thousands of nuggets that have carried a lot of mamas through some hard days.
Now I’m 53. I still carry all the passions I’ve written about. I’ve softened on a lot of points, learned some hard lessons about how little control I have over my kids, and slooooooowwwwwly learning to trust God even when things don’t look how I want them to.
Overall, I look back over the last 20 years and marvel at God’s mercy to me and my family. All my children are walking in truth and even though there are bumps in the road sometimes, He has been so faithful and we are so very blessed.
If I could strip it all back to my core passion though, it’s showing moms the importance of being home, being the primary influencer of her children’s heart and values, no matter the cost.
It cost my husband so much for me to be home. He worked 3 jobs for long time. He missed so much of our younger kids’ growing up. And looking back, I cry if I think about it too much.
Last year I finally figured out how to help him financially and it has been my greatest joy to give him some relief after he’s worked so hard for us these past 2 decades.
So now I share what took me way too long to figure out with young moms who are where I was. You can do both. You can be home AND not starve or barely scrape by and not have to watch your husband break.
If that’s you, reach out to me. Nothing is worth missing your babies growing up.