Welcome to the First-Generation Stay-At-Home-Mom.

READ: Being A SAHM Isn't Just A "Lifestyle Choice"

Welcome to The First-Generation Stay-At-Home Mom. I am so excited you’re here! My name is Abby Roth, and you might know me as the creator of Classically Abby, a brand dedicated to traditional values and classic living. After creating Classically Abby years ago as a young wife, I found that following the birth of my children, my passions began to shift towards motherhood, being a stay-at-home mom, and homeschooling.

That’s where The First-Generation Stay-At-Home Mom comes in.

The First-Gen SAHM is for all stay-at-home moms, but particularly for those who are the first in their families to take on the role of mother, caretaker, and homeschooler as a full-time vocation.

My mother wasn’t a stay-at-home mom. My grandmother wasn’t a stay-at-home mom. And so the generational knowledge that should have been passed down to me about how to run a home efficiently, how to cook and clean without resorting to the messy shortcuts, and how to organize my day with my children home with me, was lost. (None of this is meant to criticize my mother or grandmother who are both incredible women.) There’s no college degree in homemaking and mothering; there’s not even home economics classes to learn the basic skills in high school. All homemaking is now considered “a woman’s intuition.”

But what if I told you there’s a better way?

A woman’s intuition is wonderful, but it doesn’t help when you’ve never seen someone else accomplish the task of being a full-time SAHM. Without knowing it can be done, it can feel unattainable and unsustainable. If you’re raised with the idea that women work, children go to daycare and school, and the house is managed by a housekeeper, the many jobs that SAHMs have to accomplish can feel overwhelming.

First-generation SAHMs are playing catch-up, and without a community of like-minded women and a place to learn how to do all the things we were never taught, we will fail. I know too many women who wanted to be SAHMs with their children home with them and they simply didn’t have the tools to follow through.

Here, I hope to share my thoughts on the philosophical elements of being a SAHM (keep reading for today’s article, Being A SAHM Isn't Just A "Lifestyle Choice"), the practical tips and tricks that make being a SAHM possible, interviews with other women with more experience who can teach us all how to manage our days, and a ton of other content, too.

Being a SAHM is an amazing blessing; we are so lucky to get the opportunity to be the CEO’s of our own households and to be present each and every day for our children. But it’s not always easy - and that’s where The First-Gen SAHM comes in.

I’m so glad you’re here, and I can’t wait to embark on this journey together. If you know any other moms who you think would love to be part of this community, feel free to share with them. Now, enjoy your first look into The First-Generation Stay-At-Home Mom!

Being A SAHM Isn't Just A "Lifestyle Choice"

Photo by Liana Mikah on Unsplash

The tradwife movement. It’s a phenomenon on social media, and one I have commented on multiple times - on ABC’s Nightline, on NBC news, and in The New Yorker. One of the biggest issues with this movement is the image of perfection presented to everyday mothers: beautiful women in gorgeous dresses making lavish dinners and meals while their children are somewhere off screen, or mothers and fathers playing with their children seemingly in the middle of the day (when do they work?). But even outside of the tradwife conversation, this image of perfection has been shown on social media to moms generally, not just those who consider themselves “trad.”

In the past, I’ve defended the idyllic representation of motherhood because I don’t think it’s a bad thing to represent the lifestyle of a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) as more than drudgery. In today’s day and age, we often depict motherhood as a major burden, something we must endure rather than enjoy. Even as a SAHM in your own day-to-day, I think it’s important to romanticize your life - your perspective is the difference between seeing the good in each moment or suffering through the perceived bad. BUT…I have realized as I’ve continued to consume this content that there is something fundamentally missing from the conversation. Making the stay-at-home lifestyle look pretty, fun, and enjoyable is only a net positive if you view being a SAHM as a reflection of your values, not just a “lifestyle choice.”

A growing number of women online in the SAHM space have emphasized this as a “lifestyle choice.” It’s fun for them, it’s pleasant, it’s enjoyable. Their content is a reflection of this worldview - look at my pretty house, my pretty things, my pretty life. This choice is as valid as any other choice. You could be a SAHM or you could be a girl boss, it’s whatever YOU want. They say they’re simply presenting you with another option to consider. But - and here’s the REAL problem - what happens when they don’t enjoy the lifestyle anymore? What happens when things get too hard, when it’s not simply pretty, when the dishes are stacked too high? Without the values undergirding the choice, there is no reason for a SAHM to stay at home. She could easily pass the buck to someone else and go back to work herself, and at the end of the day, she would be perfectly fine with that because it’s serving her.

Without a true values-based approach to mothering, being a SAHM - a true, in the trenches SAHM (not simply a mother who doesn’t need to work, which is an entirely different conversation for a different time), especially with more than two children - is almost unsustainable for most modern women. We live in the day and age of expressive individualism, where you are meant to discover who you truly are outside of all the relationships that bind you. Often the relationships that give you meaning and purpose are also the ones that are exhausting and effortful. What that means is that when push comes to shove, modern women believe that who we were meant to be is hampered by the needs of others - and so the truly selfless act of motherhood is a hindrance to our self-fulfillment.

If you don’t believe that the best place you can be is home and the job of serving your family is paramount, that lifestyle choice that looks too good to be true on Insta will turn out to be just that. When the beautiful dresses are dirty and the dinner isn’t on the table and the children aren’t playing independently when you need a break, you will think you deserve to find your happiness somewhere different. Somewhere better. And so you’ll make compromises to hang on to your “lifestyle choice” - you’ll have fewer children to minimize the strain and the chaos; you’ll outsource your children to daycare when it gets too hard; you’ll start working so you can enjoy your me-time.

So when is making the idyllic content of life as a SAHM okay…or even good? When it does come from a values-based creator. If a woman truly believes that the only place she should be is at home, raising her children - if she hasn’t been taken in by the modern perspective that her family is costing her her own purpose in life - then she can offer a beauty and joy to her followers as an encouragement, as a reminder, of what this choice is for and all the true joy it can bring. It’s not an enticement to those who are simply looking for a picturesque lifestyle choice without the underlying beliefs. It’s not a braggadocious, “Look at how pretty my life is, I’ve got it all figured out.” It’s a way to shore up those mothers who feel stuck in the mire of their negative thoughts: “Look, this is what we really get to enjoy, even when it’s hard!”

I follow a few of these women who are both simultaneously honest about their day-to-day struggles (a necessary element, in my opinion) and also romantic about the lives they lead. Their faith that this choice is the best for everyone in their home - including themselves - is what makes what they share inspiring. The momfluencers who preach this as nothing more than a lifestyle choice, though, are doing a disservice to their followers. First, they have lost the thread on their own value at home. “It’s just my preference! It’s all for me!” is a sad perspective to have on all the good they are bringing their families and relegates their motherhood to the same as any girl boss, allowing the women who follow them to indulge the fantasy of serving themselves in what is truly one of our most selfless acts. Second, these momfluencers are lying to women who don’t know - being a mom is wonderful and joyous, but it’s also hard work. It takes the same amount of effort as any other job you would take seriously with the added glory of seeing your children grow, taking life slowly, and being the boss of your own household. But what gives us strength in the moments of weakness? Not how pretty our day-to-day is. It’s the values that tell us it’s all worth it.