Dear Stay-at-Home Moms

I get letters from many of you asking for help. You want to know if it’s okay to want more. You want to know how to recover lost parts of yourself. You want to know how to even get started. I’m going to start writing on these topics more, but to get the conversation going, here is my first response to each of you.

Dear stay-at-home moms, 

I want you to know that you’re important. I don’t just mean you’re important to your children’s development and well-being. I mean you are important in our world. Your journey, experience and perspective is valid and valued. The work you put in is worthy. The hours you spend putting everyone first are not in vain. You will reap the seeds of love and tireless work that you’ve sewn in your family, community and world. You are not invisible, disposable, or replaceable. You are beautiful, and you are very, very important.

I want you to know that you’re doing a good job. When your kids are being crazy and you want to go crazy, know you’re doing a good job. When your house isn’t sparkling and your parties aren’t Pinterest-perfect, know you’re doing a good job. When you feel like you are always coming from behind and you never feel like you have it together, just know you’re doing a good job. Because friends, you have the same permission as everyone else to have a life—a messy, imperfect, crazy, real life.

I want you to know that it’s okay. It’s okay to want more than laundry and Legos sometimes. It’s okay to want to do something with your education, skills and experience. It’s okay to need your girlfriends, a night out, a nap, or a break. It’s okay to not find your every fulfillment and validation for your entire existence in your children. It’s okay to fantasize about the “old you” sometimes. It’s okay to want to get away, get a hobby, or get a drink. It’s okay to want more.

Maybe your life hasn’t turned out like you thought it would, or maybe it’s better than you imagined. Maybe you’re staying home with the kids for a season because you need to, or maybe that’s your first choice and the best long-term decision for you and your family.

Either way, I want you to know that you have permission to be you. Not only a mother, but fully, completely, wholly the woman that God created you to be. Whatever that looks like in your world, you have permission to be you.

Being a mother is an amazing, life-changing, unmatchable gift. But I want to remind you that you were also perfect and whole and lovely and important before you had children. You have permission to want to be more than rides given, games played, homework completed and dinners served. You have permission to want to use your God-given gifts, talents, education and skills. You have permission to want to recover some of you that maybe was left behind when life got so busy. You have permission to be you.

I promise you this: The more you lean into living in the fullness of the woman that God created, the even better mother that you’ll be.

You are important.
You’re doing a good job.
It’s okay to want more.
And you have permission to be you.

Your friend,
Christy
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For more inspiration, encouragement and practical tips on how to put this into action, come to the Business Boutique Event and check out these articles:

How to Get Back to the Things You Love
When You’re Your Best
6 Lessons Learned From New Moms