Classically Abby - telling the truth about how I feel as a stay-at-home mom...let's chat and fold laundry ：)

00:00:00.000 Hello friends! It feels like forever since I have sat down to film. Mostly because it has been

00:00:07.020 forever since I've sat down to film, but I've missed it. I've wanted to sit down and film.

00:00:13.440 Things have just been a little crazy over here, but I thought we would just sit down, catch up,

00:00:18.280 chat, and fold some laundry. I've got a whole big basket of laundry right here. I actually have a

00:00:23.960 whole other basket of laundry to do. To fold. It's already in the dryer. And I thought we could

00:00:30.520 just kind of fold laundry together, chat, catch up, see how everybody's been. And then, you know,

00:00:37.600 I also kind of wanted to talk about some bigger ideas I've been thinking about lately and just

00:00:43.100 being open and honest with you guys. So let's just hop right in. I'm folding Mr. Baby's clothes.

00:00:50.000 I'm folding towels. I'm folding our clothes. I actually have a question for you guys. Leave

00:00:57.260 a comment down below. How do you separate your laundry? Because I just do lights and darks.

00:01:02.000 If I'm getting really fancy, sometimes I'll do like all of my towels in one load. But most of the time

00:01:07.680 I'm not getting that fancy. Just curious what you guys think. So I have really taken a step back

00:01:15.260 as far as my makeup routine. I know that that isn't like why you guys are tuned into this video.

00:01:21.440 But I kind of wanted to mention it. Because I have been a really big makeup person for a long time.

00:01:28.000 Since I was about 21. I'm 29 now. So it's a long time. With being a mom and like not having time,

00:01:35.560 I just was looking for something. This is how I feel about my hair. This is how I feel about my makeup.

00:01:39.580 This is really even how I feel about clothing. Things that will just reduce and streamline my

00:01:44.700 morning routine. So I was trying to figure out ways to do that. And I don't have perfect skin.

00:01:51.460 Okay? Let's get it out there. Something that is hard for me is when people talk about,

00:01:58.080 well, I just use a little tinted moisturizer and my skin looks perfect. And I'm like,

00:02:02.380 you didn't even need tinted moisturizer. Your skin looks perfect without makeup. And that's why

00:02:06.720 some of the people I'm talking about, they can record like a whole vlog without any makeup on.

00:02:11.600 And they still look gorgeous. And look, I'm not saying if your skin isn't perfect without makeup,

00:02:16.220 you're not gorgeous. I'm just saying that I think for many of us, we feel self-conscious. So

00:02:21.860 all that said, I have been interested in kind of building up my confidence in that area.

00:02:30.460 And wanting to figure out ways to do my makeup that were faster, didn't have as much coverage,

00:02:36.440 and just being okay with that. So for me, one of the big things is foundation. When I do my

00:02:43.240 foundation, that means that I'm sitting down with a sponge and a brush. And then I have to,

00:02:48.760 after doing my foundation, which is more full coverage, I have to like bring back the contours

00:02:52.380 of my face and the color or else you look like a ghost. So you have to do bronzer and blush and

00:02:56.880 all these things. And I was like, I don't have time for this. I would much rather use a tinted sunscreen

00:03:01.580 or tinted moisturizer that I can use just like rubbing with my fingers. And that's it. So I've

00:03:07.940 been kind of doing some exploring. I think I figured out a combination that I like. It's the

00:03:11.840 Neutrogena UV tinted moisturizer or sunscreen, I think. And mix that with my Honest CC cream.

00:03:19.600 And the reason that that works is because the Honest CC cream has quite a good amount of coverage.

00:03:24.060 But if you actually use that alone, you would have to then do those other things I was talking

00:03:29.020 about, the bronzer and the blush. But if I mix it with the Neutrogena, then it lightens the

00:03:35.020 coverage a little bit. So it does even out my skin tone, but it doesn't totally wipe out any color in

00:03:39.200 my face. So I've been doing that. And that's really it. I've been doing a little bit of spot

00:03:43.620 concealing on those days that I have a few more acne spots, which at 29 I still have. But generally

00:03:51.300 that's just made my routine so much faster. So I'm doing that. I'm putting on mascara. I'm putting on

00:03:56.480 eyebrow gel. And I'm putting on like a lip gloss or a tinted chapstick or something like that. And

00:04:02.860 that is my whole routine. And I think it works for me. And it's just enough that I feel put together

00:04:09.600 in the morning. But it's not so much that I am just sitting in front of the mirror forever. So

00:04:15.500 that's kind of the update with my makeup routine. I kind of wanted to mention it because I'm coming on

00:04:21.240 camera. And often when I have come on camera before, it has been important to me to look really

00:04:27.240 put together and to really take the time to do my makeup. But I want to be more realistic with you

00:04:33.700 guys. To be honest, that's kind of where I'm at. And that's where I want to like some things I want

00:04:38.860 to talk about today's video is just that I have been trying to be almost like a perfect version of

00:04:48.660 myself on the internet. And not always. Like I've been very open with you guys. But there are times

00:04:53.740 that, you know, social media, you want to make your your life look nice and clean and perfect. And I'm

00:04:59.020 not saying that people should be spreading all of their inside information on the internet or like

00:05:05.120 being not being private. But showing the highlight reel isn't great either. And so just being more

00:05:11.580 honest and realistic about where I'm at, how I'm experiencing life, what it looks like to be a mom,

00:05:16.900 like, I think that's important. And so this is what my makeup really does look like. Not what it

00:05:23.600 looks like in a video where I'm trying to look my absolute best. This is what it looks like on a

00:05:28.000 normal day-to-day basis. So I thought I would mention that. I'm also planning on getting a haircut

00:05:32.640 actually at the end of this week. So I'm thinking I'm going to take off like three, four inches just

00:05:40.560 because I don't, I feel like the ends of my hair have gotten a little straggly, scraggly. And also I

00:05:47.120 don't like that I have to spend so much time on my hair. Again, it's just this convenience factor. If I

00:05:52.480 don't style my hair, then it looks messy to me. And I would prefer to have a shorter morning routine

00:05:58.720 that really does make my hair look easier and better to do. And it's just not as hard. So you'll see a

00:06:07.240 different haircut soon enough. It's been, it's been really nice over here. We really wanted to focus

00:06:12.980 on Mr. Baby for a little while. I think I took this break kind of right before Passover. And I've

00:06:19.840 just been taking my time to spend it with Mr. Baby. He's 15 months now. He's walking. It's incredible.

00:06:28.600 He's such a big boy. Actually, this morning, the funniest thing happened. He's like way more

00:06:34.820 capable than I, than I realized sometimes. So he figured out how to open the pantry, of course.

00:06:41.680 And of course, he likes to pull every single thing out that's on the shelves. And so he opened the

00:06:47.940 pantry. He pulled down some granola bars. And I was like, okay, there's a box of granola bars. And

00:06:53.080 it's basically sealed. Like you can't really get your hand in to grab anything. So I walked out of the

00:06:58.840 room. I come back. He has gotten out a granola bar. And not only has he gotten out a granola bar,

00:07:04.920 he has figured out how to tear into the packaging. And he's eating it on the floor. And he's just like

00:07:12.060 happily eating his little granola bar. I'm like, oh my god, I didn't know he was so self-sufficient.

00:07:18.600 And he was. He was just eating. He was happy. He was cracking me up. So, you know, motherhood is

00:07:26.200 awesome. I'm loving it. And spending just some time really focused on him, really focused on

00:07:32.540 homemaking has been really special. So it was just a nice gift that I gave myself for the last few

00:07:40.100 weeks so that I could just focus on being a mom. You know, I've been having some thoughts about

00:07:45.580 stay-at-home mom stuff. The truth is, is that, so I talk a lot about how being a stay-at-home mom

00:07:55.340 is a full-time job. And it is the most important job. And that there is nothing more important that

00:08:03.360 any woman could do. And I do believe that in my heart. But I was raised in the shadow of feminism.

00:08:14.400 As pretty much all of you were, I'm guessing. All of the people who are watching this video.

00:08:20.380 And so, no matter what I know to be true in my heart, I struggle with feeling like I'm not

00:08:30.220 fulfilling my potential. Or like I'm not doing something important enough for people to, like,

00:08:36.900 give me credit for. Which I think is a natural feeling if you haven't been raised in a home where

00:08:45.660 either your mom was a stay-at-home mom or where your community really values being a stay-at-home mom.

00:08:52.520 Now, that's not to say that my community doesn't value being a stay-at-home mom. But my community also

00:08:56.440 really values working women. So, I think that there's kind of this feeling of, like, am I doing

00:09:05.480 something worthy? Like, for example, taking a break from YouTube for a while, I felt really bad. I felt

00:09:13.600 like I wasn't doing something important. Or showing that I had, you know, done my part

00:09:23.440 to prove myself. Instead of just being like, you know what? The most important thing that I could

00:09:30.080 be doing is raising a person. You know? It's really a hard thing. Because I think we turn motherhood

00:09:39.240 into something anyone can do. Which anyone can do motherhood. But not, and this is controversial,

00:09:46.840 not everyone does it well. Because not everyone prioritizes it. My husband and I were actually

00:09:53.140 talking about this. That, like, you're not allowed to say that somebody who devotes their entire life

00:09:57.820 to parenting is in any way superior to somebody who puts girlbossing at the forefront of their

00:10:10.480 priority list and puts motherhood second. And it makes those women who are saying, you know,

00:10:19.800 I know this is more important. It makes it feel as though your efforts are not recognized.

00:10:29.400 In any other career, like, in any other job, we can say that someone is better at their job.

00:10:36.440 We can say that they work harder, and they put in more time, and they get recognized. You can't do

00:10:43.480 that with motherhood because it's such a sensitive topic. What I'm talking about is not so much about,

00:10:48.360 like, you're doing it right, and you're doing it wrong. Because there's so many different ways

00:10:55.400 to parent, right? There's, like, gentle parenting. There's more discipline. There's, like,

00:10:59.640 all these different sleep training. There's a million different ways to parent. But

00:11:05.160 the priority list matters. And saying that it doesn't

00:11:12.280 really undermines the women who have said, this is the most important job,

00:11:17.800 and I'm going to put it at the top of my list. But, you know, I really want to get to a point

00:11:22.520 where I can feel like I fulfilled my potential as a mom. That it doesn't have to be this other

00:11:28.040 thing that people look at and give me credit for. Whether that be YouTube or Substack or whatever else

00:11:35.720 it is, something outside of my home, I just don't want to feel like I'm constantly trying to find my

00:11:45.000 worth outside of the most important job that I have. Motherhood is an interesting thing because

00:11:53.160 because we were raised in this society, there's a lot of, like, marriage is 50-50. Everyone needs to be

00:11:59.720 contributing all the time. And, like, household chores need to be 50-50. And there is truth to that

00:12:07.880 in certain situations, in certain circumstances. Depending on your family's dynamic, that may be

00:12:14.440 true, right? If you both are working because you both need to provide, then both people should also be

00:12:19.720 contributing to the household tasks. But if I'm the stay-at-home mom, and I'm the homemaker, and my

00:12:26.680 husband is working hard all day to provide for my family, why does he also have to take on a bulk

00:12:36.280 of the household chores? And why do I feel resentful for certain things? And it's, like, all of this

00:12:46.040 dialogue about, I see it all the time on Instagram, the dialogue about just, like, invisible labor of

00:12:53.160 women, and how husbands have it so easy. They get to come home, and they get to not take care of the

00:12:59.960 kids, and they get to do all these things. Not every man, and most men, don't love their jobs. They

00:13:08.440 would much prefer to be, like, hanging out at home than working to provide for your family. So why are you

00:13:15.720 making it into, like, an us versus them situation? Mothers versus fathers, or, like, wives versus

00:13:22.280 husbands? It's just a very depressing way to look at marriage is my husband doesn't do enough because

00:13:32.120 he earns for the family, but then he also doesn't clean and cook and do all the things that I have to

00:13:38.440 do. It's like, you know what? You have different jobs and different roles, right? We all have different

00:13:43.400 jobs and different roles, but in the pit of my stomach, because this is the world I've lived in,

00:13:47.960 and this is the stuff I see constantly, I do sometimes feel resentful, and I don't want to,

00:13:53.720 and I've really been trying to change that dynamic. And one of the things I've been thinking a lot about

00:13:57.640 is just we depend so much on others to make us feel appreciated. Okay, so my husband makes me feel

00:14:09.000 appreciated because he tells me how much he appreciates me a fair amount. At what point is

00:14:14.520 it enough? Meaning, at what point does it not become the topic of every conversation that he

00:14:20.360 has to tell me how appreciated I am? And am I telling him how much I appreciate him? That's,

00:14:26.760 that's number one, really. Am I telling him that I appreciate how hard he works? That's number one.

00:14:31.560 And number two, how much do we have to tell each other that we appreciate each other? That's not to

00:14:36.520 say that it doesn't have to be ongoing. It does have to be ongoing. You constantly have to be

00:14:40.520 saying thank you and saying how much you appreciate what the other person is doing and how hard they

00:14:44.760 work. But it can't be every conversation you have. So the question is where does that feeling of

00:14:55.000 self-appreciation come in, in a sense? Like when do you appreciate yourself? You don't need

00:15:01.240 someone else to constantly be telling you that you're appreciated. And I think it comes from you.

00:15:07.160 It comes from you saying to yourself, I know what I'm doing is good and important. And I feel good

00:15:13.480 about the contribution I'm making. And household labor is not just, you know, boring work. It's actually

00:15:21.880 really important to making a house a home. But also I think it comes from God. And recognizing you're

00:15:28.120 doing godly work and knowing that your role, your tasks are in service of something greater than

00:15:36.840 yourself. And so when you give that feeling over to God, I think you can appreciate your own career

00:15:48.440 as a homemaker more and not have to put the onus of responsibility on your husband to make you feel

00:15:54.520 appreciated. Just some thoughts I've been having. I want to talk about them more on my channel because

00:16:00.520 like I said, I make reels and instagram and all the stuff about just how like important this job is

00:16:08.280 that I do being being a mom and being a wife. And I do believe it so strongly, obviously, but I also

00:16:14.920 struggle with it. And I want to be honest about that. It's like I have all these these narratives

00:16:24.120 in my head that I have to constantly like bash down like whack-a-mole. And I'm sure many of you

00:16:29.160 have them too, especially if you've come to this ideology and philosophy later in life, right? Because

00:16:34.360 look, I was raised in a traditional home in the sense that family was first, but my mom worked and

00:16:43.720 my dad stayed at home. So that wasn't so traditional. And working felt like something I was really supposed to

00:16:49.880 do. So not doing it was very scary and something that I struggle with sometimes. So I'd love to know

00:16:57.320 what you guys think. If any of you are stay-at-home moms or thinking about becoming staying stay-at-home

00:17:02.120 moms, like what are your feelings on this stuff? Do you do you ever struggle with this or is it just like

00:17:07.320 easy for you? Do you just feel like, yeah, this this totally is the most important thing I could do and

00:17:11.960 I feel great about it. I'd love to know because I feel like that's a good conversation we could have in the

00:17:17.880 in the comments here and I love seeing our community talk about it. Anyways, that's been some things on

00:17:24.440 my mind. In other news, Jacob and I celebrated our fifth anniversary. So we've been married for five

00:17:32.120 years now, which is crazy. We've been together for six years because we got together. We started dating

00:17:37.880 on May 28th, 2017 and we got married on May 27th, 2018. So we got married one day under a year. It's been

00:17:47.160 an incredible five years, incredible six years, but incredible five years of marriage. Now I feel

00:17:52.680 like I have a little bit more authority to talk about marriage stuff, especially also because we

00:17:56.680 have a child. But I remember when I started making videos about marriage and relationships on my channel,

00:18:03.000 people were like, you've only been married two years. You can't give advice. And I was like,

00:18:06.840 you know, I get it. But also this is mostly passed down wisdom from my parents, from my community,

00:18:14.520 from my religion. So like, I'm not saying that I as as woman married for two years and the expert,

00:18:22.360 I'm saying as somebody who has adhered to traditional philosophy as regarding relationships

00:18:29.240 and marriage, like this stuff works. That's kind of that's really kind of where where it came from.

00:18:35.080 We celebrated by going to see Fast X. Okay, we got to talk about this. We got to talk about this.

00:18:42.840 Fast and Furious. This is a series my husband and I watched jokingly during COVID. We watched all,

00:18:52.280 I think there were eight at the time, and we loved it because it's so ridiculous. It went from like,

00:18:59.800 grounded, okay movie to like, insanity. And it is so ridiculous and so funny. And it takes itself so

00:19:12.280 like, not seriously, but also seriously because it's Vin Diesel. And the whole thing, the just the

00:19:18.840 family, the idea of family when like, no one is actually has a traditional family. It makes us laugh

00:19:24.280 so hard. So for our anniversary, we went and saw the 10th Fast movie, which was, again, hilarious.

00:19:33.960 Loved it. Jason Momoa was top tier. I recommend this series if you like watching movies that are

00:19:41.000 goofy, because they, they are, they are goo-fy. And it is, it is fun to watch. And we went to the zoo,

00:19:49.160 which if you've been following me for a while, you probably know, I feel like I've mentioned this on

00:19:52.840 my channel a weird amount, that we love going to the zoo. And Mr. Baby had the best time. He's now

00:19:59.800 at this stage where he just wants to wander everywhere, get into everything, open every box.

00:20:04.360 He did not really look at the animals, but he definitely did wander the paths and just have

00:20:09.800 an amazing time. We actually only saw half of the zoo, which I said, that's awesome, because that means

00:20:15.480 that the next time we come, there'll be a whole other section we haven't even seen. By the way,

00:20:19.560 this is a Paw Patrol towel that I believe a cousin left at our house, because none of,

00:20:27.240 none of us watch Paw Patrol. Actually, Mr. Baby doesn't do screen time, like, at all. And we are

00:20:34.600 doing a trip to go visit my husband's parents. We're going to be there for a while, like two and a half

00:20:39.160 weeks. But we haven't flown with Mr. Baby since he was three months old. So at three months, he is just

00:20:48.520 sleeping and nursing. Like, that's all we're doing. And so it was a very easy flight. At 15 months,

00:20:55.480 I don't think it's going to look the same. So I've been told it's very hard to fly with a 15 month old.

00:21:03.000 So I would, I would just love any tips, any tips, any travel tips for a baby. Please leave them down

00:21:10.840 below. We would love to avoid screen time if we could. We really don't want to have him watching

00:21:16.760 anything until he's about two. We, we've discussed maybe being comfortable with like watching

00:21:23.000 a movie with him as a family or like a show, like one episode of a show like Winnie the Pooh or

00:21:29.160 something. Um, we've discussed that possibility because it's not really screen time in the sense

00:21:35.880 of putting him in front of a screen so that we can get work done. It's more like we're gonna do a

00:21:40.120 family activity of watching something. But it's not our favorite. We don't love it. And I don't like

00:21:46.120 the, the kind of glaze that these babies get over their face when they're watching something. So

00:21:50.920 what did you do on a plane to keep your baby entertained? Um, because I don't know the answer

00:21:57.400 to that question. And, uh, I don't want to be that annoying person on the plane who is also making a

00:22:07.000 whole load of trouble for everyone else by not doing something that would entertain the baby.

00:22:11.800 But by the way, I didn't even say welcome to my son's nursery. I'm sitting in my son's nursery

00:22:17.240 because it's my favorite room in the house and it is the most

00:22:20.440 most well designed. Like it has a corner I can film in. My house is open concept. So that means

00:22:28.520 that the whole center of the house is one giant room, which makes it difficult for me to sit down

00:22:34.680 and film in there because it's kind of like if anyone needs anything, they're gonna need to walk

00:22:40.760 through. So trying to, I have, we have three bedrooms and then this big open concept. So trying to film

00:22:46.040 in anywhere except the main area, it would be my husband's office, which obviously he's working in,

00:22:54.680 uh, the nursery, which works because my mom is currently watching Mr. Baby or our bedroom,

00:23:00.760 which could work, but it doesn't have like the same cute vibe where you're sitting on the floor.

00:23:06.680 I actually don't know where I would film in my bedroom if I were to make that work, but I'm trying

00:23:12.040 to think about that because it might be nice to do that. We're also doing our Substack book club

00:23:17.640 this week. We did an Agatha Christie book called And Then There Were None, so I'm excited to chat about

00:23:23.640 it with my followers, with my subscribers over there. If you're not already subscribed to my Substack

00:23:28.920 and to my YouTube, you should check it out. YouTube is free, so just click the subscribe button.

00:23:33.720 Uh, my Substack is also free, but if you want all the like premium benefits, then it's, um,

00:23:38.760 seven dollars a month, uh, and we have a really great book club over there. We do a Zoom call once

00:23:42.760 a month, so I'm excited to chat with the ladies and see how everyone's doing. Let me know what books

00:23:49.640 you are reading in the comments below. I would love to hear, and I think we're pretty much done with the

00:23:53.880 laundry, so I am going to call it. We're gonna say goodbye for now, um, but I am excited to be back

00:24:00.840 on YouTube. I'm excited to be recording again, and I can't wait to see you guys in my next video. Bye!

00:24:08.120 Bye!

Classically Abby - June 08, 2023

telling the truth about how I feel as a stay-at-home mom...let's chat and fold laundry ：)

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