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Guest Ashley Buffa: Home Management Systems to Keep you Sane {Episode 91}
157 Plays4 years ago
In Episode 91 of Outnumbered the Podcast, Bonnie & Audrey chat with Ashley Buffa from Freedom Moms, a smooth home management expert. Ashley shares her tips and tools for keeping your home running smoothly without going crazy in the process.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Episode 20: Survival Times
Free gift from Ashley for survival times
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Transcript
Technical Difficulties & Episode Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, we just wanted to give you a quick heads up that there were some technical difficulties that compromised Ashley's sound in a few places in this episode, but we feel like her interview is so important. We wanted you to hear it anyway. Hello and welcome back for episode 91 of Outnumbered the Podcast.
00:00:16
Speaker
Because Bonnie and I are all about bringing order to the chaos, we are totally excited to bring you this week's episode.
Interview with Ashley Bufa
00:00:23
Speaker
We got to interview Ashley Bufa of Freedom Moms, and we are delighted at what she is going to share with you on her methods and systems for organization and tips to help busy and overwhelmed moms find joy in the chaos. So without further ado, here is Ashley Bufa.
00:00:46
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. We're experienced moms to a combined total of 18 children. Our mission is to help overwhelmed parents find peace in parenting and humor in the chaos. Come join us as we attempt uninterrupted conversation about parenting with joy and intention.
Ashley's Background & Expertise
00:01:10
Speaker
Okay, everybody, and welcome back. We are so excited to share our special guest with you today. We have the honor of interviewing Ashley Bufa of Freedom Moms, and we cannot wait for you to hear everything she has to share. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, Ashley, thanks for being here. Just as a quick intro, can you tell us about yourself and your family?
00:01:31
Speaker
Sure. So I have 10 children ranging in ages from almost 18 all the way down to seven months. Um, I have eight boys and two girls sandwiched right in the middle. And, um, we live kind of out in the country, but, um, close like five minutes from Walmart, Chick-fil-A in the ER, which is just perfect. In my mind, we have
00:01:55
Speaker
11 acres, so there's plenty of room for all of the boys to run and hunt and fish and all of those things that keeps boys out of trouble.
From Marketing to Freedom Moms
00:02:04
Speaker
So I have the Freedom Moms group website and all that stuff. I've been doing it for about a year, but prior to that, I ran a marketing, a digital marketing business because I honestly, I have to have something to keep my brain occupied. Otherwise I find myself getting into trouble.
00:02:25
Speaker
So business was what I decided to turn to because I am terrible at crafts.
00:02:32
Speaker
Well, we totally get needing something on the side so that your kids don't drive you crazy. We are a little bit crafty. We both sew, but we love business too. So that's really fun. So did you say where you live? Are you in Texas? I'm actually in Virginia. Oh, in Virginia. Outside of Richmond, yes. Okay, awesome. Well, 11 Acres sounds like a dream. I'd love to have that. That's amazing. It is. It's really nice, especially for all of the boys.
00:03:01
Speaker
Yes, I can totally relate. We're on a little bit of acreage and our boys very much expand to fill that acreage too. Yes, it's really good. It's good to have that for them.
Motherhood Anecdotes & Home Management Systems
00:03:12
Speaker
All right. So with that many kids, you surely have a funny mom moment. You can share with us. We'd love and I read our listeners love to hear humor segments at the beginning of our episode. So tell us something about your family. Okay. So I was rocking my brain for the funniest thing I could think of. And this still just makes me crack up. So I'm going to share it. I personally am very much a girly girl.
00:03:36
Speaker
I love girly things. I'm not into hunting. I'm not into fishing, but my boys are. My teenage son, Robert, he'll be 16 in just a few days, he caught this enormous largemouth bass over the summer in the neighbor's pond. He was so excited about it because it's a huge fish. It's a great catch. He told my husband that he really wanted to
00:04:05
Speaker
to have a fiberglass model made out of it instead of doing going the taxidermy route because he didn't want to kill it because it was a female and apparently it was like I don't know if bass spawn like salmon do but whatever they were like laying eggs or whatever and so he didn't want to kill it but he did want to kind of memorialize the catch
00:04:23
Speaker
And so they found this guy online that makes these fiberglass models of fish. And so they took all of the measurements and all the pictures that the guy would need and paid a huge sum of money to have this life replica made. And all I could think of was, where is he going to put this fish?
00:04:41
Speaker
Like, because he's not put it in my living room, you know? It's all about the decor. And like that does not go with my decor. And so it finally got here about six months or six weeks later. And he was like, so mom, what would I have to do to convince you to hang this up in the living room?
00:05:01
Speaker
there's literally nothing you could do, son. Like I'm sorry, but no. And he was like, well, can you just think about it for a few days? So I was like, okay, I will think about it, but prepare yourself for disappointment. And so after thinking about it for a few days, I was like, you know what?
00:05:20
Speaker
I think I am going to do it. I'm going to hang this up in my formal sitting room. I'm going to make it work with the decor. And this is just something that I never in a million years, like even when he asked me, I was like, no, absolutely not. But I don't know, something changed. And I was like, I'm going to embrace this. But then I told him, I'm drawing the line at like dearest heads and things like that. Like this is literally the only
00:05:45
Speaker
quote, unquote, taxidermy that we are going to display in a decorative fashion. But it's there now. It's hanging up in my formal seat. Like I didn't even put it like in the TV room. I was like, Nope, I know where I want it. And it is there now. And I just am not really sure who this person is that I've become now.
00:06:04
Speaker
All of my kids, right? Oh, yeah. Bonnie and I talk all the time about how, like, motherhood has changed us into people like we don't even recognize our former selves anymore. So that is a great story. I have drawn the line many times and then been like, oh, well, OK, sure. Right. Oh, that's a great story. Thanks for sharing that. Sure.
00:06:30
Speaker
Okay, so Ashley, we wanna know a little bit about your business side. Tell us a little bit about your content. And I know you have a course or two. Is there a story behind it? The big why, we'd love to know more. Sure, so I am really big in systems, home management systems. I realized many, many years ago that if I was going to continue having children, that I was gonna have to really get control of the household.
00:06:58
Speaker
Um, because I, you know, we need order in order to, you know, carry on. Otherwise it's just, it's total chaos. The more children you have and even just with one or two children, it's still chaos if there's no order. And so I decided that I really needed to buckle down and figure it out. And so I did through a ton of trial and error. Um, and what ended up happening is a lot of my friends, um, who know me here were coming and asking me because they, they were, they saw me.
00:07:28
Speaker
thriving in my home and the children thriving and so they wanted to know um you know basically my secrets and so I started helping you know all these different women and then even some of my friends online um in the business world were asking me and so it finally came to the point um in my marketing business where I realized that I needed to do I needed to shift my focus um because I was getting ready to have my 10th baby and I didn't want um
00:07:56
Speaker
I didn't want to have clients who would be demanding of my time. I wanted to have more control over my own time. And so I decided to finally take the leap and create a course for, you know, basically any mom who just needs order in her home. Because in the beginning, you know, I mean, I'm a homeschool mom. I've homeschooled from the very beginning.
00:08:20
Speaker
And, but I know that it is not just a homeschool mom problem, right? Every mom that I know of has struggled at some point or another with, you know, running a household in an orderly fashion and getting their children doing chores. And so I decided not to, you know, niche down.
00:08:41
Speaker
Okay, so Ashley, I just have to stop you here because this is really resonating with Bonnie and I. We also chose to make our podcast for all moms and all parents and not narrow it down to a smaller niche. But we found too, when we got the more kids we had, maybe not the tighter we needed to run our ship, but something similar, we really need to have systems and things in place that would keep us on track or we were just gonna be overrun by the herd.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yes, and I've always said, you know, kids can smell weakness.
00:09:19
Speaker
So yes, you do. You have to at least be able to fake it. Right. Don't let them see you fear. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I decided to make it for all moms and it's really struck a chord because there's over 8,000 moms in there now since just December of 2019. So, you know, we help moms get their homes pulled back together, help them change their own mindsets around home management and
00:09:51
Speaker
working together as a family team instead of mom just doing everything herself and how to have the right type of standards for your home so that your children will rise up to meet them. And it's been great because it hasn't just helped homeschool moms, it's helped all of the moms, full-time working moms.
00:10:11
Speaker
work from home moms, homeschool moms, public school moms, private school moms. And it's been great. It's been really encouraging for me as a mom too, to see so many moms having success.
00:10:24
Speaker
It's been a wild ride. Yeah, one thing I was reading about your course was that you say it's so that you don't end up feeling like the drill sergeant mom, or to save your own sanity, you just give up and let the mess take over. And I just love that, like those two comparisons. I think I vacillate between drill sergeant mom and give up mom, depending on the day sometimes. Yeah, it's one of those things. You're not sure.
00:10:52
Speaker
how to find middle ground so you gravitate to the extremes but you know wars aren't won in extremes nothing's really won by following extremes you know what i mean so learning to find that middle ground and be happy comfortable and content in that middle ground and have a reasonably clean home all the time um it's a beautiful place to land
00:11:16
Speaker
You know, I was thinking what a blessing it is for us, those of us with big families to get to that point, because I think that if I had stopped at three kids, I probably would have just done everything by myself forever. And so I'm so grateful that someone like you has come up with these systems to show moms of any family size or schooling choice or whatever, that even if your life gets ridiculously crazy, because most people can't even imagine homeschooling a whole bunch of kids,
00:11:42
Speaker
There are systems and logistics that you can rely on so that you're not going crazy, but many people just survive when their life isn't quite as crazy as yours, you know? But there really is a better way. I love that.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yes. Yes. It's all about when it comes down to really is learning how to be proactive, um, no matter what life throws at you and to have, have different levels of plans in place, you know, for like the very craziest of crazy days, because we are all going to have those and some of us more often than others, right? But we know there are going to be days where there just doesn't seem to even be time to breathe.
00:12:21
Speaker
So, what do you do on those days? Do you just throw in the towel and not do anything? No, not if you have a plan for it. And then there's other days where, you know, you are home all day and you do have a little bit of extra margin where you could tackle a few extra things. So, having a plan already in place, you know, eliminates the need to just walk around like, hmm, I wonder what I could be doing right now and then doing nothing at all.
00:12:44
Speaker
Oh, yes. Been there, definitely. You know, we know that this is our audience is really, really looking for things like this, like a system like this. And because some of our most popular episodes are the two episodes that we did on home management, smooth home management. So one is on organization and the other one is on
00:13:06
Speaker
creating systems and time management and that. And those are some of our two most popular episodes. I think, especially in 2020, people are just looking for a way to bring a little bit of order to the chaos.
00:13:18
Speaker
We're really excited to introduce our listeners to your courses.
Balancing Business and Family
00:13:23
Speaker
So we have a personal question for you. How do you carve out time for business while you've got 10 kids and while you are running busy homes and while you're homeschooling and everything that you have going on, how do you carve out time for your business, like protect and have that time available?
00:13:39
Speaker
That is a great question and it has kind of a complicated answer. It doesn't feel complicated anymore, but it was when I was first starting to gain my stride. So the answer to that question is learning when to ruthlessly multitask and learning when to compartmentalize and learning how to shift back and forth between the two. Because I don't know, y'all have probably heard
00:14:07
Speaker
Whatever productivity guru saying that multitasking is the worst possible way to like.
00:14:13
Speaker
get anything accomplished. And I have to say that that is true in certain instances. For instance, multitasking is the worst possible way to try and do business and homeschool at the same time or do business and raise children at the same time. Because what ends up happening is our children very quickly remind us that they actually are our first priority and that they're going to do whatever it takes to get our attention.
00:14:38
Speaker
And so then we end up losing our temper and probably saying and doing some things we're gonna regret later and have to ask forgiveness for. So when I'm trying to mother or when I'm trying to homeschool, that is all I'm trying to do or all that I am actually doing. I put the phone away. I do not, you know, I don't respond to any emails. I don't have the laptop there. When I'm mothering or homeschooling, that is it. So it is ruthless compartmentalization.
00:15:06
Speaker
And it is also the same when I'm doing business. When I am doing business, my office doors are closed. And unless you are bleeding or you want to make me cookies, don't bother me. You definitely need to add the make cookies part to the sign on my door. Yes, definitely. We get to make the rules. So it's gotten to the point where everybody understands that. Now, early on in my business, I had to really work around nap times.
00:15:35
Speaker
Um, and I also, because you know, you can tell your eight year olds and up, Hey, don't bother me, you know, like go play. But you know, if you have toddlers and things like it's not going to work as well, right? So you have to work around nap times. You have to get up early. You have to stay up a little late, right? You have to figure it out until your business is profitable enough to where you can hire some help in the afternoons, which is where I am now. Um, you know, I have a, um, a part-time nanny come over in the afternoons so that I can get, you know, my dedicated,
00:16:03
Speaker
time in and the children are still taken care of and not running around like feral cats. So that is how I compartmentalize those different roles in my actual homemaking slash housekeeping. That is where I multitask and it is a beautiful thing. And that is how I end up getting so much done and having
00:16:26
Speaker
a reasonably clean home without ever spending gigantic chunks of time doing any cleaning tasks. I don't like to clean. I'm not a naturally organized person. I'm not a naturally clean person. And so I have to really figure out ways basically to trick myself into doing it. So that is where my multitasking comes in.
00:16:47
Speaker
And so once you learn the appropriate application of multitasking and compartmentalization, that is how to carve out time for business and make sure that the children are still being raised well and that they're being taught well and everything does end up getting done.
00:17:05
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I love, love, love how you differentiated between those two because let's be honest, motherhood doesn't happen without multitasking. I mean, if you've ever tried to make breakfast and keep kids from fighting and run a load of laundry, like that's just how we function. But you're so right. I think the differentiation is between multitasking between roles.
00:17:27
Speaker
Right? You can't be doing that. You have to compartmentalize your roles. Any working mom knows that. Any mom with a hobby knows that. If you're trying to, you know, crochet with kids all over your lap, it's probably not going to happen. But if you can go, you know, quarantine yourself in your room for half an hour, say this is mom's time to have some self-care or whatever it is, then you're going to be so much happier. Exactly. It really is kind of the secret to life.
Developing Household Systems
00:17:53
Speaker
The next question we wanted to ask you is, did you have a mentor for household systems or someone that you will learn from early on? Or did you just create all this yourself through trial and error?
00:18:05
Speaker
It was a lot of trial and error. I don't have a real life mentor. I actually drew a lot of inspiration from books, classic literature in particular, and even more in particular, the Little House on the Prairie books. When I was reading Farmer Boy to our children years and years and years ago, that's when it occurred to me, my children are not pulling their weight.
00:18:32
Speaker
And that's what inspired me to finally figure out the chore conundrum because I knew that if the Wilder family could leave a enormous fully running farm in the hands of their four children and go
00:18:49
Speaker
like to another state for four weeks that surely my children could learn to clean up after themselves. Exactly. So that was really the impetus for me to like decide in my heart, like we are going to figure this out or we're not going to do anything else.
00:19:08
Speaker
Um, so that was a really big turning point for me. Um, but I have to say like one of the, the keys really to success in me figuring out was, um, deciding in my heart that I was going to do it and then deciding that I was going to do whatever it took. So that meant like, you know, going to the library and getting every book that I possibly could on cleaning and household management. And you know, at that point there wasn't really podcasting. Um, YouTube was in its infancy. So those weren't really big resources for me, but like,
00:19:36
Speaker
I think that was still the time when online forums were big. And so I would go on to those and read everything I possibly could knowing that these women probably didn't have it all together either. So I was going to have to basically
00:19:53
Speaker
experiment and try everything out and keep what worked and spit out what didn't. And, you know, I mean, it was like a two and a half year process for me to finally figure out exactly the perfect combination that would actually get me a clean house. The children are still happy and doing well. I'm not, you know, being the drill sergeant, it's happening quasi-automatically.
00:20:18
Speaker
and it's being done to a high standard, but it did take a lot of experimentation to finally land there, but I had made the commitment not to give up, and so I didn't.
00:20:32
Speaker
That is really awesome. One reason Bonnie and I started a podcast is because we both have enormous numbers of children, and we get asked many of the same questions all the time. And it was really about things that we had figured out. Now, I'm not saying that we have cleaning and systems and chores all figured out, but we have more figured out than when we just had one or two children.
00:20:54
Speaker
And so we decided we wanted to share this with other women out there so that they didn't go through all the overwhelm and all the frustration and all the things that you're talking about, the ways that you used to feel about your house and your home before you had these systems in place. So we just know this is going to resonate so much with our
Impact of a Tidy Home on Mental Health
00:21:12
Speaker
listeners. And we're really, really excited that you're sharing it. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's just so important. I think that people don't fully grasp how important
00:21:22
Speaker
An orderly home environment is for our mental health. You know what I mean? Like it just it's kind of the grounding force. Right. And so if you have a clean and orderly home, a lot of the the really, really, really hard parts of parenting
00:21:40
Speaker
Um, don't feel quite so hard because your environment is, you know, it's orderly and it's calm. So it's kind of, it's kind of like a grounding force to, to the whole, you know, it's why the whole slogan home sweet home was in, you know, there's no place like home. And it's like, well, you know, if your house is a wreck, it doesn't feel very sweet. And you know, you don't want to come back to it if everything is like a total disaster all the time.
00:22:07
Speaker
So, you know, if moms, if we moms can really conquer this and get everything back under control, it just ends up, it has effects in all different areas of family life that you may not even really realize it at first, but everything just, it just feels better, honestly.
00:22:30
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with that so much. It's it's really amazing. I noticed that I'm one of those people that gets really, really crabby if there's clutter around. And like I just like if I go into a room and I'm trying to work with one of my kids, say on a math problem and they have stuff.
00:22:49
Speaker
all over the computer desk. I'm like, okay, stop. Before I can help you with this problem, we need to clean up this space so that I can sit down here and work with you and not get crabby. But also maybe if you don't have all this clutter around you, your brain can also focus better on this math problem and you won't be having so much trouble with it.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, that's one thing I found. Yes, exactly. That's what it is. Our environment really does affect everything. I mean, yeah, down to the math problems that we can or can't do. Yeah. Oh, yeah. When you were talking about how aware you became that your kids weren't doing enough around the house, I really feel like this is kind of a modern problem, where for some reason we now
00:23:37
Speaker
think that motherhood includes doing every household task. When motherhood is the raising and rearing of children, right? And nowhere in the description does it say, I have to scrub the floor every single time it's dirty, right? In fact, if I send my kids out into the world without knowing how to clean their environment and have a tidy home and take care of themselves and feed themselves, then I haven't done my job, right? And yet for some reason, I think that so many moms are just kind of
00:24:07
Speaker
expecting themselves to do everything, and it's really unreasonable. And those of us with larger families get to the point where it's absolutely impossible for us to do everything so we can create, you know, systems and that sort of thing. But how important it is for every mom anywhere, one kid, 20 kids, homeschooling or not, to have systems in place where their children are learning these valuable life skills. It's not about just making your life easier, although that's super important. It's about teaching your children these great skills.
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. They're all life skills and it's not just the actual cleaning jobs that are life skills. It's learning how to do a hard job. It's learning how to take pride in your work and it's learning how to take care of your things. There's so many lessons to be learned in it and it's funny too because we have all sorts of different moms in our program. I see a lot of different comments like on Facebook ads and things like that where
00:25:02
Speaker
different moms will be like, oh, well, of course your house is clean. You have 10 kids. And it's like, no, that's not how it works because you have just because you have a lot of kids, that doesn't automatically mean they start doing chores. That's not how it works, how it works. And then, you know, some will say, oh, well, if I were a homeschool mom,
00:25:20
Speaker
my house would always be clean too, but I have to work every day. And it's like, nope, that's not how it works either. And so it's funny because all different moms have like different, you know, it's the grass is greener on the other side. And for whatever reason, a lot of moms think that, you know, certain types of moms don't struggle with the same things. They're struggling with it. It's like, no, this is actually a universal modern day problem. Ladies, we're all
00:25:43
Speaker
We are all having trouble here with this. And so, you know, it's not a solution of, well, just have more kids and that'll fix it. Or it's not a solution of have less kids and that'll fix it. Or if I were home all day or if I were gone all day, it's like, nope, there's actually something a little bit deeper here.
00:26:01
Speaker
One segment of our audience that we always try to pay special attention to is the young, young moms who are struggling with overwhelm because both Bonnie and I spent time there when we were young moms.
Advice for Young Moms
00:26:12
Speaker
And so we want to ask you, what is one piece of advice that you would give to younger moms who are struggling with overwhelm? So being a young mom is hard. You know, I mean, it just really, really, really is. So the one thing that I like to tell
00:26:27
Speaker
all the young moms is, there's something that we call in the Freedom Moms program, survival mode, freedom mom style survival mode. And it's not what you think. It's not sweatpants that you've had on for four days and hair that you can't remember the last time you washed up in a messy bun. And that's not what freedom mom style survival mode is. It's a proactive style survival mode to where you're taking care of the basics every day. Like no matter what life is throwing at you, you are making sure that you are clean.
00:26:57
Speaker
So, you know, like showering teeth, brush your hair, you know, put on something cute and, you know, just if you take care of yourself first and just get those basics done, then you're going to be able to power through your day a lot easier. So it's taking care of yourself and your appearance. And then the second thing is taking care of laundry so that your people have something to wear.
00:27:22
Speaker
And, you know, whatever it depends on the size of your family. So some families are not going to have to do laundry every day to stay on top of it, right? But it means, you know, whatever your laundry schedule is to where you are staying on top of it and not feeling actually defeated by it. And if you're doing a loaded day, you are staying on top of it. And then the third thing is knowing what you're going to feed your people.
00:27:46
Speaker
Now, that doesn't mean that you have to cook, you know, a homemade meal. It could mean knowing that you're going to order pizza at 5.30. Or it could mean knowing that you need to take that freezer meal out of the freezer. Or knowing that someone is bringing you a meal because you just had a baby. Whatever it is, it's just knowing ahead of time. And so that you don't get to that five o'clock and you're like, oh shoot, I have no idea what I'm going to make for dinner. Because what I've found is that if you feel like you are being proactive,
00:28:15
Speaker
you are going to end up having a much better day than the mom who's beating herself up because the kids don't have anything to wear. And she's been in the same sweat pants for four days. Oh, I love those tips so much. And our kind of unofficial tagline for our podcast is to lower your expectations. So sometimes it's just a matter of, like you say, getting into that survival mode focus where you're just doing the bare basics and you are doing it. And you're doing it amazingly.
00:28:44
Speaker
Um, and to not just get so caught up in the, but I was going to do this, but I was going to do this. It's okay. Everyone's alive. Everyone's fed work. Everyone's happy. Right. Like it ends up turning into a look what I did. And when you hear all the other moms, you know, lamenting that the laundry is behind again, that's not you anymore. Like you've got it now. And it's
00:29:04
Speaker
It's a super feeling. I actually have an infographic that I made about proactive survival mode. I will give you all the link to that so that anybody that wants that, as a reminder, you can hang it up on your fridge or whatever. I'm happy to make that available to everyone because it's so important to feel victorious about things like that. When you're a young mom and all your kids are little, it's hard.
00:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, we have a whole podcast episode on survival mode and I think at least half of it is addressing giving yourself permission to lower your expectations. We will definitely include the link to your infographic in our show notes as well as the link to your courses so any mom who's interested can go take a look and get some more information.
00:29:49
Speaker
So our last main question for you is this. You, we would consider you a veteran homeschool mom. And it seems like there are lots of new homeschoolers coming out of the woodwork this year as educational opportunities are just kind of flipped on their head right
Homeschooling Perspectives
00:30:03
Speaker
now. So any specific advice you would give for those new homeschoolers that are like all of a sudden fire hose in their face, like, how do I do this? So much information. Yes. Yes. I do have a tip.
00:30:17
Speaker
And this might actually be more helpful to the newer homeschool moms who were kind of forced into this, but I have a confession to make. I am a homeschool mom and I will always be a homeschool mom, but I don't love homeschooling.
00:30:33
Speaker
It's just really not my thing. However, I do it because of the results. And so I'm committed to it, even though I don't like doing it. It's kind of like the toilets, you know? Nobody likes to clean a toilet, but we all love a clean toilet, especially when we're throwing up into it because of morning things.
00:30:51
Speaker
So that's kind of how I feel about homeschooling, which may be shocking to the moms out there who do love homeschooling. No judgment here. It's just, I don't love it. So what I have to do is focus on the results instead of focusing on the tasks that it takes to get to those results.
00:31:10
Speaker
And, you know, just I try to make it as simple as possible. I also focus on teaching my children how to teach themselves, how to be learners, because I know that if I teach them how to learn, they can do anything, right? If I'm just, if I'm standing over there and teaching all day, they're never gonna learn how to do it themselves. And that's not one of my goals for my children. My goals are to raise children who can go out and do whatever they want.
00:31:37
Speaker
Instead of, you know, being under the impression that, you know, in order to do this, I must go to college and pay a gazillion dollars, which my children are all on college tracks, but I want them to really understand how to become learners. And so that's what I focus on more than anything. And so I'll hand the book. I'll be like, hey, do this and report back.
00:31:58
Speaker
And they're like, what? At first, you know, after I've taught them how to read and all that stuff, they're, they're looking at me like, huh? And I'm like, no, no, just go do it. And then report back. And it forces them to like become independent learners, which, you know, independent children are the ones that go out there and change the world. So if you focus on creating independence in your children and teaching them how to be learners, instead of, you know, oh my gosh,
00:32:23
Speaker
I don't even know how to do calculus. I didn't even take calculus in high school. What am I going to do? Instead of freaking out about stuff like that, you teach them how to learn. Yeah, that is our homeschool motto, learning to learn. And I have shared that on our podcast many times. Learning to learn, because my job is to work myself out of a job. Exactly. And I cannot wait for that day. My 14-year-old was actually like, hey, mom, one day, are you going to homeschool my kids? I was like, oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:32:55
Speaker
I particularly love that you shared that you're not even a huge fan of it because I think there are so many aspects to motherhood and homeschooling and everything else that we do that are not really fun and sometimes we think there's something wrong with us but I don't like reading aloud to my children or I don't like making meals or I don't like that's okay that you will literally never find a job where you like every task involved in the job they don't exist
00:33:17
Speaker
So embrace the part you do, focus on the result and how you want to get there. And the easiest way to get there, if it involves tasks, do hate, right? And do it. You don't have to make yourself miserable by trying to love the things that you don't love. That's okay. Your strengths lie elsewhere, right?
00:33:32
Speaker
Exactly. And you're teaching your kid, your children character in the process because I mean, so much of life is doing stuff that we don't really want to do, but we have to because that's what life is. So if they see mom doing it and being diligent in what she is supposed to be doing, then you know, you're modeling for them. And one day they're going to remember that. And it also comes down to like, when you want your children doing chores, you know, if they see you constantly complaining about the homeschooling or whatever part of life that you don't like, I'm like,
00:34:00
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I can't believe I have to do this again. Then, you know, what do you think they're going to say when you're like, Hey, go clean the toilet. They're like, Oh my gosh, you can't believe I have to do this again. You know, repeat your same words back to you. And that is no fun.
Closing & Supporting the Podcast
00:34:15
Speaker
Oh, Ashley, thank you so much for talking with us today. I have a suggestion for you. What's that? I think the next course you create should be creating humor in motherhood because you have got that one down. Thank you. I really do try because I want my children to love me enough to come back and visit me one day, even though they will not be living in my basement. So I think the way to do that is to make sure that we're always laughing at ourselves.
00:34:44
Speaker
helping our children to laugh at themselves, too. So we are going to link in the show notes to all of those resources, your infographic and your course and your website. And we just want to, again, thank you so much for taking time today to share with our audience about these things that all moms are needing, especially right now when we're all struggling so much to
00:35:09
Speaker
make a home for our children, a safe and restful place and ourselves too. So it's just such a beautiful thing that you have shared with us and we can't wait to share this with our audience. Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.
00:35:23
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in. Did you know you can help the podcast in several ways? First up, we're on Patreon, and there are three different levels to support us there. Just head to patreon.com slash outnumbered. Next up, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a written review on iTunes. It helps other parents find the podcast and receive the help you're enjoying. And finally, you can follow us on Instagram at Outnumbered the Podcast. We're always having fun over there too.
00:35:49
Speaker
As usual, if you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at OutnumberedThePodcast at Gmail.com. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week.