Living a Beautiful Life
This was written by Bethsaida Hernandez Figueroa as a comment from the above post on Facebook.
I am a mom of 12 children, and we live on my husband’s income. We receive no government intervention whatsoever. These are the things that work for us:
1. Trusting in God
2. Giving to God first
3. Using Proverbs 31 as a manual for myself, and teaching it to my 6 daughters.
4. I homeschool my children so they get quality, loving education full of biblical truth.
5. We surround ourselves with spirituality-like people, so my children don’t crave what others have.
6. Simplicity. This world is not our home, and we are only here temporarily.
7. While my children do have toys and the teens have typical teenage items, we gift with memory making events. This cheaper and far more meaningful.
8. We cook from scratch. This keeps us healthy, and it’s also cheaper.
9. We garden.
10. My girls are taught to sew and enjoy the beauty in their own creations.
11. My six boys are taught extremely early on “trades” so we don’t pay people outside our home unless we absolutely have to do things around our home.
12. Part of my children’s homeschooling is starting their own business with their interest and talent. They are taught to give to the Lord, contribute to our home, save, and bless others.
13. We do not hide finances from our children. Monthly, my girls will meal plan, shop, and prep with me according to our budget. While our boys sit with my husband and visually watch him administer our homes finances, give to the Lord, pay all the bills, save, bless others, and discuss how to make things better. We make them aware of what it costs to live. They are financially mindful.
She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Proverbs 31:27
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6 thoughts on “Living a Beautiful Life”
Hello I loved this post and it’s somewhat applicable to a current situation we’re pondering. We have a smaller home (1,300 sq ft) and four children that we homeschool. Our middle children are girls and they share a room. Our oldest is an 11.5 year old boy and has always had his own room. Our baby is an 8 month old boy and is sharing a bedroom with us until he can sleep through the night. We originally planned to move him in with our oldest son but now are considering doing a bedroom addition due to us feeling the age gap might be too big for our boys to happily share a room. We got three quotes and it is very expensive (on average $60k) to add a simple bedroom addition plus we were told it would be heavy construction noise all day for three months which doesn’t sound fun with two kids still napping. We’ve looked for new houses but with this market we haven’t found anything. My question is, is it worth doing an addition if we can afford it or is it ok to make the boys share a room if there is a 10 year age gap? Anyone with a similar experience who can share how it worked for them? Thank you!
Hi Heather,
They will be fine sharing a room even with that gap! Most people who have ever existed shared rooms with their siblings until they moved out.
Hey! I was 8 and 11 years younger than my brothers who shared a small room ,and I so wanted to sleep in their room as a child! Being a girl and there being two extra rooms, I had my own room. I often tried and sometimes snuck into one if my brother’s beds.
This is a wonderful article. So encouraging and much needed in our time. So many people today struggle to figure out how to simply care for themselves that the idea of a large family is so far removed from anything they can image that it becomes not only unattainable but also unwanted. Sadly, encouraging others to sew and make their own items is no longer the cheapest option. I recently bought material to make a girls dress. On sale I paid roughly 25.00 for just the material, not counting the thread and buttons. I can buy a brand new girls dress at the big box store for less than 5.00. Same with cooking. It is cheaper to buy prepackaged than to cook from scratch. Making your own is no longer the cheapest option but it is still the best option. Home cooked is healthier and teaches children skills they can use for a lifetime. Same with most everything else. One of the largest detriments I see to young people today having large families is a lack of willingness. Many of the younger generations of marrying age women simply do not want children and many do not want husbands. To be fair, of the ones in that catagory that I know, none are wife/mother material. Little girls rarely act or dress like little girls and they grow up to be women that do not act or dress like ladies, much less fulfill the role of women. Thank you for encouraging all the women that still try to be what a woman should be.
Dear Heather,
I do understand since we have 5 girls one boy and soon might have to move baby girl in with the boy…any way there seems to be no ‘perfect’ fit for sharing the rooms we have. Only 6 years gap but girl and boy mixed, or boy alone and 3 girls in one room, while at least 2 girls would like a room of their own… But when I think of my childhood, I shared a room with my 4y older brother until I was 12 I think. I actually only owned the top of our bunk bed while he also had a desk. Girl / boy colours or decorations was not even a thing. We all played mostly outside with our friends. This was 30 years ago and was just normal for me, even though most of my friends had a room of their own. I’m sure it didn’t have negative effects on me…
Adding a room for so much money is ridiculous.
I see sharing rooms as the first step to prepare for marriage, where you’ll not have a bedroom for yourself either.
So even if your older boy is not too happy to share, it can be a long term blessing in building his character.
Forgot to say, and need to remind myself, that we can always pray for our children’s hearts as they struggle with sharing, sibling love etc.
Be blessed!
Mother to 10 – and loving it! All things are possible with God and faith. We do a lot of what the original commenter mentioned. No one has their own bedroom – that is the least of our worries. Husband has a smart phone but I do not. We make all meals from scratch, as well, homeschool, have a large garden, find free activities instead of paid ones … life is good!
Thanks for the thoughtful responses! Angela, we’ve also considered moving baby boy in with our two girls. They want to share a room with him, unlike our older boy. I’m sure the chance of getting a bunk bed has motivated them however. lol! You may be right that making older son share could build character. I hadn’t considered that. When he was younger we were foster parents and he was regularly giving up his room for foster children and did so gladly but now I think he may value his own room due to having to give it up so often when he was little. Or just a personality or age thing. My struggle is that we’ve saved up the money to do the addition but we’ve always been convicted to live simply and modestly so that cost for a single small room with no plumbing seems so high to us! We haven’t been able to come to a decision as to what we should do. Thanks for your thoughts so much!