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A (Mostly) Stay-at-Home-Mom
Welcome to A (Mostly) Stay-at-Home Mom, where I share insights about finance and family. I'm Charmaine-- a wife, mom, writer and obsessive home baker, and I hit record each week to share about adding to household income as a busy mom.
We'll laugh, we'll cry, we'll discuss strategies for navigating both the home economy and the world economy hand in hand. Braiding each other's hair not included (yet).
Looking for more? I've got a ton of resources, including blog posts to match each of the podcast episodes, on my website: https://bycharmaine.com/
So glad you're here.
A (Mostly) Stay-at-Home-Mom
From Classroom to Motherhood to YouTube: A Teacher's Journey
Have you ever wondered what life looks like when a passionate educator becomes a full-time mom who still loves teaching?
Our guest, math instruction YouTuber Ms. Beutl, takes us through her diverse teaching journey—from kindergarten classes to international teaching in South Korea, and ultimately to her dream position as a math curriculum specialist. Just when her career was peaking, motherhood changed everything. Ten months after landing her ideal role, she made the difficult decision to leave her career and focus on raising her daughter. This raw conversation explores both the challenges and unexpected joys of this major life pivot.
This episode is full of creative teaching-adjacent job ideas for the fellow teacher-turned-mom as well as practical advice and real-life stories from the motherhood trenches.
Whether you're a teacher contemplating a similar transition, a parent struggling to maintain professional identity, or simply curious about balancing passion with parenthood, this conversation offers both practical strategies and emotional validation for your journey.
For skills-based math instruction videos for grades K-5, head to: Math with Ms. Beutl's YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@MsBeutl.
Thanks for listening to A (Mostly) Stay-at-Home-Mom!
Welcome back to another episode of the Mostly Stay-at-Home Mom podcast. Today I have a special guest with us. She has been a longtime friend, a fellow former teacher and now a fellow mom, and I think a lot of what she has to say you will be able to relate to. So this is Miss Boydle. Say hello, hello. So Miss Boydle is a former teacher. She goes way back in her teaching journey. I'd like you to walk us through sort of your career journey, maybe starting with college. What subjects were you the most interested in, what profession did you choose and where you ended up today?
Speaker 2:So I don't think I could particularly say that I was keen on a specific subject, but I always loved teaching and so I graduated with my elementary education degree for my bachelor's and I taught kindergarten as my first job and then I taught fourth and fifth grade math and then an opportunity arose that I was able to teach in South Korea for one year English and then I taught kindergarten on a military base in Korea. So lots of different experiences. But I ended up coming back to the states and again went back into fourth and fifth math and science and then I kind of felt like I was peaking with my career. When I taught I always felt it was kind of too easy and I just kind of wanted to get more of a push. So then I got my master's degree in elementary math education and then I went into more of an administrative role.
Speaker 2:I worked for the county as a elementary math curriculum specialist, but right before that I had my first baby, Yay, and I went back to work three months after having her. But unfortunately I love the job and that wasn't unfortunate, but unfortunately I just also loved my daughter and being a mom. So I chose to quit and be a full-time stay-at-home mommy. 10 months after my quote dream job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I think a lot of us can relate to that, and I just want to go backwards a little bit. At one point you taught fourth or fifth grade gifted math and science, right, yes, that's correct, okay, yeah, so a common thread throughout your career has been math instruction. She's not going to say it, but I know her personally because she's my awesome friend, that she has been a strong leader in the math instruction world, like people. People know her around these parts for her awesome math instruction.
Speaker 1:So that is a common thread. And even now, though you're not working full-time, you are a stay-at-home mom, full-time, which is, as we know, more than several jobs in one, but even now you incorporate the math teaching, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, it was funny. Actually I got a random text from someone saying oh, I heard you're a good math teacher from several teachers at a school I never taught at, so I was like, oh, this is interesting. But anyways, yeah, I'm a math tutor right now, so I teach sixth grade math and she'll be going to seventh next year. So seventh grade math next year, but tutoring.
Speaker 1:And you ended up making some videos.
Speaker 2:Yes, back when YouTube wasn't really a thing, in 2012, I think I started a YouTube channel for my classroom and one of the videos kind of took off and so when I was staying at home I kind of wanted to continue teaching and the most flexible thought like process I could think of was YouTube, just to continue my channel. So, yeah, I've been kind of working at that as a math YouTuber it's awesome.
Speaker 1:I've looked at her channel and just looking at the videos, the way she's explaining everything, it's a faceless video. Yes, you're writing and drawing and showing different pictures, but like I honestly wish she would have taught me math, because maybe I would have been a math person.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting we're like background story on us if you're interested. So Miss Voidl and I met in high school and became friends in high school and then we lost touch during the college years. But then after college I don't know, did you find out I was a teacher and then, just like we had this coffee date.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I remember seeing you in the classroom. Okay, yeah, I think I saw you from a fellow friend. That's what it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we found out, each of us were teachers. We had this wonderful spark of a Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee experience that sparked many more years of friendship.
Speaker 2:So it was awesome.
Speaker 1:But it's just interesting because we were both teachers and then I sort of went down this path of like my interests were always teaching reading I love teaching reading and helping kids to get fall in love with books and then hers was like this other path of teaching kids to love math and actually understand math, and I wish she had taught me math. That is how good her YouTube videos are, and you also have them very sequentially laid out by grade level and all of the concepts they need to know right, correct, yes, which grade levels do you cover?
Speaker 2:So my main two are fifth grade and fourth grade grade, because I made them based upon basically what I taught. And then I have some videos here and there for other grade levels, A little bit of kindergarten, a little bit of second, a little bit of third, based upon what I tutored. So kindergarten taught as well, but mostly fourth and fifth grade.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is common core math too, or?
Speaker 2:They were aligned to whatever benchmarks or standards were um in play when I made it. So right now the videos I make and the videos that I've made are in line with the Florida best benchmarks. Okay, but in a way each one is somewhat similar to Common Core. It's just a little bit a little bit different.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, Right yeah. I've been in teaching long enough to realize that there's different iterations of the same thing and no matter how often they rebrand the standards or whatever, the concepts and the skills remain more or less the same. Yes, the standards or whatever, the concepts and the skills remain more or less the same. Yes, so it's all good things. You know you would want your child to learn, so, coming from you know me personally. I've also experienced transitioning from full-time teaching to stay-at-home mom. How is, how is the switch for you? I mean, you did have, you did quit your job in the middle of your daughter's first year, so that would have been harder. I feel like then I I quit right even before I got pregnant. I was like I don't want to be a teacher and pregnant, so I quit, and I hadn't. I never returned a full time. I went back to just like subbing. But yeah, you had to make some tough calls. How was that?
Speaker 2:It was really hard. It was really hard. I think it depends on your personality, but my personality, I think with a lot of teachers we give everything with all of our heart and emotion and energy and it's just really hard to balance that when you have, you know, your own family and then teaching at the same time. So it was hard to do both. So I yeah, I definitely don't regret quitting, but it's just challenging and then to find your own self-identity after being a teacher for so long and then being a staying-at-home mom. I'm still figuring it out, honestly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, same. You still look at the teaching job postings. Oh yeah, oh yeah. It's a thing we're like traumatized, but no, it's good. I think we're both really thankful for chances to be home with our kids. We know these are some crucial years, but there's always going to be sort of that war war inside. And when, as we're recording this, actually we are coming at the end of, like, teacher appreciation week and approaching Mother's Day, you literally cannot be more juxtaposed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I planned it that way. Well, in my opinion, it really helps to be able to extend whatever if you loved your career in ways to extend that into other opportunities. And I have done that by substitute teaching. You know, with teaching there's no way to really part time this job unless you substitute, which is unfortunate. But every time I go back to substitute I do feel that spark come alive in me and I'm like, oh, I feel like I'm in my element again, kind of, and so you might enjoy being a mom, a stay-at-home mom, but you might do something part-time or on the side. That brings in that love of teaching. And I know you've had a few of these opportunities. So can you describe some of those for anyone? I think there's probably going to be a lot of listeners actually who are teachers transitioning to moms or they've already done that, but they're looking for a way to go back yeah, I mean for me personally it was definitely like tutoring and doing my math youtube videos and the two incidences I can recall that were like.
Speaker 2:The most rewarding for me was when the grandmother of the girl I tutor she just said, basically, like you, tutoring my granddaughter, I believe, helped her have a successful math year. And it was just one simple text but it was just like. It was kind of like that spark of like. This is why I love teaching. I'm helping kids like this. You know it's obviously not for the money, but to feel that reward. And the other one was on my math youtube channel. Some of them you can comment on and I think I got a couple comments where students were saying like, thank you so much for your video. You helped me understand this. And I think one one commenter said like, oh, now I'm like an honor student now or something because I got a grade in the math class and I was like wow, it was.
Speaker 2:It was very rewarding. Yeah, you need to print that out, hang it on I I screenshotted it and I keep it oh, that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can feel like you're making a difference. Yes, obviously, I think we both believe that moms raising their children makes a difference. But it's hard, it can be isolating, and especially if you're a mom to little people, right, they can't always vocalize, right, you know they're, they're thank they're, they're super sweet and cuddly. But yeah, it's, it's just different right.
Speaker 1:You also. When you went to full-time stay-at-home mom life, you got in touch with a former admin from your school. They still knew you and you volunteered to work part-time as a math intervention specialist yes, yes, that was.
Speaker 2:I was really grateful for that because that was because I had a skill, not because I had a good relationship with the administrator, but I was able to help out just for a short period of time I think it was two months um, very selected hours, um, but I was able to work according to my schedule with the kids, um, but yet still do what I love teach math and make a little bit of extra money on the side. So that was really really nice, um, to do that. But, yeah, just to keep that skill and to keep good connections with people that you knew or know. I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought that was really creative and you had built a reputation at your school. Obviously you were an awesome teacher and you gave a lot to that community and they remembered it. So if there's anyone here thinking of quitting teaching, don't burn your bridges. You know. Quit in the most professional way possible. People understand you know family life, but if you're looking for some sort of opportunity like that you could try to get creative. It doesn't hurt to ask if a position could be created. You never know what they might say. I mean, it's rare but it could happen. So what would you say to a new mom who's torn between staying at home, running a household, caring for children and maybe her previous profession?
Speaker 2:This is just my personal opinion, but I think the best thing that I've found is, whatever you do, just make it black and white while you do it. The worst thing I found Go all in, go all in, okay, exactly, yeah. The worst thing I found was when I was searching for jobs while I was taking care of my kids, because I felt like I wasn't being 100% a present mother. I was constantly looking for something else because I wanted to feel successful with my former job. But I just realized, even if it's just like from 8 to 5, I'm going to be present with my kids, but then maybe in the evenings or before the kids wake up, go job hunting or do something else, but just not to be back and forth all day. Because then when you look back and I've done this before I've looked back and thought, wow, you know, I wasn't really present with my kids, and I wasn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't have a job, I was just kind of in the middle of this gray and that wasn't healthy. So, Right, yeah, yeah, I can understand that and it's kind of. It's really hard, though. In the society we're raised in, we have to reframe what is valuable instead of a you know valuable instead of a you know paycheck or something more obvious the value that we create as stay-at-home moms as something more felt inside and over a long-term period. So we're in this long game, but you know we're not gonna see employee of the month awards unless, unless you know, your husband does that for you.
Speaker 1:I don't know Creative, but yeah it's. It's definitely this more intrinsic uh, motivating and knowing your worth even if you don't get thanked around the home. Uh, knowing your worth in that work. Okay, I like that. I would definitely agree, and I think that's what this podcast is a lot about is about that juggling either home and work or doing just a little bit to supplement. I mean, cause you still tutor and you bring in some money that way, but that's not your focus. Your focus is being at home with the kids and you tutor. For what? One evening a week, and it's not too bad for your schedule.
Speaker 2:Yes, and honestly, you can ask my husband every time when I'm done. I absolutely love it when I'm done. I just think you know I worked. I worked this week and I'm I'm so happy, but I'm so happy it won't be until another week, right?
Speaker 1:So it's in its proper place.
Speaker 2:It sounds like Right.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, so do you want to fill us in more on your YouTube channel? We sort of went over it, like what's, what's your teaching style? What kind of math do you do? Several examples Do you like to show pictures?
Speaker 2:word problems that kind of thing. So the biggest thing with my YouTube channel is I started the model based upon how I actually taught in the classroom. My setup was basically the kids will have a notebook and I would write notes, like under a dot cam, and they would copy the notes and I would teach as I wrote the notes. And so usually I give kind of an overview of what I'm about to go over, like an introduction, and if it calls for it, depending on where the lesson is like if it's an introduction lesson or just more of like a practice lesson I will give more introduction or I'll give more practice. But basically I try to keep them very short, to just jump right into the material so the kids can focus. I try to also use a lot of analogies so the kids can understand the math on a deeper level.
Speaker 2:When I made the videos it's for the students to follow along with taking notes. But it kind of just depends also on the grade level as well. So, like the kindergarten videos, they're more of just kind of the exposure and hearing the language versus fourth and fifth grade. It's more of like a student could listen to this and be helped on their homework or just a supplemental lesson. So yeah, it just depends on the grade level. But short and simple is kind of my main two key adjectives, I guess.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. So each of your videos is teaching a new math skill, is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, in essence yes, Okay.
Speaker 1:And would you say your videos are valuable to the homeschooler? Learning math, you know, on their own or guided by a parent, or maybe even if a parent has their child in a traditional school, but they feel like they need more support with the math. Are your videos good for that too?
Speaker 2:Definitely both for the homeschool and public school, and I also like it because students, like kids, can watch it, whether it be a homeschooler or um, a kid in traditional school, public school or a parent or even sometimes a teacher, so it's pretty open to anyone so if you're a mom and, uh, you feel like your child really needs to work on math this summer and they're headed into fourth or fifth grade, right, or even if they did those grades and need to be retaught, have those concepts reinforced.
Speaker 1:You definitely need to check it out. Her channel is called Math with Miss Boydell. This is how you spell it B-E-U-T-L. Boydell. All right, so Math with Miss M-S period yes, yeah, m-s periods, period boitel, b-e-u-t-l. And that's where you can find her channel again, so many helpful videos. I truly wish she had taught me math, but it's exciting to see your youtube journey as well. Yeah, go from teaching to momming, to youtube similar, because you know I, I have blog and podcast, so we continue to like these parallel lives, all right, and I guess we'll close with any parting words of wisdom anything that you've learned in motherhood that you could tell other moms or teachers but mainly moms, I think, are the ones who listen to this podcast.
Speaker 2:The main thing. I've heard a lot. It's nothing new. It's just especially with motherhood, because it could be so challenging. But something that's always helped me is the seasons. Oh yes, so you know, if something is difficult or if something is even good, it's just a season and it'll change. Hopefully the good things won't change too much, but if something's challenging, it's just a season and it'll change.
Speaker 1:Life keeps moving forward. So, yeah, yeah, because you're a pretty ambitious individual and I have to remind myself too, I can't do everything. Right now. I was hanging out with another mom and she just said not my season, and I was like, oh, I should emblazon that on something you know not my season.
Speaker 1:I like that because it's it's Caring for children is a lot of work and intense, and you can't expect yourself to do everything that you used to do without children. It's just different. But hopefully we can leave that as an encouragement to you moms to not put so much pressure on yourself and get overwhelmed with everything there is, I like that, just seasons of it, right, okay, well, very good, and maybe we'll have to have you on in the future. I really appreciate your insights into just the whole journey from teacher to mom and obviously definitely cheering on your YouTube because it's so awesome. Again, I'll have that link in the show notes as well. But it is math with Ms Boydell.
Speaker 2:Thank you, this was awesome, okay, thank you for coming.
