Homemaker Chic: A Podcast Review

We have an ever-growing bibliography of books that can help us in our work. We have a growing list of historical and fictional women who can encourage us to stay the course. Now, let’s talk about this podcast.

Prior to Sarah Gabriel’s discovery of Homemaker Chic, I did not enjoy listening to female-led podcasts. Even the True Crime ones grated on my nerves. They are too silly, too cackling, too gossipy, too unfocused, claws on a chalkboard, please shoot me.

It was with great hesitancy that I listened to this episode: We’re ALL Homemakers.

I was impressed, intrigued. So starting at the beginning I listened to more and more. (Like many TV shows, the start is a bit rough, but give it a chance.)

Yes, there were some of the things I disliked about women podcasts, especially early on, but I found myself wanting to listen. I found myself waiting with eager anticipation for the next time I could have Shaye and Angela on. Yes, I can’t always tell them apart. Yes, they’re living a life I dream of but will never have. Yes, they’re both high-energy women who do more in a day than I can manage in a week. Yes, yes, yes. But I found myself laughing, crying, rejoicing, and encouraged as I listened. I wrestled sometimes with what they said and sometimes straight-up disagreed. There were nuances they didn’t address that I felt were important. For all that, each time I listened I felt refreshed.

Why?

These women love their work, take it seriously, and do it with love and joy. They love their husbands, their children, their lives, their homes, and are theologically solid.

Granted, they aren’t bulleted. You can’t just listen to them for 15 minutes like Simply Convivial. There is a groundwork laid in each episode that is built on in later ones. You kinda have to listen to many of them and to the whole episode to find gems that will help you. If you can, if you can bear with the meandering, then you will be encouraged.

You should know that they on purpose set a high standard. They’re not leggings and messy buns moms, but they will tell you when they fall short of their own standards. They are about excellence.

Side Note: After listening to one of their episodes, I bought a tablecloth. Something I haven’t wanted in 10-15 years. This podcast will get in your head and make you want to elevate all you do. It’s dangerous.

Homemaker Chic has encouraged me in my femininity, homemaking, Christianity, marriage, and friendships. My knitting circle has expanded. It is a blessing to find women who take homemaking seriously.

Be forewarned, at first it seems like they have it all, homeschool, beautiful homes, farms, cows, gardens, homesteading, these women are living the life. Listen longer and you will hear them talk more realistically about the things they’ve struggled through. Failures, poverty, mistakes, and the bloody work of farming and animals. So yes, you might have to face your own discontentment, but if you continue listening, they will tell you how life really is and encourage you where you are now.

I can’t recommend this podcast enough if you are willing to be challenged and if you want to be encouraged to elevate your homemaking. I haven’t walked away once feeling like my time was wasted.

Side Note: If you are struggling with contentment or feeling like you are constantly drowning, this might not help you unless you are good at filtering, good at appreciating what others are doing, and telling yourself “I can’t do this right now, but I can start learning and aiming for this.” If you’re not good at self-application and being content with where you are, you may want to pass. But, if you can, I would encourage giving Homemaker Chic a try.

This podcast has blessed my work, sharpened my focus, added beauty to my home. If you have a place in your life for a podcast, I highly recommend this one.

Review from Sarah Gabriel:

I will proudly lay claim to being the bad influence that got Abby totally hooked on this podcast. I will also grudgingly admit that I’m a little bit of a fangirl. I arrived at this podcast rather gradually. Shaye Elliot is a homesteader, cook, and photographer I stumbled across on Instagram some years back, and her particular style of...well everything appealed to me. I knew she had a podcast with a friend, but it just wasn’t on my radar to try it. Don’t ask me why. Fast-forward a few years and I have been listening to another homemaker podcast over the last year, rather reluctantly. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good. Shrill, saccharine, and at times they would descend into unedifying conversations about the host’s marriage, and that was it for me.

I finally tried Homemaker Chic, and yes, it took me a few episodes to be able to tell their voices apart, but other than that I was pretty much hooked from the beginning.

Early on I figured out I wouldn’t agree with them on everything, but I would on the most important things, and that made my heart so, so happy. Many things regarding which I tend to feel in the gross minority, if not completely alone, I found I shared with them.

I most appreciate the dynamic between these two best friends. Shaye is the younger mom, in her early 30s, with four children, her oldest still in middle school at the start of the podcast. Angela is the older woman, in her late 40s, with 6 children, and her oldest solidly a teenager. This relationship often shows the Titus 2 relationship of Shaye being mentored, counseled, encouraged by her older friend. They do set a high standard, yes, but they constantly reiterate their motto that they’re talking to themselves. They push their listeners to do better, work harder, challenge themselves, because they’re telling themselves that. They are very self-aware, calling themselves out on bad attitudes, laziness, discontent, impatience with their people in a wholly non-self-justifying manner. They know that they are sinners and that only by the grace of God do they not destroy their homes.

After listening to about two years worth of episodes in a little over two months, I still haven’t gotten bored or burnt out, which is a neat trick for me. I feel mentored by them, encouraged, pushed in ways I need to be. It has made my work exciting in a way I would not have expected. I expected to get bored, but the nature of work and its variety comes through in the podcast, and it’s never boring. I expected it to make me struggle with discontentment, but they’re so transparent about their own struggles in this area that I instead feel preached to. (As well as the fact that they both have come from points of deep poverty, and they regularly speak to women in less-than-perfect situations, not just prospering farmwives.)

Give it a try! It might be just what you need. And if you would like further recommendations of just “highlight” episodes, reach out to either Abby or me and we can always just send you a few of our favorites as we find them.