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Hi, I’m Dawn from The Minimal Mom! If we haven’t met before, I’m married to Tom and we have four kids ages nine through 14.
We love sharing tips and tricks to help you simplify your home. We have called ourselves minimalists for about eight years now, and we love it! If you don’t want to go quite that far, that’s totally okay!! We’d still love to help you simplify and declutter so you can enjoy your home again.
I feel fortunate to have grown up on a farm in Minnesota just south of the Twin Cities. Born an identical twin, my youth was spent trying to explain to people how to tell us apart, helping with chores, and endless hours playing outside with our cousins.
After high school I went on to get a degree in marketing and fell in love with graphic design. In the following years I worked, met my husband, started having kids, stopped working outside of our home, had more kids, and now live just a few miles from my parents’ farm.
In 2013 I started I Think We Could Be Friends along with my twin sister Diana, two therapist friends, and many guests. It turned into a fun community where we supported happy homes and healthy relationships.
Around that time, we had four kids ages four and under, living the American dream. From the outside looking in, we had it all. We had four healthy kids. I got to stay home with them. We were making ends meet.
But I was becoming resentful towards the stuff in our house. I remember thinking, “Why would I pick up all of these toys on the floor when I’m just going to have to pick them up again tomorrow?”
It’s like our stuff was saying, “Oh Dawn, why can’t you keep your kids’ toys picked up? Why can’t you keep the dishes done? Why can’t you keep up?”
The narrative was that good moms have sticky floors and messy kitchens and we shouldn’t be expected to stay on top of it all.
But something didn’t feel right.
Then I came across this podcast by Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist and all I could think was:
He talked about living with less and how if we aren’t careful we become “stuff managers”…and how it eats away at our time, zaps our energy, causes stress, and just makes our life and our home chaotic.
Over the next year, I started clearing out the clutter and haven’t looked back.
I don’t miss any of that stuff. Material possessions didn’t make me happy. They didn’t make life more enjoyable. It was the opposite. That stuff was mocking me on a daily basis and I wanted it out of my life.
I didn’t want to waste my precious time and energy by managing stuff anymore!
The Minimal Mom was born out of my desire to share more specifically about our journey of taking on a minimalist lifestyle.
Our home is much more peaceful now. By having fewer material possessions to manage, I find myself with more time to visit, garden, cook, play with our kids and ultimately do more of what matters most.
So no matter what journey you’re on right now, if you’re looking to pare down a little (or a lot!), we hope you’ll hang out with us and see how our average family of six lives with less.
It really is more fun if we do this together because it’s not always easy! We look forward to walking alongside you on this journey!!
