Episode 12: Life of YouTube Wives with Charlotte Thompson

One of the biggest pieces of my life is our family’s YouTube channel, and it’s hard to find people who can relate to sharing life online, so when I do, I instantly want to be their friend! And so, I asked my friend Charlotte to talk with me about what it’s like to be married to a YouTuber!

Q: What relieves you of the stress right now?

Charlotte shares that she is figuring this out daily, but taking the time for herself has been crucial. It could be a face mask, a bubble bath, reading time, etc, but giving yourself time to just be. Sit with your feelings, work through that, take a breath, and allow time for you.

YouTube Wives

My story starts with Glen being a stay-at-home dad while I worked as a math teacher, and him documenting his days with the boys. From there, that YouTube channel grew and now we all share our lives online.

For Charlotte, things started with her husband, Cedric Thompson, as well! He started a YouTube channel after being done with pro-football in the NFL and shared his experience from his perspective. It’s slowly turned into a family channel after she got pregnant with their kids.

When it all started, their families were under the impression that content creators sit at home and document their lives, but it’s not a “real job.” She was hesitant herself to even do YouTube because of the financial unknown. After seeing some other content creators, she was able to see that this was a true career!

Why Share?

Sharing, while hard for so many reasons, has become important to both her and I because it’s allowed us to impact others and show what a healthy family dynamic looks like. After reading comments on videos, I felt confident doing this as a career, but it doesn’t come without its struggles.

Charlotte has a similar mindset. She thinks its important for people to share real life and not just the highlight reel that social media has projected for years. Life isn’t perfect, and sharing the ups and the downs of life is important. It can be hard to find channels that are real, and both of our families are dedicated to showing all aspects of life!

Raising Kids Online

We all know what happens to Disney kids and child stars, but I wondered how she felt about her kids and if she had any reservations about raising kids online.

Charlotte points out that there aren’t a bunch of YouTube kids to see what the long term affects will be, which can be scary, but being thoughtful about what content we do share is important. Safety comes first, for sure, but the positives seem to outweigh the negatives. We’re not going to get everything perfect, and that’s okay. This is our form of ministry to share with others!

Being mindful of when the kids don’t want to film is also a big part of it. When a child isn’t in the mood for it, we stop and are respectful of their boundaries. There are pieces of content online that push a child’s safety, and she wants to make sure they do not do that.

Maintaining Our Voice in Our Husband’s Channels

One of the hardest things about sharing their lives for Charlotte is not being on the same page on how and what they’re posting. The channels, while technically our husbands’, features us and our views often, so having a voice and a place to share our thoughts and feelings about how things are edited and what is shared is necessary.

For me, learning my place in the channel and Beleaf in Fatherhood has been good. Glen’s voice is important and the channel is his view, so having my own platform to share the motherhood aspect allows me to share my perspective.

Taking Time to Rest

Having no clock in and out from work is very hard for Charlotte and Cedric. Boundaries with work can be hard because the job is documenting the family and there is no physical place to leave work at. It can be overwhelming trying to balance posting and having private time. After spending time with their pastor, they decided on spending one day a week to not worry about work at all. No filming, posting, replying to comments, etc. Taking a Sabbath is huge.

They also dedicate time with each other for date night. While they spend a lot of time together, the time isn’t quality time. Date nights allow them to focus solely on each other. Sometimes it’s easier to give attention to our children and not our husbands, and so I agree that a date night changes everything!

So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9

I hope that you learned something about what it’s like to share life online and gained a better understanding of what both our families do! Thank you for tuning in!

To find Charlotte, check her out on…

Instagram

YouTube