Sort Your Life Out star Stacey Solomon has shared her plans to quit the spotlight and be a stay-at-home mum.
Stacey is mum to five kids – Zachary, 16, Leighton, 12, Rex, five, Rose, two, and Belle, 15 months. She’s married to ex-EastEnders actor Joe Swash.
And now Stacey has told the Glad We Had This Chat podcast that she’s going to try and only work on ventures that can be done at home apart from the occasional “passion project”.
Sort Your Life Out star Stacey Solomon as ‘pivotal moment’ in her life
She shared: “I definitely feel like I’m at a pivotal moment in my life where Zach is about to leave school and become an adult. I think I’m at a point in my life where I recognise that I’ve been really busy for his life, and his life is at a really important point, and my second son will get to that point before I know it.
“And then I’ve got these three babies. I don’t want to miss what I potentially feel like I missed with my older children. And I want to be there for my older children, who I think need me now more than ever. I’ve been battling with that in my head.”
She continued: “Every year I have a team meeting with my agent and everyone on the team to say: ‘What’s your plan, what’s your goals, blah, blah, blah.’ And this year when they asked me my five-year goals, I was like: ‘I want to be a stay-at-home mum.'”
Stacey – who also hosts Renovation Rescue – added: “That is like my dream, my ultimate dream. I just want to be with my kids.”
‘Will I feel unfulfilled?’
However, she added that making the decision isn’t as straightforward as it sounds.
“I mean it is conflicting, because I also want to fulfil my dreams and my goals and the things that I’m passionate about, because if I don’t have that, will I feel unfulfilled?
“So what I’m trying to do at this point is make sure everything that I work on I can work on 90% of the time at home. And then just do passion projects outside of the house, and then try and be around for them more. I love being a mum.”
Stacey’s singing career is definitely shelved for now, apart from one very special gig each year. “I have to sing for my grandma once a year – she’s already booked me in. That’s about all I’m going to do with the singing career,” she said.
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Sort Your Life Out star Stacey Solomon on her TV future
Speaking about her TV work, she revealed: “And then TV’s also going to be a small circle – all provided I’m lucky enough to carry on doing it. One minute you’ve got two TV shows that want you and the next you’ve got none.”
The Sort Your Life Out host also revealed that mum guilt is now a thing of the past for her. “As I’ve got older I’ve got less mum guilt because I actually think I’m phenomenal, I’m a phenomenal mum.
“I think if you’re a mum who loves to be out at work, and I’m the mum who’s like ‘Ooh, I love playing with sand and crap at home’ they’re both good mums. I don’t understand why one is better than the other in my opinion.”
Stacey Solomon: ‘I am still a human being, not just Mum’
But it does sound as if she’s torn about stepping back from showbiz. And, any decision that she does make won’t be set in stone.
“Whatever phase of life I’m at, I might be this mum right now, but in two years’ time if let’s say I’ve decided to stay at home and never work again, in two years I might feel like I want to go back to work.
“Does that make me a bad mum? No. It makes me a human that my children can see that I am still a human being, not just Mum. I’m not a mythical creature with no feelings and no ambition.”
Read more: Stacey Solomon welcomes two new arrivals at Pickle Cottage
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