Magdalena a “slow” mum in Regensburg

– I’m not this kind of “fast” mum on the road, we prefer it slow – this slow life makes me appreciate the “actions” when we go outside!  I just found my balance!

Hello I am Magdalena Bayer, Fashion Designer, blogger, and mother of two beautiful children. My family and I live on the outskirt of Regensburg in Germany. This provides us both advantages to cycle to the beautiful old town and to enjoy the nature directly behind the house. We love to celebrate Christmas and Easter quite ritually and festively; this is still important to me more now than ever and I notice how our children also enjoy and love it very much. Becoming a mother has made me much more structured, clearer and, above all, more self-confident. I also question many beliefs and ‘that’s how it’s done’ or ‘that’s how it should be’ sentences and redefine them for us as a family and for me as an independent person. Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be an adult, ‘be big’, make my own decisions, have my own family and be able to shape my life freely. I really enjoy and appreciate that now as an adult!

As a child, I always had an incredible amount of ideas, I was creative. I had a very strong will for things that were important to me, but at the same time I was also very shy and I preferred to be with adults, other children made me feel insecure. Besides all the creative things, I loved to play ‘office’: with a toy telephone, pens, sheets of paper and the remains of my parents’ stamps on the side, I set up a work desk and could play absorbedly to myself. I have very fond memories of balmy summer evenings during the big holidays with dinner in the arbour in our garden (my favorite place there), before and after which we played badminton.

Both the blog and my Instagram page (all.my.fabrics) have their origins in the parenthood I experienced with the birth of our first child. I had so much creativity and need to share but couldn’t get rid of it in real life due to my mommy duties – and so I started to leave both experiences in parallel and this made and continue to make me feel happy. Especially on Instagram, to have a community around the themes of motherhood, interiors and creativity is fantastic! The blog has been more or less updated since the birth of our second child and I’m currently thinking about a new concept for it. With the little time I had available in the last few years, my Instagram page was the easiest way to show creative things in the interior and DIY area. I love to be inspired by magazines, books, museums, cities, people, but also by social media. And I also like to show what inspires me or my ideas and beliefs. As a stay-at-home mother, I am a lot with my children, we really enjoy that. Excursions and the appointments with the kids happen in very small doses – I’m not this kind of “fast” mum on the road, we prefer it slow – this slow life makes me appreciate the “actions” when we go outside!  I just found my balance!

How do I balance my family life and work?

This is indeed very difficult at the moment. Since my husband unfortunately has very inflexible working hours and structures on the part of his employer (which I don’t find in keeping with the year 2022 and can really talk or write myself into a rage about: how many employers and companies are still stuck in old structures) and we have hardly any support, except in emergencies, from our parents, we are fully dependent on daycare and school with lunchtime supervisions. Our little one has only been going to daycare for a few weeks now, so my work is only slowly picking up speed again, which I’m incredibly happy about, because it’s simply a very big part of who I am. My husband and I make a rough overview of the week about the appointments that affect all family members, I organize my work appointments during the time when the children are at the Kindergarden and school (in the morning till midday) and in the afternoons, I am there for the children. In the future, my husband and I would like to balance each other out more, that is our goal for the next few years in this area!

My advice to all the parents is from time to time, to take a critical look at your own path, see whether the goal is still worth it, whether the goal has perhaps changed, whether you can also enjoy the way there or perhaps you would rather branch off again? Sometimes needs, goals or financial conditions change and then I find it important to adjust one’s own path, but at the same time I find it so important not to lose sight of the big picture, of where you would like to go and what is important to you!