Motherhood Abroad: Raising Children, Finding Yourself and Learning to Slow Down
Are you so busy getting through motherhood that you're missing the childhood happening right in front of you?
When we imagine raising children abroad, we often picture the lifestyle we're creating for them. The sunshine, the freedom, the opportunity to grow up speaking different languages and experiencing different cultures.
But there's another side to motherhood abroad that we don't always anticipate.
What happens when you're raising children without your family nearby? When the career or business you've built no longer fits the life you want? Or when you realise that, while you've been busy managing everything, your children have been growing up right in front of you?
In this episode of The Mothership Podcast, I speak with Shelley Kay, founder of Ibiza-based creative studio Studio de la Sol and creator of Growing Up in Ibiza, about motherhood, identity, creativity and raising children away from home.
Shelley's story is one of taking chances, changing direction and discovering that motherhood can completely transform how we see ourselves and the world around us.
And at the heart of our conversation is a reminder that feels particularly relevant to modern motherhood: sometimes we need to stop trying to get through everything and start noticing what's already happening.
Six things you'll take away from this conversation
Why raising children abroad can be both an extraordinary opportunity and an unexpected challenge.
How motherhood changes our relationship with work, identity and ambition.
What happens when the business you've built no longer reflects the life you want.
How our children can reconnect us with creativity and curiosity.
Why preserving everyday childhood memories matters.
One simple way to become more present with your children without adding another task to your day.
The reality of raising children abroad
Shelley first came to Ibiza for seasonal work before returning to London, where she built a career in corporate real estate.
Despite professional success, she felt increasingly disconnected from the lifestyle she was living. A demanding commute between Brighton and London left her longing for something different.
Rather than waiting for the perfect opportunity, she began learning new skills and developing a freelance business.
When a friend offered her the chance to stay in Ibiza for four months, Shelley decided to take the leap.
That was in 2016.
What began as a temporary adventure eventually became a permanent move, the foundation of her creative business and the place she would come to call home.
But becoming a mother brought an entirely new perspective.
The island she knew as an adult was suddenly somewhere she needed to navigate as a parent. She needed to discover suitable beaches, childcare, activities and all the everyday things that make family life possible.
And unlike mothers who live close to their parents or extended family, she couldn't simply call on relatives for help.
Motherhood without your usual support network
One of the most difficult parts of expat motherhood can be the absence of family support.
You might love where you live. You might feel certain that moving abroad was the right decision.
But that doesn't mean raising children away from home is easy.
Shelley became a mother while living in Valencia during the first COVID-19 lockdown. She was pregnant in a city where she knew very few people, separated from friends and family at an already uncertain time.
After returning to Ibiza with her daughter Olive, she found herself rebuilding her life while her business was experiencing significant growth.
She describes working late into the night while caring for a young child and navigating motherhood without nearby family support.
It's a reality many mothers raising children abroad will recognise.
The freedom and lifestyle that attracted us to a place don't remove the practical and emotional demands of parenting.
And sometimes the village we need has to be built from scratch.
When motherhood doesn't look how you imagined
During our conversation, Shelley talks about returning to work just two weeks after giving birth.
As her business grew, balancing work and childcare became increasingly difficult.
When Olive turned one, Shelley made the decision to send her to nursery, something she hadn't originally wanted to do.
She had imagined keeping her daughter at home for longer.
I could relate to this.
When my own children started nursery in Ibiza, I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt. It wasn't how I'd pictured those early years of motherhood.
But something Shelley reflected on really stayed with me.
Her daughter loved nursery.
The experience Shelley had worried about wasn't necessarily the experience Olive was having.
It's a useful reminder that our expectations of motherhood are often shaped by our own childhoods, our cultural backgrounds and the ideas we've developed about what a good mother should do.
But our children aren't us.
And sometimes the version of motherhood we've imagined isn't the only version in which our children can thrive.
How motherhood changes our identity and ambition
Before becoming a mother, Shelley had already built a successful business in Ibiza.
Her freelance work evolved into a creative studio, eventually growing to include a team of freelancers and a substantial client base.
From the outside, it looked like success.
But behind the scenes, something wasn't quite right.
As the business expanded, Shelley found herself spending more time managing people and less time doing the creative work she loved.
The business was growing, but it was moving further away from the reason she'd started it.
So she made a difficult decision.
She let go of around 60% of her clients and refocused on the work that genuinely inspired her.
I found this part of her story particularly interesting because it challenges how we traditionally measure success.
We're encouraged to keep growing, achieving and progressing.
But what happens when the thing we're working towards no longer feels right?
Does becoming a mother change what success means?
Motherhood can change our priorities in ways we don't always expect.
For some women, that means wanting more flexibility. For others, it means reconsidering a career, starting something new or recognising that the professional identity they've spent years building no longer fits.
That doesn't necessarily mean becoming less ambitious.
Sometimes it means becoming clearer about what we're ambitious for.
This is something I explore frequently through my work supporting women navigating matrescence — the physical, emotional, psychological and identity changes that accompany becoming a mother.
The woman you were before motherhood hasn't necessarily disappeared.
But the person you're becoming may want different things.
And allowing yourself to acknowledge that can be the beginning of creating a life that feels more aligned.
Rediscovering creativity through our children
One of my favourite parts of this conversation was hearing Shelley describe how becoming a mother changed the way she experiences the world.
She talks about her daughter Olive with such admiration.
The way she moves between languages, experiences different cultures, explores nature and sees the world through completely different eyes.
Shelley describes motherhood as a kind of rebirth.
Rather than seeing motherhood solely as something that took time away from her creative life, she found that it also became a powerful source of inspiration.
Watching her daughter experience the world helped her rediscover the beauty in ordinary moments.
A beach after school.
An evening spent watching the sunset.
The small details that might otherwise pass unnoticed.
These experiences eventually inspired one of her most personal creative projects.
Growing Up in Ibiza: capturing a childhood before it disappears
Growing Up in Ibiza is a living memoir created by Shelley to document the people, places and everyday rituals that shape childhood on the island.
The idea developed from several experiences.
First, becoming a mother made Shelley realise how little information she had about navigating Ibiza with children.
Then, through motherhood, she began meeting inspiring women from different backgrounds, each creating their own lives and raising families on the island.
And finally, she recognised how much Ibiza had changed since she first arrived.
The island her daughter was growing up on wouldn't necessarily be the same place in another ten or twenty years.
She wanted to preserve something of that moment in time.
Not simply the beaches or beautiful locations, but the stories, experiences and details that make childhood meaningful.
Why everyday memories matter
When we think about preserving childhood memories, we often focus on the big occasions.
Birthdays, holidays, first days at school and major milestones.
But so much of childhood happens in the ordinary moments between them.
The conversations on the way home.
The places we visit without thinking.
The familiar routines that eventually become memories.
Shelley's project is a reminder that those moments deserve attention too.
And perhaps we don't need to create elaborate experiences or perfect photographs to give our children a meaningful childhood.
Sometimes it's the life they're already living that matters most.
Raising children between cultures
One of the privileges of raising children abroad is watching them experience a world that may be very different from our own childhood.
For Shelley, seeing Olive move naturally between languages and cultures is something she finds endlessly fascinating.
Living in Ibiza means growing up surrounded by people from different nationalities, backgrounds and traditions.
What feels extraordinary to us as parents can be completely normal to our children.
And that's part of what makes raising children abroad such an interesting experience.
But it also raises questions.
What will home mean to them?
How will they understand their identity?
Will they feel connected to the country their parents came from, the place they've grown up, or both?
Shelley also speaks about wanting Growing Up in Ibiza to reflect the island's multicultural community, including families who have lived there for generations.
It's an important distinction.
Raising children abroad isn't simply about recreating the childhood we remember in a different location.
It's about recognising that our children are growing up with experiences and identities of their own.
Are we so busy documenting childhood that we're forgetting to experience it?
Like so many parents, I have thousands of photographs and videos of my children stored on my phone.
And yet finding the time to organise them, print them or turn them into something meaningful can feel overwhelming.
During our conversation, Shelley and I reflect on how much childhood we now document and how little of it we sometimes revisit.
There's something wonderful about having the ability to preserve those memories.
But it also raises an interesting question.
Are we always fully experiencing the moments we're trying so hard to capture?
We spend so much time thinking about the next thing.
The next developmental stage. The next school year. The next family holiday.
When our children are babies, we're exhausted and waiting for more sleep.
When they're toddlers, we're managing tantrums and looking forward to the next stage.
And before we know it, the stage we were so desperate to get through has become something we look back on with nostalgia.
How to stop rushing through motherhood
Towards the end of our conversation, I asked Shelley what advice she'd give to a mother who feels she's constantly rushing through motherhood.
Her answer was beautifully simple.
When your child is happily occupied and not directly engaging with you, take a moment to watch them.
Notice how they move through the world.
What interests them.
How they play.
The little things they do when they're completely absorbed in their own experience.
And when they speak to you, try to really listen.
Not simply to respond, correct or explain, but to understand what they're telling you from their perspective.
It's such a small shift, but one that can change how we experience everyday motherhood.
Of course, being present every second of the day isn't realistic.
We have work, responsibilities, households and our own lives to manage.
And the last thing mothers need is another reason to feel guilty.
But perhaps being more present doesn't have to mean doing more.
Perhaps it simply means noticing more.
Motherhood changes us too
What I loved about this conversation is that it's not only about childhood.
It's also about the women we're becoming while our children grow up.
Shelley's story is one of courage, creativity and learning to trust herself.
She's changed careers, moved countries, built a business, become a mother and discovered new ways of expressing herself through her work.
And through it all, she's continued to question what she wants her life to look like.
I think that's something many mothers can relate to.
Because while our children are growing and changing, so are we.
We don't have to return to the women we were before motherhood.
We can create something new.
And sometimes that begins with giving ourselves permission to slow down, pay attention and ask what really matters.
Listen to The Mothership Podcast with Shelley Kay
In this episode, Shelley and I explore motherhood abroad, raising children without family nearby, changing careers, rediscovering creativity and learning to appreciate the childhood happening right in front of us.
About Shelley Kay
Shelley Kay is the founder of Studio de la Sol, a creative studio based in Ibiza working across brand, editorial and print.
She is also the creator of Growing Up in Ibiza, a living memoir documenting the women, places and everyday rituals that shape childhood on the island.
Explore her project at https://growingupinibiza.com/
Instagram: @growingupinibiza_
Feeling like you've lost yourself in motherhood?
If becoming a mother has left you questioning your identity, confidence, career or what you want from the next chapter of your life, I'd love to help.
Through Lou Nevitt & Co, I support mothers navigating these changes and finding a way forward that feels right for them.
I also work with organisations to improve the experience of parental transitions, helping employers better support mothers through maternity leave, returning to work and beyond.
Explore coaching and consultancy at www.lounevitt.co
Instagram: @lounevitt.co
Because motherhood changes everything — including us.