A stay-at-home mom of five is making a statement about womanhood by wearing beautiful dresses every single day. Her wardrobe reflects her core values of femininity, modesty, and her worth as a wife and mother, plus, she insists, it’s comfortable!
Megan Madden, 32, a full-time homeschooling mom and author, is married to Josh Madden, 34, a lecturer in theology at Oxford University in England, where they live. Megan and Josh parent five children together, four daughters aged 10, 6, 3, and 1, and a son, aged 8.
“Motherhood doesn’t mean falling apart or losing our identity as women. In fact, through it we can find ourselves in a brand new way,” Megan told The Epoch Times. "So often we’re told to harden, push aside our emotions and feminine qualities to compete and be like men. But I would argue that the world needs women to be who women are, and that in that comes a deep residing peace in our identity.
“Our faith has also fostered our understanding of our identity as God’s sons and daughters. The biblical and traditional truths about femininity and masculinity can help us to understand our particular gifts and what we can so beautifully give to the world as men and women.”
Megan’s first book, “Mary, Teach Me To Be Your Daughter,” is coming out later in 2023 with Ascension Press.
Early on in her dress-wearing journey, Megan was out running errands with three of her children when an older man at a cash register commented, “You look so nice, what are you so dressed up for?” Megan said, “Thank you, I’m just dressing for my day as a mom.” The man replied that it was beautiful, and he wished more women would do so.
“I’ve had little stories like this happen all the time. It’s amazing what a simple dress can speak,” she said. “It’s not that I want to be perceived as a 1950s housewife or in an inauthentic way. Instead, I hope to show the beauty of motherhood in our modern times—that timeless femininity doesn’t have to be lost in the sight of modernity and the comfort of athleisure.
‘The Value of Caring for Your Body’
The couple had their first baby on Oct. 20, 2012, and Megan says she was “completely consumed in motherhood in the best of ways.” Yet, as a new mom, she found getting dressed difficult and forewent some of her formerly favorite self-care routines such as painting her nails or wearing makeup.“After about six months, I had this moment where I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize myself,” she said. “I was wearing leggings and big T-shirts with no makeup and a ’mom bun.' It was survival-mom mode, which happens in different seasons and there is no shame in that, but I knew I didn’t feel myself.”
Megan decided to start dressing with care not only for herself but to show her kids “the value of caring for your body and that motherhood is beautiful.”
During Josh’s graduate studies and early career, they lived in Austria and Poland, where Megan honed her personal style. Struck by the “lovely mothers who were beautifully put together but with a certain simplicity and ease,” she started to build a small, intentional capsule wardrobe of dresses made from sustainable materials.
‘My Mom-Uniform’
Today, Megan wears elegant, modest, vintage-inspired dresses every single day. Doing so has changed her disposition as a woman in ways she never thought possible.“It’s changed the way I sit, the way I carry myself, and my productivity in my day,” she said. “The reason I gravitate to more vintage cuts is because those styles of dresses are made with more material, so that playing on the floor with my little ones, for instance, is completely doable; my skirt floats out.
“I have certain dresses that are more casual for days of long walks or more activity, and others that are a bit dressier that I don’t hesitate to wear for errands. In a sense, dresses have become my mom-uniform. They’re a quick outfit that makes me feel put together, ready for my day, and dressed in a way that shows the dignity of my work as a stay-at-home mom.”
Megan’s interest in womanhood was sparked in her 20s while studying for a degree in political science. She started out researching women’s rights in the Middle East since she has Middle Eastern heritage and, after moving to Austria in 2017, took up graduate courses in marriage and family studies.
Sadly, during this time, Megan suffered miscarriages but found comfort between the pages of books by women writers such as Edith Stein, Gertrude von le Fort, and Alice von Hildebrand.
“[They] held traditional values while still articulating the dignity and value of woman: equal in dignity to man, but complementary in nature,” Megan said. “In light of those studies, I truly believe the heart of woman is her maternal nature.”
Grounded in Faith
High school sweethearts Megan and Josh, who married in 2011, are governed by their Catholic faith in everything they do, and, as part of exercising her maternal nature, Megan agreed with Josh that they would homeschool their children.She said: “I knew that if I were married I’d want to be a mother, and if I were a mother I’d want many children, and if I had many children I would want to be with them, present to them, and not miss a moment. Because of this, we decided prior to marriage that Josh would be the main provider ... so that I could stay in the home and raise our children.
“With that being said, Josh is the kind of father who wants to be with his family and children as much as possible. He pours himself into his work as a theologian and simultaneously finds a way to serve all of us every day ... we are truly a team in raising the children and being present to them,” she said.
Since Megan and her family travel often, Megan has integrated bookwork and real-world experiences into her kids’ homeschool education, such as visiting Roman ruins in England after studying Roman history, and strolling through the National Gallery after learning about art.
Best of all, the beautifully-dressed mom claims her kids are each other’s best friends.
“They’ve never shown interest in attending a traditional school, we’ve been blessed with a great community of friends and social opportunities, and I am able to essentially be a private tutor to them, fostering all the areas of interest and slowing down in any challenging areas,” said Megan, who says the best part of being a stay-at-home mom is “watching the children become who they were made to be with their individual personalities, thoughts, talents, and dreams.”
Everything in life worth something comes with challenges, says Megan, who finds it bizarre that a woman who wants to raise children, be a homemaker, and wear dresses is considered a “traditional wife” by today’s standards.
She said, “I would never say across the board what a woman should do, because there are circumstances where another path is best for the common good of the family. But I do think a mother staying home should be normalized once again, and certainly supported.
“Though we may not see the fruits of it right away, fostering life, guiding, and bringing up children is pivotal to the good of the culture. Secondarily, the way we present ourselves as mothers communicates to the world something of who we are, our hearts, and our disposition to our work. Yes, I had all these babies. No, I didn’t fall apart. See, you can do it too!”
