Heather Bell with husband Luke and their 8 kids.Photo:Courtesy of Heather Bell
Courtesy of Heather Bell
Heather Bellwouldn’t trade life with her big family for anything.
The mom of eight has grown a following on TikTok, showing what the logistics are like behind the scenes of her big family. There was once a time, however, that Heather thought it would be just her and husbandLuke.
“The doctor said we probably wouldn’t be able to have our own children. So we looked into private adoption, and we adopted my son,David, through private adoption,” Heather tells PEOPLE.
“After that, we thought about how we might not have children of our own and decided to look into foster care. Webecame foster parentstwo years later. The day thatJosh’s adoption was finalized, July 2, I found out I was pregnant with my sonGideon. It was a surprise because we had been trying for almost eight years. After Gideon was born the next year, we just stayed in foster care because we still wanted to be a help to the families — not only the kids but the families too. And sowe continue just being foster parents, and we end up bringingIsabellainto our home shortly after and adopted her two years later.”
Heather thought her family might be complete at that point but was met instead with a “crazy year and a half.”
“My daughter Haley came in the next year, strictly for adoption. She had told the social worker that she wanted to live on a farm, have a big family, and go to church. And so, our social worker called us and said, ‘Congratulations, it’s a girl!'”
“So then that was eight children in our home. Michigan also only allows you to have eight kids in your home at once. So, unfortunately, we had to close our foster care license, which we definitely would have kept open, but eight kids is a lot and they were all between 4 and 12.”
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With eight kids in her home, Heather had to rethink how she ran her household in more ways than one.
“My husband and I were both raised inbigger families. My husband was in a family of 10 and grew up on a farm, and they constantly had people at the house visiting when we were dating. I remember my mother-in-law was cooking these meals that were just huge. My mom cooked big, too, but nothing like that. It’s a farm wife and a city wife, two different situations.”
“Once I got married, it was just me and my husband and of course, because we couldn’t have children, I just cooked for the two of us for a while. Then, when we became foster parents and had kids come in and out of our home, then I had to change the way I cooked, but it was different because when you have children coming into your home through foster care, sometimes they’ll come with different emotional and physical needs and sensitivities,” she explains. “You’ve got kids who maybe haven’t eaten ahome-cooked meal. Maybe they just ate certain things, so when they came into my home, it was an adjustment for each of us. It definitely was a learning curve for me as a mother and a cook.”
“I was really more focused on trying to find foods that these kids would eat that were pretty healthy,” Heather recalls. “It’s hard when you have younger kids to actually do home-cooked meals. You get tired running around all day with tons of kids and just want to whip up some hot dogs andmac and cheese out of a box.”
Her house full of small kids has grown into a house full of big kids, which has also changed how Heather cooks.
“It’s more from scratch types of things because my kids acclimated themselves to that kind of cooking. Now, if I open up a box of mac and cheese, it’s fine as a snack but not as a meal,” she laughs.
Looking back, she says, “It wasn’t just trying to learn to cook big, but it was trying to cook meals they would actually eat. I always had to be ready with different kinds of foods, though I didn’t really have anypicky eaters. I would have so many different options for kids because I didn’t want to set any one of the kids up for failure. I didn’t want to fight with them or make them sad, or make them upset or not eat. It was really quite the journey for years.”
Heather Bell and her sons.Courtesy of Heather Bell
With kids come friends, so on average, Heather is used to “cooking for up to 18 people in a single day.”
“That’s the thing. Our children and their friends know they can always come here for a meal. The door is always open,” Heather says, admitting she’s impressed at how she’s managed it over time.
“We were on a budget because we didn’t really have a lot back at the beginning. It was quite the science. I’m kind of proud of myself, thinking back. I juggled three aspects — making it budget-friendly, making something everybody will eat, and making something that’s enough for everybody to eat.”
Along the way, the family has developed some favorites, like Heather’s chicken pot pie or her tater tot casserole.
“I know there’s going to be no leftovers,” she laughs. “I tried making it in smaller portions once and they won’t even let me alter it.”
Some of her kids have developed a joy for cooking, with all of them proving themselves capable.
“My Isabella, holy cow,she is some cook. She’s the only one who makes something and will add little decorations like it’s the artwork. Every time she cooks, I take a picture of it.”
The Bell family.Courtesy of Heather Bell
The kitchen is the heart of the Bell family home, with Heather installing a huge countertop so everyone can always come hang out.
“My kids were all raised in the kitchen because they’re always around me. They’d ask, ‘Can I help? Can I bake cookies?’ We did the buddy system for a while, where two would work together on chores and could cook a meal. And they could do whatever they wanted, no suggestions from me, as long as it was a meal. Hot dog and fries,scrambled eggs, whatever works. I’d monitor them at the stove, but I’d let them do their thing.”
“So every single one of them might not be a master cook, but they ask for tips and they watch and can do well enough. It’s just part of who we are in our family, we cook.”
It was during the pandemic that Heather’s kids encouraged her toexplore TikTok, doing a few dances as a family before they shared more of their day-to-day.
“We shared a few things and people started asking questions,” she says, noting the members of her family are diverse. One day, she decided to share Joshua’s story of living with disabilities and making it to 17 despite the odds being against him.
“I just shared how Josh was a miracle and how he’s really brightening up our family. The doctor said he might not live to be an adult, and without sharing too many details, I said, ‘Look at him now.'”
The video resulted in an outpouring of love and support, which encouraged Heather to share more about her family’s journey in a way they were all comfortable with.
“Our whole family’s more involved in our content now. My husband’s more involved and we talk as a family and we decide what goes on there and what we share.”
As she did, people asked more questions about how Heather manages her big family.
“So then we started sharing just like our everyday living and our schedules and how we do things. And, and then people like, ‘Well, what do you cook?’ So I started like cooking and people were really loving it.”
Heather made sure to be transparent, from noting that meat and dairy come from their family farm to sharing they have the room for “a couple of extra freezers and an extra fridge and our pantry.”
“It took off more. I started sharing traditions because I’m big on traditions. And the more I shared, the more it grew. Now here we are, four years later and there have been tons of opportunities opened up from my time on TikTok.”
There’s been lots of support for the family and also some detractors, which Heather chalks up to being part of the experience.
“I don’t take it personally anymore because maybe they were struggling. Maybe they haven’t had a good life and seeing us brings up some pain for them. I had to change the way I thought about it and not take it as a personal attack on myself. We’re just here to be a light for people.”
“My whole thinking has changed. I do respond with love more, and I ignore it. If it’s super hateful and it’s about my children, I remove it because my kids do see our platform. They’re involved in it, and I don’t need my kids seeing that. It’s not worth it.”
The family tries to stay focused on the positive, like theirnew cookbook, to be released in October.
“It’s our family’s biography and a cookbook in one,” Heather says. “It talks about our journey, but also how food was so important to it. We’re super excited and hope that people love it.”
The process has been nearly a year in the making and the home stretch is exciting.
“I’m pretty organized, but when putting the cookbook together, it still was 10 months of getting the recipes together, formatting them how they want it, and doing the stories that go along with it. Each chapter is dedicated to one of my kids, and it’s the story of how they came into our home and how I had to adjust my cooking.”
“It really has been a long journey, very emotional,” Heather notes. “It brought up a lot of memories from the past. But I’m very excited about it. My family’s very excited about it. And it’s realistic to how I talk because we’ve got five million followers across our platforms, and they know how I talk.”
It was also important to Heather that the cookbook contained “all simple ingredients everybody has, everyday home cooking.”
“It almost doesn’t seem real, though, not until I see the book in my hand. This book has made me cook better and want to share more recipes, just like joining TikTok did. I’m hoping that this brings even more opportunities,” she shares, adding her ultimate goal would be “to have my own cooking show.”
“It’d be amazing to cook in my own kitchen, Mama Bell’s big family cooking show, but be on the Food Network or Cooking Channel or something. But that’s my ultimate goal, to one day have my own cooking show that other mothers can relate to, where the kitchen is not so clean, and you see bananas going back in the background and hear people in other rooms.”
While she doesn’t know what the future has in store, she knows she has these memories to share with her family, whether this is a chapter of their story or something more.
“There’s more to life than just TikTok. You can get so involved that you forget but you have a home and children and people that need you and a bigger world around you,” Heather says. “If all these platforms shut down, I would be okay because I’m investing in those around me. My platforms are a part of my life, but they don’t control my life.”
source: people.com
