Check Out Elise Hinthorn’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elise Hinthorn

Hi Elise, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My husband had lived in Phoenix prior to meeting me in 2019 and had family here in the Valley. I lived in Birmingham, Alabama. We were both teachers and met on a teacher incentive trip with EF Tours in Madrid, Spain and got married later in 2019. In the spring of 2020 we decided to move to the Valley so that we could be close to his family. So, at the height of the pandemic, we packed up our belongings and moved across the country. We started teaching in Valley schools in Fall 2020 and that fall we also decided to expand our family. My husband already had 2 daughters from previous marriages, I was childless when I met him. We welcomed our youngest in the summer of 2021. I took maternity leave during the first quarter of the 2021-22 school year and that is when I joined TikTok. Maternity leave can be lonely, and I was far away from my own family. I found community by watching Elyse Myers and Maia Knight content. I started creating content as a creative outlet when I went back into the classroom. It was also a way to combat postpartum depression. Returning to the classroom was extremely difficult and I never truly found my joy in teaching again, so after 17 years of teaching, I left.

That spring, 2022, my husband and I also realized we were being priced out of living in the Valley. Housing prices were going up and our landlord increased our rent 30% while I was on maternity leave. We realized that while we wanted to stay close to my husband’s family, that we logistically could no longer remain in the Valley on two educators’ incomes, while also raising 3 kids. We had been through Ajo several times on our way to Puerto Penasco and we loved how quaint the town was so we decided that’s where we wanted to raise our family. Around the same time, I started to get paid for content creation. It wasn’t much, but it showed me the possibility.

From July 2022 to June 2024 I worked full time from home writing curriculum while also creating content on the side and helping my husband raise our little family. It was really my husband who encouraged me to continue to create content for social media. Over the past two years I have shared things that I am most passionate about–travel, outdoor adventures with my family, cooking, ADHD, parenting, and especially toddler learning activities (I guess you could say once a teacher, always a teacher).

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. I struggled with postpartum depression for the first year of my son’s life. Then when I started working from home, I realized some other things weren’t quite adding up. In the winter of 2023 I was diagnosed with ADHD, among other things. I guess I always knew I had ADHD, it was kind of a joke within my family, but I had always gotten good grades, and I did pretty well with the school structure as a teacher. I mean I lost things all the time, but somehow I also had people convinced that I was very organized. When I left that structure, I was no longer able to mask and hide the ADHD so I had to learn how to set up routines around working from home, and when you have a toddler while working from home, routine isn’t always that easy.

I also struggled with the desire to focus more on content creation, but I had to put my energy into writing curriculum and managing the household. I was so burned out by the start of this year that my husband and I had to discuss what it would look like if we went down to a single income. He has been my biggest cheerleader for the past 5 years. Without his support, I would have never gotten into content creation like this in the first place. So we decided to take a leap of faith that we would go to a single income when my contract was up. July 1 was my first day as a full time stay at home mom and I have been able to spend more time working on content creation.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I was a Latin teacher for 17 years, I spent another 2 years in curriculum writing, and now I am a full time stay at home mom. My passion is education so the content I love to make the most focuses on learning and development. I also like sharing parenting hacks along the way.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
If anyone is interested in getting into content creation, just start recording and putting content out there. I started sharing parenting content because it helped me find community. I have learned a lot in the two and a half years of actually trying to make content to be consumed by others and I hope to continue learning and honing my skills.