It began for Ashley Houston shortly after losing her mom at age 21. At a time when many young women her age were preparing to take the next step in their lives, Houston was torn between becoming a full-time career woman or a mom, and, she says, “not finding a whole lot of wiggle room between the two.”
In 2023, in a flash of inspiration that utilized her background in hotel management, banking and food and beverage, she began a venture to help struggling moms while putting herself firmly at the forefront of her own business. She called it Your Household Hero.
“When I first started this, I saw a lot of moms in my life—and from a distance on social media—struggling to balance it all: their careers or businesses, their marriage, their kids, dinner, laundry, you name it,” Houston says. “There is an insane amount of pressure on women to be and do it all, and I just got excited about having a way to take a little of the pressure off.”
For example, besides the everyday items she tackles, Houston also assists with home organization and decluttering, grocery shopping, event management, holiday decorating and just about anything else that needs doing for women who don’t have the time or energy to handle it.
“I’ve helped 40-50 ‘drowning mamas’ so far,” Houston says. “Most of our clients we help on a weekly basis, but some we help every few weeks.”
While it may sound like something that no one else is doing, Houston is only one of growing number of women and businesses helping to ease the strain on working moms.
Based on reports by Research and Markets, an international data and market statistics firm in Dublin, Ireland, the private household services market size will grow to $525 billion by 2029—a $167 billion increase from 2025.
Charleston’s Liz Donovan expects to be firmly in this group after starting Mom Me Minute in 2024.
“Mom Me Minute started with my own burnout,” Donovan says. “I spent a decade in corporate training and technology—more than half of my career was spent in the NYC investment banking industry.”
While time off helped Donovan reset her values and priorities, she still needed something to do, something that involved more peace of mind, and she found it in the example of her doula sister.
“Among friends and clients, I saw a need beyond childcare and cleaning and wanted to incorporate three main ideas: time, care and women,” Donovan says. “I physically wrote down different variations until something stuck. I wanted to convey that taking time for yourself as a mom is a form of self-care which is essential to reducing avoidable stress. And now I’ve provided care for 30-plus families and homes in all stages of life.”
This same focus spurred Charlestonian Jessica Stone to form Everything Sorted earlier this year—but roots started while she was still in her high chair.
“I began this work way back when my mom became a single mother with three kids at home. I am the oldest, and I was 4 years old,” Stone says. “I learned quickly that more clutter meant more chaos and that if you don’t have a plan to succeed, you can plan to fail. We came up with some innovative and sustainable systems that I still use to this day.”
While she technically began a career in real estate, Stone says the edge of decluttered pushing her to utilize it differently. She decided to provide services to moms and seniors.
“A lot of grown daughters have their kids and parents to take care of,” Stone points out. “I am very passionate about helping both because having kids at home and helping aging parents with a downsized are experiences full of overwhelm.”
All three say one big advantage to what they do is having the same vision and mindset as their clients.
“Most women know exactly what needs to be done in their home and do not want to create a detail checklist for someone else,” Donovan says. “They want support that is intuitive—someone who sees the invisible work and handles it without needing to be managed.”
And Stone speaks for all three in regard to today’s moms: “The little girls who have grown up to be moms themselves are drowning in the everyday hustle of raising kids. They aren’t able to help much and are guilt-ridden because of it. I am here for them as much as their parents.”
By L.C. Leach III