TikTok knows what you need before you do. This video is proof.
Mom’s breakfast ritual with her kids helps viewers heal
So there I was, scrolling TikTok at 3 a.m., pretending I was moments from falling asleep. I was stressed and a little anxious because of work and the holidays and everything that comes with trying to help provide for a family when things cost more than they should.
Basically, I needed something good to happen. A laugh. A smile. Even a dog video would have done the trick. Then I came across a video I didn’t know I needed.
A mother standing in her kitchen making a meal for her children.
Since we’re all friends here I can tell you I cried. That video of a mother singing so beautifully just helped me find a glimmer of peace that somehow felt like therapy.
Then I moved on. But the undefeated TikTok algorithm took me back to Stephanie Ferrett’s page and more singing, so I decided to find out who this mom is. Who is this person who stands in her kitchen and sings so powerfully that she routinely gets messages from viewers who have experienced “healing” through her videos?
Turns out she’s a mother of four who lives in California and has a history of singing on stages and in front of cameras. Turns out she’s a woman who decided to walk away from all that to raise her family.
Turns out, she’s a person who found new levels of fame and an audience on social media by just being herself, in her kitchen, with her children.
Her TikTok account has more than 4 million likes.
“It’s a way to reach people quicker and faster and it’s easier to go viral on TikTok than it is on Instagram.” Stephanie Ferrett
Can you tell me about your previous singing experience?
I was in the show choir in my high school years and got my first gig when I was 17. I played Hortense on “Cory in the House.” After that, I got an audition in front of Tyler Perry. That’s when I did my first major gig. My second job was a Tyler Perry stage play that landed me another one of his plays. During that time is when I met my husband at church and we got married, and when I started having my family.
Why did you leave the industry?
After I got married, we got pregnant and I actually had a miscarriage on tour. So when I got pregnant again, it was, “OK, I think I need to take it easy this time and make sure that this pregnancy is healthy,” because the first time I got pregnant I was flying back and forth and going on stage every night.
Then after my twins were born, you know, I just fell in love with being a mother and I didn’t ever want to leave them and I could never leave them. So it just was one of those things where I just wanted to be home and I wanted to be a mom and that’s just what I wanted to do, it was what I chose.
Tell me about your decision to join TikTok
One of my childhood friends was like, “You need to go on TikTok, Stephanie, like everybody is on TikTok and you need to make a TikTok.”
At the time I thought I was too old for TikTok. But after 2020, everyone was getting on TikTok, I was like, “You know what, let me just go ahead and see what TikTok is all about.”
And then I posted an old Tyler Perry performance of mine and it blew up. I gained like 100,000 followers and I was only on there for a couple of months. I had been on Instagram for years and I only had 10,000 followers. You can reach a broader audience more quickly. It’s a way to reach people quicker and faster and it’s easier to go viral on TikTok than it is on Instagram.
How did you come up with the idea of having your children ask you to sing?
I have four kids and they all actually help ask, “Hey mom can you sing this? Hey mom can you sing that?”
They usually have their phones at the bar counter when I’m cooking and one of them had recorded something of me and I was like, “Oh my gosh that’s like actually not bad.” So then we just started making it a thing and it kind of just became something fun that we did together.
What were the circumstances where you were holding one child while making bacon and singing?
I was holding my little 3-year-old while cooking breakfast because she’s usually the last one that sleeps in the morning.
And so she smelled the bacon, but she was still tired and cold. And so she ran in my arms and wanted me to hold her. And surprisingly, when you become a mother, multitasking is kind of, you know, part of the deal, so cooking and singing is like breathing, so it’s not hard at all.
What advice do you have for people who find themselves being ‘famous’?
I would just say to be grounded with your family and firm in your faith, and this life means nothing and joy means nothing if you don’t have a family that loves you, and people that truly love you to share it with.
We are so blessed as humans if we have one person that loves us, which everybody has, that God loves us, we are children of God and we have him that loves us and we are so blessed to have food in our stomachs and a roof over our head and people that love us and I think we’re all just so blessed that sometimes we may forget it.
But we have a loving heavenly father and he loves us – that’s such an important thing for us to remember and to never forget.