Kailyn Lowry Shares Her Secrets for Managing the "Chaos" of Life With 7 Kids

Usually, Kailyn Lowry is really good about recording every detail of life into her phone. 

She tracks when her kids are at their dads' houses—she shares Isaac, 14, with ex Jo Rivera, Lincoln, 10, with former husband Javi Marroquin and Lux, 7, and Creed, 4, with ex Chris Lopez—and when she needs to ferry her sons to their myriad soccer practices, football games and baseball tournaments. 

But when the podcast host returned to Delaware on a high after crushing the first of her Barely F*ck$ing Touring shows in Columbus, Ohio Sept. 17, "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I forgot that I didn't have wrestling in the calendar,'" she recalled in an exclusive interview with E! News. "So I literally got home and immediately put on my sneakers and took the kids to wrestling."

Thankfully, acknowledged the Teen Mom alum, "I do thrive in chaos. So it's going to get done no matter what." 

Lowry might call this barely f--king getting by. 

But like most working moms, the 32-year-old—who also shares Rio, 22 months, and 11-month-old twins Valley and Verse with fiancé Elijah Scott—fails to give herself credit.

"I'm always looking at all of the things I still need to do, all of the growth that I still need to make and where am I falling short?" acknowledged the New York Times bestselling author. "I think it's ingrained in us as moms. We're never looking at where we are and patting ourselves on the back, we're always looking at where we fall short. It's heartbreaking, actually."

Because from where we're standing the Delaware State University grad has well eclipsed expectations. 

To call her Pennsylvania upbringing rough would be an understatement. She gave her 3.3 million TikTok followers just a taste this past August when she participated in the candy salad trauma dumping trend. 

And though she detailed getting kidnapped and taken to Texas at 9 months old, waking up to a strange man in her bed when she was 9, walking to her uncle's house at 10 when she hadn't seen her now-estranged mom in days and losing her virginity at age 14 on a sidewalk "without even knowing what sex was" (all while casually pouring sweets into a bowl), she admitted to E! that "those experiences didn't even scratch the surface. I could have done a part two and a part three."

Moreover, she acknowledged, she's still surprised when fans and friends alike remark how traumatizing that all must have been.

"I'm like, 'Actually, these are the softer things that have happened," she admitted. "It's just regular for me. I don't know any different." 

Though she recognizes that what happened next is not the norm.

"I could have went down the same path as my parents," noted Lowry. "But somewhere along the lines, I went the opposite way, and was like, 'I'm going to do what I didn't have.' I truly don't know what is the deciding factor there. But I'm thankful every single day. I think about the fact that I really could have gone down a very, very dark path, and I didn't."

She reckons it's thanks to "some luck, some hard work and the rest, I think the universe was just like, here's the cards you're going to be dealt." 

The luck part may have been getting selected as one of the young moms featured on the second season of 16 & Pregnant and then its spinoff Teen Mom 2.

And through hard work, she was able to keep the conversation going after ending her 12-year stretch on MTV. When fellow reality alum Lindsie Chrisley asked her to cohost the Coffee Convos podcast in 2017, "I fell in love with it," Lowry shared. "It felt like the natural next step." 

She now also helms Baby Mamas No Drama with Rivera's wife Vee Rivera and her Barely Famous podcast, which falls under the KILLR Podcast Network she launched in 2021. And though she's most definitely probably done having babies—detailing her decision to get her tubes out after her twins' 2023 birth—she's certainly looking to grow this family. 

Between scouting potential hosts for her network, writing ("I'm hoping 2025 will be a big book journey era for me") and dreaming up product ideas, Lowry's always "plotting and planning," she said. "I truly was built out of survival and so that's always how my brain functioned."

As long as she can get it done before school's out. 

"It has been so important to me to give each of my kids individual time," Lowry explained. "So if at any point anything I'm doing career-wise impacts my ability to have individual time and family time, I have to scale it back. And so I do make sure that anything I have to do for work, nine times out of 10 is planned on dads' custodial time or while they're in school."

Many nights she finds herself back in her home office after all the kids are in bed. "But I'm okay with that," she said. "Because, like I said, I thrive in chaos, and so if it means I'm sleeping for two hours, it's fine. I'll get it done somehow, someway."

It helps that she truly loves the work, getting a thrill of of discovering new voices for her podcast network and finding opportunities to connect with listeners. 

"I do not know why or when I became so unfiltered with my audience," Lowry admitted. "I don't know what made me want to share every little detail. I think it's the feedback that I get, where my audience feels seen."

Of all that she's shared, fans seem to connect most with her co-parenting challenges ("I do have a very unique dynamic with each of my kids' dads") and her openess about experiencing sexual assault. 

"I wish that I had someone as a child that was like, 'It's okay to have these broken pieces in your life and still be grateful, and still push forward—you can be whole and be cracked,'" Lowry detailed. "I needed that as a kid. So now, when people are listening to me and they're like, 'Thank you so much for sharing that,' that's what motivates me to keep sharing."

She refuses to feel embarassed about the things that happened to her as a child or even the missteps she's made as an adult. 

"My poor decision making is not necessarily what shapes me," she noted, "but it's like, 'What do I do with what I learned from it?' And over the past two or three years, I've become so, so, so, so self-aware and fully taking accountability of not great things that I've done."

That accountability extends to her kids as well, Lowry revealing she talks with her children about past mistakes. "I want my kids to know that I'm always going to be a work in progress," she explained. "But I’m still doing my best."

That's just part of the open dialogue that take place in the Lowry-Scott househould. 

"My kids know they can talk to me about anything, whether it's really heavy or it's not," she said. "I hope if my kids are ever in trouble, the first thing they do is come to me because even though I might get upset, they'll know at least I'll be there no matter what it is." 

And, yes, of course she's already broached the topic of birth control with her eldest, now a freshman in high school. 

"I felt at a loss when I was a teenager, just trying to figure things out on my own, and I don't want my kids to do that," she explained of her no-topic-is-off-limits stance. "Because while I want them to stay as innocent and be somewhat sheltered for as long as possible, I also want them to know real problems, real feelings."

At the end of the day, she continued, "We are human, no matter how old you are, so whatever they're feeling in the moment is okay. We just have to figure out how to handle it."

Because while juggling two babies, a toddler and four growing boys leads to the sort of pandemonium she's grown used to, the true challenge is shepherding her squad safely into adulthood. 

"That's the hardest part of this age, specifically with Isaac," she said. "He doesn't even know what some of the feelings that he's having are okay or not and so I just want to be human with him. Not just a parent, but, like, be human." 

And for now, the kids are all right. With Scott "seamlessly" folding himself into the chaos ("He handles it so well!" marvels Lowry), she's thankful to have found a partner who balances her out "when I'm having frantic moments."

Not to mention, she added, "My kids absolutely love him. So that also is a huge, huge, huge help." 

And though she's already mourning the moment Verse and Valley move into their own spaces—"That really means there will be no more babies in our room"—she knows her fam is fully complete. 

"I want to make sure that my kids have the individual time," Lowry explained. "And I think I do a really good job with that now, but if I added more, I just don't know." 

She certainly has her hands full. Keep reading to take a look at her stacked roster. 

Kailyn Lowry was just 17 when she and high school boyfriend Jo Rivera welcomed their eldest son, Isaac Elliot Rivera, on Jan. 18, 2010.

And though they split a year later, the exes have settled into a comfortable co-parenting arrangement, Kailyn even hosting her Baby Mamas No Drama podcast with Jo's wife Vee Rivera. "We’ve come a long way since we were 18," Kailyn wrote on X after attending Jo and Vee's 2018 wedding. "I couldn’t ask for a better stepmom for isaac." 

As for her oldest son, "We have literally grown up together, but in some ways he’s even more grown than I am," she wrote in an Instagram tribute on his 13th birthday. Describing the devoted Olivia Rodrigo fan, musician and basketball player as "thoughtful, brilliant, funny and at times a smartass," the Delaware State grad praised his caring heart. 

"I think what really inspires me about him is the way he challenges social norms," she wrote. "Because he is curious and open-minded, he can form his own thoughts and opinions. Isaac also accepts people for who they are and never how they’re 'supposed' to be. More people should be like him."

Lincoln Marshall Marroquin joined the squad on Nov. 16, 2013, roughly a year after the then-star of Teen Mom 2 wed his father Javi Marroquin. 

"Very much into sports," as Kailyn described the tween in a 2022 episode of her Barely Famous podcast, he spends a significant portion of his time bouncing between basketball and football games. He even had an NBA-themed bash for his 10th birthday, with a nod to his favorite player, Allen Iverson.

No surprise, then, that he provided an assist when it came time to think up a name for his youngest brother. "Verse came from Iverson, which is the name that Lincoln recommended," Kailyn revealed in a February 2024 TikTok. "Obviously, it would be on his list because he's a huge basketball fan."

And an all-star sibling. "To know Lincoln is to love him," she wrote in a 2022 birthday tribute. "Dedicated, smart, handsome and the best brother out there."

Football, wrestling, Rubik's Cubes and Michael Jackson—these are a few of Lux Russell Lowry's favorite things. 

Kailyn's first child with ex-boyfriend Chris Lopez, Lux was born on Aug. 5, 2017. Though she and Chris would continue their on-and-off romance for several years, "Right now, we don't communicate at all," she revealed to E! News in 2020. "I'm hoping that it will get better with time but I don't have a big vision. I don't have anything negative to say. I hope for our kids that everything works itself out in whatever direction that may be." 

And whichever way Lux heads, he's getting there fast. "Lux came into this world at lightning speed & has kept us on our toes every single day since," Kailyn wrote while celebrating his sixth birthday with a WWE-themed bash. "I love this little leo baby so much!"

Ahead of Creed Romello Lowry-Lopez's July 30, 2020 arrival, Kailyn admitted to wrestling with a huge decision. "I hid the pregnancy for so long just because I didn't know what I was going to do—if I was going to keep the baby or not," she explained to E! News shortly after his birth. "That was really heavy for me and I really, really was struggling during that time."

Though her relationship with Creed's dad Chris was notably rocky, one glance at his ultrasound sealed her decision. Much like his older siblings—"All three of them have asked to hold the baby and they're super loving on him," Kailyn told E!—the podcaster was smitten from day one. 

"CREED. Romello. Mello. Romey. Rome. Biggie. Bigs," she wrote on his third birthday, a joint WWE fete with Lux. "No words could accurately describe my love for this little firecracker so I’ll save the sap for real life!"

"I wanted to be able to tell my own story on my own terms," Kailyn explained to People of keeping news of her fifth son Rio private until well after his November 2022 birth. 

Though she acknowledged he "had a little bit of a traumatic entrance into this world where he went to the NICU," due to breathing issues and fluid in his lungs, he's been "the best baby ever." 

First-time dad Elijah Scott deserves some props as well. "It's been very different from my other partners and my kids' other dads," she said of her boyfriend. "He pours concrete, he gets down and dirty at work. But he's also just a real family man. He's very, very much connected with his own family, with our family, and so he's been a really good partner to me, and I feel like it's a really good match."

Which is perhaps why her first few months with Rio inspired her to keep the party going. "Honestly, being a mom to four was harder than five, but I think that was because my number four is so spicy,” Kaily revealed. “Number five is fantastic. He's the world's greatest baby like, if all my babies were like this, I'd have 10 more.”

Cut to...

Kailyn finally entered her girl mom era in late October 2023 with the arrival of Verse and Valley, her second and third children with boyfriend Elijah. 

Valley (named for Kailyn's childhood growing up in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley), endured a longer NICU stay than her brother as she worked through some feeding issues. 

"I had never seen a baby in my life not wake up to eat or show signs of hunger," Kailyn explained on a January 2024 episode of Barely Famous. "She would just sleep through feedings. She never had any feeding cues and when I tried to feed her, she wouldn't take a bottle." 

And though Kailyn continues to worry about the twins' bond after their extended separation ("I'm trying to re-magnetize them to get them back to where they were") she's thrilled that her family is finally whole. 

"I feel grateful, thankful, fulfilled, happy, complete," she noted. "We're putting an addition on our house because of this. I feel so blessed. They are good babies."