Tell us about yourself
My name is Christine Brinkman, I am the founder of Babes Support Babes, a women’s boutique community to help women entrepreneurs grow their business to be profitable and sustainable. I am also a business coach for faith-filled women, helping them as they are in that beginning stage of business to that scaling and growth stage too.
You went from being a teacher to being home with three kids. How do you feel like God used that tough season to actually plant the seeds for Babes Support Babes
Sure, so I was a teacher for many years and I got pregnant with my third kiddo. I was like, ‘Wow, I could either stay home or keep on teaching and my paycheck goes to childcare.’ I knew that I wanted to be home—that was where my heart was pulling. And so, I did not know at the time when I said goodbye to my last year of teaching that I would lose all of my community, because all my friends at the time were my teacher friends. And so, it was a huge, drastic change that I just didn’t have my people every day.”
“So at that time, you know, I really was looking for a community that I could learn from, grow, and would understand the season that I am in—or also women that were ahead of me that can look and tell me like, ‘You’re doing great, and also it is crazy.’
And so that’s where I started, and really my solace during naptime and bedtime was sewing. And so I started my business and I started sewing, and through that, I became connected with a community of women entrepreneurs who had product-based businesses.”
You mention hearing a “still small voice” back in 2018 that started all of this. With three kids and a busy business, how do you keep things quiet enough to still hear that guidance today?
“Oh, that’s a great question. And I think it’s so easy just to wake up and we’re like, ‘What’s next?’ We’ve gotta feed them, get them out the door to the bus. For me, what I’ve noticed the rhythm that I’m doing is I am loving walking outside and being in nature—weaning myself off of podcasts, and music, and Marco Polos, because for a long time it was hard for me to be quiet in my head. Little by little, I’m like, ‘I’m just going to do 10 minutes of silence,’ and now it’s so wonderful just to walk in silence. And that’s when the creativeness kind of comes to me and I have time to work things out.
I learned about it through a book called The Miracle Morning, and it’s waking up just an hour before you’re really needed. And so for me as a mom, I need to wake up without being needed. If I am in bed and I hear, ‘Mom! Where’s this?!’ I’m already like [tense noise]. If I can wake up and I sit in this chair and either I read my Bible, or I pray, or—I’ll be honest, sometimes I scroll; that’s not the best thing I should do—but I just have time where no one is calling on me, that’s everything. Like, that’s really, really good.”
The world is so big on competition, but you’re all about “loving your neighbor” in business. Where does that belief come from for you, and how has your faith shaped that?
“So when I started Babes Support Babes, the foundation is ‘love thy neighbor.’ That’s just what I wanted to do. When I was creating these markets in 2018, I remember writing out the message to send to these vendors: ‘This market’s different. I want to see you connect with each other. I want us to cheer loud when we see the other business next to us just got a sale.’ That’s going to mean everything to us. Like, we’re not a competition here, we’re here to support each other and our goals and what we’re wanting to do.
And so that has just been kind of the culture, the foundation of Babes Support Babes. There was a woman that came to the market, was so inspired by just the community, that she was encouraged and she started her own business because of it. And so now she has an amazing plant business and she’s doing well—and it was because of seeing what ‘love thy neighbor’ looks like and living it out.
You know, Babes Support Babes, we are a women entrepreneur community and there’s many in San Antonio. My community is a boutique community, and so when you think of a boutique, the boutique owner knows your name. They know about your kids. They know your size. They picked something from market specifically for you. And that’s what BSB is for.
Of course, we want to see your business grow, but we also want to see you good. We want to make sure that if the business owner is not doing well, your business is not going to do well as well. So we love to help the woman holistically, whether that’s in her motherhood, in her business, being a wife, being a friend—and so we really encourage that within BSB.”
We all know balance is a bit of a myth with three kids. How do you stay intentional so your family knows they’re your legacy, even when work is busy?
“I burned my family out with my business years ago. To the point where anytime I said ‘BSB,’ they would prickle and be like, ‘Ugh,’ because I found my value and my worth in the output of what I created. When I started my business with BSB, I was so excited being able to connect with these women and I’m just not at home again—get me out of the house was really great—but I did run a little bit too hard and too fast.
I reached a really hard breaking point—an awful breaking point—but I don’t think if it wasn’t for that, then I wouldn’t have this ‘aha moment’ of ‘What am I doing?’ I had this vision of like, ‘I never want this to happen.’ You know, I have this beautiful Babes Support Babes, I have two daughters, and they grow up and say, ‘You know, my mom has this very successful business that she helps women, yet she was never home to help us grow in who we needed to be to grow as women.’ And so, I still get emotional thinking about that.
That was a turning point for me. So I distinctly remember I put a line in the sand, and it was October of 2024, and I had this moment of like, ‘I don’t do evening events anymore.’ And as much as my members love it and they want it, I can’t because just the season I’m in with my family—they need me at home.
My kids know, like, Mom’s going to be at softball, Mom’s going to be at baseball—like today, I’m picking up my daughter so she can come home and get dressed for her dance banquet. Like, those are things that I could never replicate. I can always do events. Events will always be there. But this time, this season I have with my kids at home… it won’t.”
How has having your husband in your corner made it easier for you to take those big leaps of faith with BSB? And why is his support so important?
“Well, I think having Eric, my husband’s support, is everything. He’s my biggest cheerleader. Because if it’s—it’s just not worth it. It’s not worth it if they’re not there to support and be there for you.
I remember one of the events he was handing out bags, setting up—always setting up for me. Of course, taking care of our kids when I’m going to do something. You know, when we got the co-space, he put up all the TVs, all the curtain rods, all that. He was my IT guy; many times I would be like, ‘This isn’t working!’ He is my unpaid business mentor consultant as well for many things. He can check me in a very loving way of like, ‘Do you really want to do that? Is that a good yes? Do you think that’s something you’re wanting to do?’
When I opened the co-space in 2022, we got Chick-fil-A and we got our fold-out table and fold-out chairs. I remember playing music, the kids were dancing, and there was literally nothing—I didn’t even have a broom and these kids had Chick-fil-A little nuggets all over and I was like, ‘How am I going to clean this up?’
Knowing when I closed the co-space, he said, ‘We have to go back and have a dinner there.’ He picked up Chuys, we got to sit and have dinner, and he just said to the kids, ‘I hope you know that you should be so proud of your mom for doing this, because she followed a dream that nobody knew that she could do; nobody believed in her.’ And so for him to like be there for when I got the keys and celebrate with me… I’m there to support women entrepreneurs, but I also have my women that support me that are like my tried and true that really get to see behind the curtain of Christine.
I would say of course one of them is my sister; she is, you know, kind of like a board of directors—she’s there for me to bounce ideas. I have my ladies that I work out with that I’m texting every single day. That’s where I’m so honored to have these women and my husband be in my little ‘ride or die’ group.
Looking back at your teaching days versus now, how has your idea of “success” changed
In teaching, one of the big things was that they would have administration come and do observations. That was so huge. I would say to feel success was making sure that I had good observations. And so there was one year I had a phenomenal response to a lesson that I did and so I was like, ‘I am a good teacher, yay!’ I would say that was success.
Success for me now is to be able to be fully present with my family. My kids are so comfortable that they can share it all—share anything with me—because I’m giving them time and space. And my son, who’s in middle school, I mean he just said it out of the blue, he was saying, ‘You know, I think I’m going to drop some friends.’ I was like, ‘Oh, why?’ ‘Because they’re just not bringing me to God.’ And I’m just like, ‘I think we’re doing okay, I think so.’
When your kids are grown and look back at everything you’ve built, what’s the legacy you hope stays with them forever
Family dinners are everything for us. We don’t have them that often because kids are in so many sports right now, but when we do, Eric and I every Sunday we sit and we look at the week and we plan out, because that helps me plan out my meals too for what we’re going to be serving my family. When I know we have a family dinner, I go all out. Like, I’m making a good dinner. We sit down at the family dinner and we’ll start busting out a song before prayer—and you just see them going [rolls eyes]—but they love it.
So my hope and goal is that the legacy is that family dinner is special for them. And it always—they get so riled up, they get so crazy, it’s because they’re just having so much fun and they can be themselves. We do family date nights, so we have a handful of restaurants that all of the children will be happy eating there. We love investing in our kids. And so we go on vacations with them, whether it’s Disney World or we go camping… but just time together as a family is everything.
How can women get involved with BSB and where can they find you?
I love helping women entrepreneurs. Our membership is for those women who are faith-filled moms that are just looking for a place to grow in business. We are here to teach you that you don’t have to be by yourself and figure it out alone. And so we have a monthly membership that you can be a part of that comes with events… just a great, great community. I’m also a coach too; I get to walk alongside women who are just needing that accountability and needing someone to throw questions at instead of just ruminating in their mind and never stepping forward because they don’t know what the answer is. You can be coming to events—we have events every month to help you whether it comes to business or cultivating community.
Follow me on Instagram at @BSBSATX, also my personal is @ChristineC.Brinkman.
