Ep.33 Free Thinking Mama w/ Kat Espinal

America and social media are in no short of “Mama Bears” these days protecting their children against radical ideologies and raising them with truth and common sense. Kat Espinal shares her insight in homeschooling and teaching values that are often overlooked in our education system.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/0dQwkxsaF68

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LINKS

Instagram: @free_thinking_mama

Linktree:  https://linktr.ee/free_thinking_mama 

Clothing Line: https://easeandgraceapparel.com

00:00 Intro

03:47 Social Media Outlet

08:16 Trolls

09:58 Making $

11:42 Free Thinking Mama

12:45 Homeschooling Day

18:14 Parent Prep

20:30 Social Interaction 

21:01 Gender Ideology 

24:55 Rapid Fire

26:29 Summary

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the programming lions podcast, where we are on a mission to build strong, confident, and a more productive generation today. We have an awesome guest in store for you. Kat Espinal is on the show and she is a social media influencer who has built almost 50, 000 followers in less than six months. And she's also a homeschooling mama known as free thinking mama. We got a lot to unpack. Let's get into it. Yeah.

Matt: 0:33

Kat, welcome to the Programming Lions podcast. We're so glad you could join us. We've been following you on social media for quite a while. We certainly appreciate your perspective and the fact that you advocate for conservative values and homeschooling. And so today we were curious to have you on the podcast, talk about homeschooling some of the pros and cons of that, and I think that's something that our audience will really appreciate I'd love if you could just maybe in your own words, tell us a little bit about, your story and how did you get here?

Kat: 1:01

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here and definitely share some important topics. Benefit a lot of parents for sure, especially with how society has been turning in the recent years. I feel like these topics need to be brought to light more. And we have to have this tough conversations I feel like having the core conservative point of view when it comes to parenting is very important, especially when it comes to education it encompasses everything that women is, like your education, will Also shape your morals and how you see the world, what kind of human you will be. I decided to take homeschooling in my hands because I have kids with disabilities and with a society being a little bit I won't, I don't want to say all society has the same points of view, but in school settings, you really can't choose your kid's teacher or what their set of beliefs are and if they're actually getting the help they need. I feel my daughter's the oldest one. She has autism since. We got her diagnosed. It seemed like the very first thing the natural feeling to do to want to protect her more. I feel like homeschooling definitely tackles all that because we don't have to worry about curriculum. We don't have to worry about safety in schools or other kids being nice to your children. And, we kind of just went from there. What it turned out to be a necessity because of my daughter's needs became something really fun, something that I actually enjoyed doing. And as we had more kids, then we just continue homeschooling because they all seem to like it. It just brings us together more. It's really funny how it turned out. It wasn't really my first option of schooling when I became a mom, but the circumstances pushed me to it and it just turned out to be the best decision, I would

Matt: 3:03

right. And so you've got your oldest is nine and has she been homeschooled her entire like school career?

Kat: 3:10

Yes, so you want to help them as soon as you have an idea that they might have some kind of condition or disability. Anything that's related to them not meeting the milestones, they need a little bit of a push. And she received a lot of therapies. Since she was a baby, so that required me to take her to the doctor clinics a lot and homeschooling gives me that flexibility that I could still do the academics and it wouldn't interfere with all her other different classes.

Matt: 3:43

Okay. Yeah interesting. And Maybe this is good. Segue you also started up and you've gained a pretty good following on social media. Can you tell us how that started and what got you into it?

Kat: 3:55

To be honest, this, it was shocking to me. I just started the Free Thinking Mama account in October, 2023. So it's not even six months, like now, and it's just boom, quickly.

Matt: 4:09

wait, it hasn't even been six months.

Kat: 4:14

I don't have social media experience. I'm just a mom. But I felt very called to do something mostly for children and for parents who don't realize what's going on out there. I saw a push of the whole gender ideology and that triggered me mostly like in the mom part of it because it seems very unfair to me that we're bringing those kind of topics in spaces where children go to learn. So that just didn't sink in with me at all. I am very I don't like debates. I don't like to make people uncomfortable. If they want to choose traditional schooling, that's totally fine. Like for some people work, it was like, Maybe I should be more vocal about it. And then I didn't go for a while until I actually have a friend who, started changing pronouns for her kid and yeah, my God, so she's not your daughter anymore. She's your son. Like

Matt: 5:21

That's

Kat: 5:21

it was seen so close to me. It seems so close to me that someone who I know so it's not something that we see on social media or the news or anything. It's really happening Yeah. Yeah. I'm Christian, so I. I had a talk with my pastor and with God and like I pray I was like, okay, I have this really intense feelings about this idea of pushing children, but I don't want to condemn anybody. I don't want to be out of line. What do I do with this? And then I came to the realization and my pastor also give me his perspective that it's okay for Christians to have an opinion when things were not right and he pointed them out. So by me having a voice, it doesn't make me a bad person. It doesn't make me less Christian or It evaluates other people. I'm just sharing what aligns with me. What I feel like is damaging children, which is completely wrong in my eyes to do such a thing. And I would definitely share my voice if it's going to make an impact, if it's going to help parents to be more aware and ask questions, go to school meetings, if Their kids are still in school, just ask them questions, prepare them mentally to address these things because sometimes these concepts can be brought up to them in a very subtle way, and you want to prepare them, you want to tell them otherwise, you want to tell them what's true and what is not true, and I feel like, The news don't really do that. They take a side and social media is more neutral and social media. You can just really share your opinion and whoever wants to hear it, will hear it. It kind of just went from that. It seems like a lot of people share my opinion and they found my page for sure.

Matt: 7:15

well, clearly you're not alone. You have a pretty sizable following, especially like six, months into your social media activity, which is pretty amazing. Yeah. And it's an interesting time I left a corporate career late last year to do this podcast with my kids for a lot of the same reasons. Being able to spend time with them and talk to them about issues that either they don't learn in school or they might learn in school, I want to make sure that their value system matches our value system. And that we can talk about bigger issues that aren't covered in school. That's what we do. And then we have guests on. So it's a really unique opportunity to talk to interesting people, interesting topics together as a family. So that was what prompted me to get out of the corporate world and do this. It's a fun journey, I'm learning, I guess as you have, that there are a lot of people who share some of these values, ideals, and conservative views. And that's okay but I also get a lot of trolls. I'm sure you do too. so you get some trolls? Is that right?

Kat: 8:22

I do. I do get some people who are rude,

Matt: 8:27

Yeah.

Kat: 8:28

it. They complain, they're like, Bad Christian and I'm sure they don't know the Bible. That's why they're saying those things. I ignore them most of the time. I feel like 80 percent of the messages I get are positive is people who say, thank you for sharing this, I didn't know I'm from this state and this is wrong. What's happening. Depends on the content that they're commenting on, but a lot of people are very nice. Pray for me, thank me for what I'm doing. And. Definitely share the same beliefs that I do. Yes.

Matt: 9:02

okay

Kat: 9:02

It's a very supportive community. I would say for the most part.

Matt: 9:07

What platforms are you on actively?

Kat: 9:09

Only on Instagram because Tik Tok. Takes down my videos

Matt: 9:14

Oh really?

Kat: 9:15

like within seconds. Yeah. Yes.

Matt: 9:18

Oh that's weird. So they take it down, so the Chinese company takes down your stuff faster than the U. S. company.

Kat: 9:25

Yes. I have never, I got a guideline, notification or anything on Instagram, but Tik TOK doesn't like me.

Matt: 9:33

Really? Wow. That's interesting because, as you've probably heard, the U. S. government has passed this law that TikTok has to sell a majority of its stake into a U. S. company. Some conspiracy people might say that our government wants control over how TikTok is being used. Promotes any propaganda and or censors certain types of speech. As you have been Home with the kids Do you find that there's an avenue to make money through social media? Is that something that you're transitioning to?

Kat: 10:09

I have had many offers, to be honest, just randomly popped in my messages, mostly affiliate marketing. And I do have some knowledge on affiliate marketing. So that's definitely something I have started exploring, not as my main goal, but as things that I use. For example, I use learning apps for my kids. And they have offered me like for subscriptions or discount codes for my followers. So I do use some of those definitely, but it's not like I'm not making tons of money or anything. That's not my goal when it comes to my page. It's early developing. So I'm mostly focused on creating resources.

Matt: 10:58

How do you then make money?

Kat: 11:00

I have other businesses. I am a property manager. I have Airbnb rentals that I manage from my computer. So that's the, that's my part of the job. And then my husband does construction.

Matt: 11:14

Oh wow, okay, that's great. Great, that's a good business to be in we just did an episode on inflation that we published, was it two weeks ago? One of the things that we talked about with inflation is the dollar is getting less valuable every day Okay. But property, hard assets, are going to continue to hold their value as the government continues to take on more debt and print more money and send more money overseas. That's just going to devalue the dollar, exacerbating inflation. Alright. On your Instagram channel, we all know that you are a free thinking mama. But it seems like Instagram, and as you were saying, TikTok want you to be a non free thinking mama. What do you feel about that? Heh.

Kat: 11:59

and I encourage a lot of people to actually being more free thinking, more questioning the narrative and to do your own research, because it seems like a lot of people would just want the easy way out. Oh, I saw it on the news and that's it. But do you research it? Do you give it a thought? Do you let it process? Like. All those things that play into making a decision what you're going to believe is true or wrong a lot of people just go by what is said, so I do encourage people to think for themselves, do your research,

Matt: 12:35

interesting. That makes sense, yeah. Don't believe everything you see, boys. Okay. Oh, we already knew that. Alright. So now we're kind of going into homeschooling. What are some benefits and drawbacks of homeschooling?

Kat: 12:49

I feel like the benefits or my favorite one is that we have the flexibility to do homeschooling any day, even when the kids are sick, or if I am tired or sick, we still find the time to fit in the academic way. Our attendance sheet always looks good. I remember growing up I didn't like going to school sick because it was so many hours in the day, literally eight hours out and having a cold or having a fever, you'll just not really want it to be there and my kids can do that like from home.

Matt: 13:21

What does a typical day look like for you?

Kat: 13:24

I wake up at six, prepare everything, and the kids wake up at different times, but we usually have breakfast, brush their teeth, get ready. They help me do some of the breakfast things, like we're learning to, we take it as health class. We make breakfast, we chop vegetables and fruits and things like that. Simple things that they will use a life like teaching them how to do house things, not out of them helping me, but I know that we use those things because I didn't got to teach that at all. And when I get older, it was hard for me to do my laundry or. Take care of my bills, things like that, that regular adults do. So I am slowly teaching them all those priorities. They have chores that they do at home. So we tackle those in the morning. Then after that, we have three activities that we do and we rotate those activities. We do math and languages, social studies, science, and health. Those five topics. We spread them in the week, but we only do three topics each day. That definitely works for my kids. We try to do the academic work, finish it all before lunch, after lunch, we do other activities that they have swimming, arts and music, things like that, activities outside the house that they do, and we pack them in the afternoons, That's like how a regular day looks like.

Matt: 14:56

I was wondering, you were mentioning like math and science and stuff like that when they get older how are you like going to teach them like harder things, like there's calculus, right? How are they going to do that with more people to go off and get advice from other people?

Kat: 15:14

We do participate in homeschooling groups. it's other homeschool and we need a weekly

Matt: 15:24

Okay.

Kat: 15:25

we do field trips most of the time. And we have been considering doing different topics with other moms. Actually needing more than once a week. And let's say for example, I'll do the reading side, like that topic and other mom would do math and all their mom would do science. That way we take turns to do different topics. If they're interested in joining a group or some kind of school program where they can come in partially, or if they do want to go to school, then I would definitely support them. Like I wouldn't want them to miss out on something they want to try, it seems like they like the routine and everything that's going on, but as they get older, I have already considered curriculums to help us teach them. Cause like you said, calculus is the hard, right? Not everybody likes those hard topics. There's some online curriculums that there are more self paced. So pretty much you create an account for your kid and you put what level they're in, they have a little assessment to see what level they're at that topic. And then they start their work. They have lessons, they have worksheets, and then they get graded in the app.

Matt: 16:42

As a parent what resources are out there for homeschooling in terms of curriculum, apps, communities, what it sounds like is there are Websites or apps That you can go to that basically have curriculum that you can sign up for and have kids go through at their own pace. That assess their level and then challenge them to, move at their own pace. And then communities is another one I'm really curious about in terms of,, groups that you can enter that maybe have subject matter experts that can weigh in and help kids get through a sticky spot in their educational cycle. Maybe tell me a little bit more about what kind of resources are out there?

Kat: 17:21

A lot of free resources I find on YouTube. Most of the time has a lot of teaching channels. I have found stuff in Pinterest I love Facebook for finding groups

Matt: 17:34

Okay.

Kat: 17:34

to all their parents, the homeschool. I don't want to say every town, but literally in every place you go, you'll find the community groups A lot of your time invested in creating those connections when it comes to Connecting with other families because that doesn't happen like your regular school that they're just going to go and make friends It's up to you to make sure They go and meet other people and it's nice because you get to know their parents And you get to make friendships and plan trips together And I feel like I am more involved than if I were to just Have my kids go to a field trip

Matt: 18:14

okay, a follow up to that from a parent perspective is what kind of sacrifices should I be mentally prepared for?

Kat: 18:21

I see sacrifices as positive things that I know is going to create a benefit. That it's going to be tough, but at the end it's going to, give back to me. I don't sleep well because I'm always preparing. Things for my kids, I have more responsibilities because I have to teach them, I have to make sure they're not just as a mom, but as a teacher now and a guide for them because they're with me 24 seven. So I have to have the reset schedule. I have my month planned where all my lessons are planned, all my appointments and things that I need to do. I have to make sure I track my budget homeschooling, there's requirements for materials the rewards are nice because I see how my kids love it the sacrificing part is just you being in control

Matt: 19:16

Yeah, so I imagine that One of the big benefits is you're in control, you have a flexible schedule, And you can optimize the time that they are learning. So I hate parsing and diagramming and anything that has to do with sentences and grammar. Do you guys do that in your school?

Kat: 19:37

We're early stage of grammar. We're still learning to make sentences where I'm not too picky on all the punctuation but. It's important to have the basics, but if you're not going to be a writer as long as you know how to write properly, it's fine to me.

Matt: 19:54

Yeah, like when in your life are you gonna diagram or parse sentences other than school? If I was to arguing for the opposite side of this, there are some basics to it that allow you to understand sentence structures and, break them down so that ultimately your writing skills can be better and more proper. Right? And so there's probably a basic understanding that is important to have. There's a lot of things that maybe aren't thrilling to learn, but they help you with a baseline understanding, and then that's a building block into other things. So I would expect that's kind of the argument for why diagramming sentences is important. How do you enrich a non academic Sports or social interaction?

Kat: 20:38

We do a lot of extracurricular classes for the kids. They love music. All of my kids we do have music class. We also have Bible class with similar age kids where they go and color and learn stories of the Bible we also have painting. And we have gymnastics

Matt: 21:01

we know that you do not like gender being in schools. And we also do not. Why do you think that it's becoming more and more talked about in schools?

Kat: 21:13

I feel like they're trying to implement this idea that by being inclusive. and being acceptive of other people and what they choose to believe they are. Then we are nice by accepting them if they want to change their gender or be called differently. I feel like we should still have our different opinions. We should still be able to disagree. And not in a hurtful way that we don't accept others, but that's their personal preference. I cannot impose my beliefs on you as much as you cannot impose your beliefs on me. That's including the children. As a parent, will send my kid to go to school to learn. But I will research certain topics and when it comes to the gender ideology, I do not see fit for that in the curriculum. If they want to do a club, like LGBTQ plus club, if they were to have a club where they would explore gender ideology, that's fine, because not every child is going to be interested in this topic, but somehow they have made it into a way that there's no option. There's no way out. To be taught to every single kid with no say from the parents. So yeah, that's my perspective when it comes to not teaching the kids. This general topics, like curriculum in school is general, the education is general. They will learn the same thing. So I feel like we, as parents, should all be okay with this, not just a specific community of people, but everybody as a whole, so we have to find a middle ground. So everybody's comfortable,

Matt: 23:05

there's a couple of areas that are really problematic when you have biological boys in girls, locker rooms and sports that just seems objectively not okay

Kat: 23:18

It's not safe,

Matt: 23:20

It's not safe, no.

Kat: 23:21

me.

Matt: 23:22

And then the other challenge is, people are certainly going through increasing levels of mental health, and when I think of gender dysphoria, instead of normalizing it, maybe we should Treat it in a different way, and we can still be kind. We can still be kind people and accepting people, but it's difficult to accept things that are objectively untrue as truth just to make somebody feel good so instead of gender ideology what are the most alarming trends you see in education? And what concerns you about them?

Kat: 24:00

I think that it's very unrealistic to think that if you have 30 students in the same classroom, that they're all going to be learning at the same pace. And just by giving them a test that's going to really tell you where there are intellectually it seems really unrealistic to me to want to measure every kid the same way when we're also very different. We all learn different and we have different levels in our intellect.

Matt: 24:34

Yeah, I agree with that. Nice. You got some that are pacing behind, some that are pacing ahead, and yet it's designed for a normalized distribution so that can be tricky. We appreciate you giving us some of your expertise and personal knowledge as a homeschooler and a free thinking mama. So that was awesome. We have a fun section that we like to do with all of our guests and we call it rapid fire

Kat: 25:01

Oh

Matt: 25:02

Yes, we have six rapid fire questions for you where you have to answer them as fast as possible

Kat: 25:08

my God. Okay.

Matt: 25:09

All right three two One Have you ever been stuck in a bathroom stall without toilet paper?

Kat: 25:17

Yes.

Matt: 25:19

Explaining us, who is your idol?

Kat: 25:22

Oh Billy Idol. Oh,

Matt: 25:25

Would you rather fight a 1, 000 pound duck or 1, 001 pound ducks? 1,

Kat: 25:31

second one

Matt: 25:34

001 pound ducks? Bunch of little ducks, got it. Coolest invention in your lifetime.

Kat: 25:40

Oh my god Internet

Matt: 25:44

Would you rather die to a great white shark or a flaming hot volcano?

Kat: 25:50

shark.

Matt: 25:51

Okay if you had one super power, what would it be?

Kat: 25:55

Oh, we like to read minds.

Matt: 25:58

Really? Interesting. Okay, well, that concludes the very short rapid fire. Yeah. That's a fun section. Thanks, boys. You always deliver. Well, with that, we'll wrap up the podcast, but I wanted to say, Kat, thanks for joining us and bringing your knowledge and expertise to the show and our audience. I will drop links to your social media in the description so that people can check you out, follow you. I have one final question, any words of advice or wisdom for the GSD Nation and, these two boys sitting here.

Kat: 26:38

guys are doing an amazing job think you guys are great. You give me hope for the new generation for sure and God bless you and God bless your parents.

Matt: 26:49

Thank you. Thank you and bless you and your family as well. With that, we'll call it a wrap. Yep. Thank you.

Kat: 26:56

Thank you for having me. I had so much fun

26:59

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