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Well This Wasn't The Plan!
We never expected to homeschool...but here we are! Life is funny that way, ya know?
After 4 years in public school, we've made the unexpected leap into homeschooling our 3 kids--while still working full-time! On this podcast, we're documenting the journey in real time: the good, the hard, the hilarious, and everything in between.
Whether you're a curious parent, a fellow homeschooler, or just here for the chaos, welcome!
Let's figure it out together--because sometimes the best things start with, "Well, that wasn't the plan..."
Well This Wasn't The Plan!
1. Why We Decided to Try Homeschooling -- The Million Little Reasons
Homeschooling wasn't the original plan. As two full-time working parents with three kids thriving in an excellent public school, homeschooling never crossed our minds. Yet here we are, embarking on this unexpected journey.
For us, it wasn't one dramatic event but countless small moments that gradually revealed the system wasn't serving our children.
We realized we were fighting to maintain a schedule that made everyone miserable while simultaneously delegating more and more of our parenting responsibilities to a school whose values didn't always align with ours.
This podcast chronicles our real-time journey navigating homeschool curriculum, maintaining our CPA firm, preserving our sanity, and rediscovering joy in learning and family time. We'll share our curriculum choices, daily schedules, mistakes, triumphs, and the brutally honest reality of what happens when type-A professionals with zero teaching experience decide to educate their children at home.
We don't know exactly where this path leads, but we're committed to transparency about every step along the way.
more control over, you know, the kids' upbringing.
Speaker 1:And I feel like we have delegated more and more to the schools and in the beginning we delegated math and reading to the schools, and then we started having them teach the kids more and more stuff and before you knew it, you know they eat breakfast and lunch at school. We've delegated two out of three of the meals up there and then they're there for longer and longer. The school year lasts longer. Then all of a sudden we're delegating sex ed to the schools. We're delegating teaching the music to the schools. We're delegating all the exercise to the schools. We've completely cut ourselves out of the equation in raising our children and I want to be in the control of that.
Speaker 2:We are two full-time working parents who just made a crazy decision.
Speaker 1:After four years in public school, we're homeschooling our three kids and documenting the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Never in a million years did we think that we would be homeschool people.
Speaker 1:Welcome. This is the well, I didn't see that coming podcast. I'm Slate and school's in the kitchen. Now. I'm Scotty. We say start. When I say so, I'm Sailor, and this whole podcast was my idea. This podcast is our real-time journey, unexpectedly juggling homeschool jobs, parenting and everything in between.
Speaker 2:Follow along each week as we document how it's going and share the good, the bad and the ugly, because we know some days are going to be ugly and we're not holding back.
Speaker 1:We're learning to expect the unexpected. So let's get into it, let's go. So let's get into it, let's go.
Speaker 2:We are leaving public school after four years and it feels good to say that out loud. Finally.
Speaker 1:It feels good to hear it.
Speaker 2:It's just like something that has been going on in the background for a really long time, and for the longest time we didn't tell anyone, and we can go for the reasons why we didn't. And we're finally here. School's about to start back for everybody and we are homeschooling and it feels good to just be committed. The decision's been made, all of the things have been done in the background and we are doing it.
Speaker 1:It's also scary.
Speaker 2:It's really scary. I'm both scared and also really excited and obviously we're both super, super optimistic about this, because who isn't? When you're making a new decision, you're just like pumped about it and of course people see the flaws in your plan and I'm sure we've received a lot of that from our family and friends. But we're pumped. But also I am very scared and nervous about this first year and you know we don't even know what's next. But this first year we're committed to it. Like we have a plan, we're so excited, but who knows? And that's kind of what this whole podcast is about.
Speaker 1:But you know, it's like with anything that you're scared of. You know I used to be a musician and you the fear builds and builds until you get closer to the day of the performance. But then the day of it starts to wane, and by the time at least for me, by the time I step on stage right before I start singing to wane, and by the time, at least for me, by the time I step on stage right before I start singing the fear is gone and I feel like I'm hitting.
Speaker 1:We're definitely on the downslope for me because we have a plan, we're so close to putting this into action, and so I feel so much of the fear going away because I know what it's going to look like, or at least have an idea of what it's going to look like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel that right now, in this moment, I feel relieved, like we've made the we've made the decision that works best for our family and we're just moving forward with it. But I think, and the whole reason for this podcast episode right now, is that people keep asking us why, why are you homeschooling? And it's so hard to answer that question, especially if you're just chatting with someone like in just like a minute or two.
Speaker 1:they just want to know why but it'll get way easier now, because just randomly handing a person your podcast card is super normal and not rude at all, like why did y'all decide to homeschool? And you just like smile at them and hand them a card and walk away. Is that is that the plan? No, that is not the plan.
Speaker 2:Well, but also, I mean, I completely understand that this is not normal, but when big things like this happen, I do have to like think how I'm gonna tell people on my social media and how I'm gonna come across across and things like that, how I'm going to share this information and kind of. What started that too, was just telling people in real life. I just don't know what to answer because it's not one little reason, it's a million. And to answer your question, I'm not going to print out podcast cards and tell people in real life, but I am going to obviously link this episode because I feel like if people are interested in why we're homeschooling, this is what they need to hear. You know, I can't answer it in even a paragraph, I can't just answer it when we're just chatting. I would need like a whole coffee date to sit down and talk to you.
Speaker 1:So that's what this is. It is, yeah, it's good and you're right, it's not. We do need a longer form to answer the question because then we probably won't even cover every single reason on this podcast, but maybe, at least hopefully, the major ones on this episode. But it is. It's like that show. It was kind of depressing, but a million little things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did like the idea, though, that everyone's always like if I'd just done this, that guy wouldn't have you know whatever. But it wasn't one thing, it was a million little things, and that's exactly what I've been telling people. I just say it's just a million reasons, it's not one big reason. I think people we've told so far are assuming that maybe something happened at school or there's one specific reason that's driving this, and it's not so most of the teachers we had were award-winning teachers.
Speaker 1:Literally, they handed out awards for the whole county out of I don't know dozens of schools, and the one classroom teacher that we had, like several years in a row, kept winning best in the whole county for elementary schools, and so it wasn't that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It was nothing to do with the teachers. There was no big event that happened and it caused us to get really mad and like decide to homeschool. So that's what this episode is going to be about. We're going to go back a couple months probably like it's been about 18 months and talk about what happened and what led to this decision and all of the million reasons why, because there's just there's just not one. I mean, last summer is when we started talking about this.
Speaker 2:For me and we both had completely different like views on this at first. I don't know if it was last summer, when you did, probably the beginning of the summer, but I was very overwhelmed with school and this year it really having three kids in elementary like just kind of did me in, and what I mean by that is just so much chaos from getting them up in the mornings, fighting with people to get up and make sure we're not late and get dressed and make sure they have their spelling words done and their backpacks and their snacks and their lunch packs and there's money in their lunch account and their library books. You know how it is. It's just it was getting.
Speaker 2:It was really getting to me to where when summer started sorry, when summer ended last year I just felt I had a lot of anxiety about starting back school because I really enjoyed summer for once like I just enjoyed since the kids were little. They had their first summer where they were all home, they weren't in school, and I really enjoyed that and I didn't want them to go back to school. Because school equals craziness in our lives and I know that people say it gets better as they get older and you're not always asked for like a million things from the teachers and from the school and there's not like a million things like book fair and dress-up days. I get it, but with three young kids I was just completely, really just unhappy during the year. I didn't find all of those dress up days and all of the craziness fun. I mean, maybe there's something wrong with me, but I didn't. I found it exhausting and overwhelming.
Speaker 1:No offense If you're one of those that really loves building a foil hat for Johnny Appleseed Day for your kid. You know that. I mean, hey, if you like that you go for it.
Speaker 2:I think. I just think we're living in a time where most moms and dads all parents do have to work. Maybe it's not a full time job, but there's so much on your plate not a full-time job, but there's so much on your plate and so you add the job in there and all the normal home stuff that we're trying to both juggle and figure out who does what, and then we'll talk about this a lot, I know, in this podcast kids sports.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and that's the thing is that you know, some people are doing sports in the summer, but we really don't. So another thing I mean sports and school start back at the same time, and then that's it Our lives are over.
Speaker 2:And I just felt like, yeah, it was. It was to the point where it was not enjoyable at all and I just felt like we had no family time whatsoever. And our daughter actually said to us which really got to me because she was right but she said the only time you're talking to us in the mornings you're yelling at, said the only time you're talking to us in the mornings you're yelling at us. And at night you're yelling at us telling us, okay, you know, in the morning, hurry, hurry, hurry, get your shoes on, let's go, let's go. We're going to be late, I guess, stressing her out, telling her like did you get this, did you do this?
Speaker 2:And then our, our next interaction is after school, where half the time, somebody or more than half the time most days somebody has something to do and we're like okay, get your snack, come on, get get your volleyball shoes on. Did you get this? Did you get that? And then when we get home, it's like hurry and eat. You guys got it, you got to read and you got to do your smelly spelling test. And you like there's so many things to do and oh, you need to to shower. You haven't showered in a couple of days.
Speaker 1:Like, and then hurry up and get ready for bed because if we don't get in bed by this time, then you're not going to get enough sleep, because you need this much sleep. But we have to get up at 6 30 or we won't make it to school on time the next day. Yes, yeah, it's, it's a lot.
Speaker 2:She was right, absolutely right, and I hated that. I just I didn't really know what the solution to that problem was, and I had said one time before probably well before that to you that it would be so nice to homeschool in like an ideal situation, if I didn't have a full-time job and things were different. I would want to homeschool the kids and you thought that was a horrible idea.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, at the time I mean but. But just to follow up on what you said about you know sailor saying that to you, and one time slate told me he said why are you always rushing me? Every day, all day? You just rush me and I do. I was rushing, I was like, but we're always in a hurry. I don't like that either.
Speaker 2:They're absolutely right, and I was just stressed every morning, trying to make sure we're not late and just just rushing through every single day, and I just kind of got to a point where I was like, is this what we're gonna do until they leave? Because people are always like imagine what their schedule is like when they're in high school and I just didn't like it at all and I didn't know what to do about it and here's the thing if we thought our kids were like we would have struggled through it until they graduated high school, we really would have.
Speaker 1:I mean, we sacrificed for our kids we're not lazy parents by any means but they were not happy with it and so that was the biggest problem is like, why are we killing ourselves and we're not happy to make our kids unhappy? Also?
Speaker 2:It doesn't make sense. They weren't happy, I mean, and I think it's important to know that they, before going into school and going to public school, they were in daycare, so they're not unfamiliar with the routine and getting up and having a teacher and they, they all three do well in school.
Speaker 1:Well, they liked daycare.
Speaker 2:Daycare was a party every day they did they absolutely loved daycare, but I'm just saying that they weren't like going into kindergarten with no experience and then all of a sudden being unhappy with it. The first year that our oldest this was the first year she hated school and that was a surprise to us, but also to everyone else, because she's like the social butterfly and she was begging to be homeschooled this entire year and I don't. She didn't really say exactly why at first. She has since said things that I think she heard us say, so I don't know if it's what she actually thought, because I asked her I'm like, well, why do you want to homeschool? And she just was unhappy at school and I think it's because she has ADHD and she has a lot of energy and this year was third grade and they really cut down on their like activity and so they were at their desks a lot and she started really hating it I do think that's it yeah yeah, I always wondered if that would happen, but I kind of thought it wouldn't.
Speaker 2:because she's always loved school like she cries every year whenever they have to end school, and because she loves her teacher, she loves her friends, we usually have to escort her out the building bawling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it is interesting because I mean she is. She wasn't struggling at school at all. She made straight A's. She ended up finishing elementary with straight A's. Every year she was number one accelerated reader. She's good at sports, she's popular. There was no reason other than I think she's just miserable sitting at her desk for eight hours every day. Other than what like a 25 minute PE or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they. They had previously had two recesses and PE, but as you, as they get older and they had to take the star test this year, um, they, they just don't do that. I think a lot of times they were trying to check it off the list since they're supposed to go outside, and they would just go outside for like five, 10 minutes and be like, okay, come on. We got to get back in and get to it and she absolutely hated that.
Speaker 1:And that's not their fault. That's coming from the top. Like they have to cover this much material, and the amount that they're supposed to cover is not realistic in the timeframe that they have available to them. Unless nobody ever gets sick, nobody ever acts bad in class, and every single kid grasps the concepts the first time that they're taught. I mean literally. There's no other way to do it, and so they're trying to find extra time to meet these standards wherever they can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just pressure on the teachers. It has nothing to do with them and everything to do with what they have to do in a day and what they have to make happen before the kids take those tests. I think that's what it was coming from from her. So when all this started happening, I wanted to do something different. I kind of felt like once she said something I was like, oh, you know, maybe we can make a change, maybe we can do something different. That would feel better for everybody.
Speaker 2:We started looking at just like what are other options we could do, and I found like a couple people that were doing like a hybrid option where kids go to school a couple of days a week and then they homeschool part of the time, but the school gives you like your work. So I mean, it is homeschool, but you're not doing a lot of, you're not doing the curriculum. So I I was like, oh, that's, that's a really good option. We looked at just a bunch of different things and then Sailor actually was like I don't even want to do that. She wanted to homeschool really, really badly. And we have two other kids, we're not just talking about our oldest, so we have Sailor who is going to be going into fourth grade, slate who's going into second grade, andate who's going into second grade and our youngest who's going into first grade. After Sailor kind of told us about being very unhappy at school, then Slate also started really struggling at school, and for a completely different reason.
Speaker 2:If you have kids, you know kids are. They're so different and I think as a parent, when you're a new parent, you think like, oh, this is how I'm going to do it and you don't really realize how different your kids are, how different they need to be parented. And then now realizing that they all learn differently and need different things at school and everything, and maybe that your idea of one size fits all like they're all going to go to this little school that we picked out and we moved here for this school it's not necessarily going to work and he is our middle is just extremely, extremely gifted and he's very smart. He is not super, super social. He's like the sweetest, kindest guy in the whole world. I love him to death, but he is kind of a loner, a little bit weird, likes different things than other people, which I feel like makes him awesome. But he was just hating going to school every day the first semester he cried a lot in the mornings don't make me go to school, and that just breaks your heart as a parent.
Speaker 1:Now our youngest, scotty. She is the only one that, I guess, has mixed feelings about it. The older two are dead set that they want to be homeschooled. They don't ever want to go back to school. She has her days, I mean, where she's she agrees with her siblings and she. Then she has other days where she thinks she's going to miss her friends and, um, you know, so I don't know. There there's a little bit of a mixture there. It's not a hundred percent perfect, like every kid's thrilled about it, but she's not against it really, and I know that once she was the only one going she would not want to go.
Speaker 2:No, and I mean that's just not something we're going to do right now. We're just going to all try this. We're not taking one child to school and the other two. But Sailor is just telling her it's because you're in kindergarten, you'll hate it when you get to another grade, and you know she might be right.
Speaker 1:I mean, kindergarten sounds great to me right now, but fourth grade doesn't sound that fun at all.
Speaker 2:Kindergarten is so fun. She had the best kindergarten year, but she's also hearing from her brother and her sister about all about how awesome homeschooling will be, and so, yeah, she's a little bit mixed on that. So two two out of three are just like super, super pumped to homeschool and I think that, especially telling our families and things like that, they just assumed that like we were forcing the kids to homeschool, but actually this was definitely kid driven and something that they wanted to do, and then we had to just kind of work backwards and figure out how we're going to actually make it happen.
Speaker 1:And some of the things that you know led us here weren't even things that we experienced firsthand, which sounds weird, but some of the things were things that we knew are coming up, things that whatever is happening in elementary, a lot of the things that we have problems with with public school, get worse in the next grades and up into junior high and high school and it just keeps, you know, escalating, and so there's a lot of issues there, too, that we do not want to have to deal with.
Speaker 2:We were unhappy with a lot of things in the school system beyond just being so much work, for I feel like me with like the apps and notifications all day, every day, and all the events and everything. Some of the things that we were concerned about were coming up, like the phone issue. We were very concerned with what middle school would look like, because some of the middle school moms you know had mentioned how all of the kids were like on their phones all day, especially at lunch. They had mentioned that the kids weren't sitting and talking, they were just like looking at their phones all day at lunch. And our kids aren't going to have phones. They don't have phones and they're not going to have phones until they can drive and at that point they'll still just be a simple phone. It won't be like anything with social media or anything like that.
Speaker 2:So I kind of had a lot of fear around that, but I had no idea that. You know, just now they passed that law that they can't take phones to school. So I think that that's going to be amazing. I'm so glad they did that, but I had a lot of fear on that because I didn't want our kids to be left out in that way because I know how isolated you can feel in middle school and high school if you're different in some way. But I feel so strongly about them not having access to that stuff to like ruin their brain and their self-confidence and stuff, but then also being left out of school. It's just, it's hard, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, up until we realized we wanted to do this, we thought we were stuck with two choices Either we cave and we do give them phones, which we weren't going to do, or we just accept that, yeah, we're going to send them every day and, you know, 90% of the kids are going to be talking on their phones, texting each other, probably talking about them on their phones.
Speaker 2:They're right there.
Speaker 1:And they won't have, they won't be able to participate. And I've seen that, I've seen it at restaurants. You know, you see all these, you know middle school girls come in and they're sitting there, and there's the one without the phone and you just she seems like so left out. But the people with the phones are depressed too, so you can't really win.
Speaker 2:No, you can't, and I had a lot of fear. I'm a person that is very proactive. I don't know why I'm like this, but I plan more ahead, I think, than most people do, and I could just see the writing on the wall and it was scaring me because our oldest, she was going to intermediate and soon we would blink and she'll be in junior high, so the phone thing was definitely bothering me. Um, her, some of her friends already have phones and I just know it was going to be a big issue. Um, so I love that they made that change. But there are other things with the school that I feel like just went completely against our, our values at home, so the phone being one of them. Really bad food at school, I don't know how else to put that. But one of the things that's really important to us is that we feed our kids good food, and we've been doing that since they were babies and it's really important to us. It's not really important to the school.
Speaker 1:No, and it's not really just what's in the cafeteria, because you can send your kids lunch.
Speaker 2:I mean that's and we do most of the time not always the best food like.
Speaker 1:maybe like that we would feed them at home, but we're usually okay with, you know, that kind of stuff. It's the fact that, on top of that, almost every day is either a holiday or a pep rally or a kid's birthday in their class or something, where they're getting loads and loads of red dye and sugar. I mean, that's what they're giving them is just as much as they can have. Here's some red juice, here's some red cupcakes and here's some red candy for every single occasion, and there ended up being like two or three times per week that there was a reason that they needed to have all of that crap.
Speaker 2:Or more. I mean, that's how most of the rewards were given, in the form of candy or snacks or drinks. So our kids would come home every single day with things that we don't allow them to have, which is kind of frustrating. You know, like I, I want to be in control of what my kids can and can't have, and it was like every day we would feed them like a nutritious breakfast, and then they would go in and they would have donuts for everybody, and then it would be someone's birthday, so then they would also have cupcakes, and then Taylor would win like some Plinko prize, and then she would get like. They would be like do you want a soda? And we don't allow sodas, and so it just felt like we couldn't win there. You know, and we're all about balance, we let our kids have those things right, but we felt like we didn't have any control left, because they're there most of the time.
Speaker 1:And not to sound selfish, but I would love to be able to say yes sometimes to you know, can you have some candy? But I felt like I never could. I felt like I have to become the dad of no, because everybody else is saying yes all the time and so I'm like, okay, if I let them have this at home, then it's all day, Then, like three times a day, they're loading up with sugar and it's going to they're all going to have diabetes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's. There's just no balance. I mean, that's what we're trying to teach our kids right Balance, and there's none. So that was that's obviously a big one to us. I could go on and on about that, but I won't. And then another we kind of talked about is just the activity level. Kids need a ton of activity in a day and they're just not getting it at school.
Speaker 1:And this isn't an exercise thing. Our kids are in sports and they play at home. They're getting plenty of exercise. It's not about that. It's about that you can't have a kid sit there for that long and expect them to be okay with it. I can't even do it. I get up from my desk way more than they're even allowed to get up from their desk. So if I was in school, I'd be getting sent to the principal for how often I get up.
Speaker 2:Especially when you have a kid that's got ADHD and needs to be up and down a lot. We don't medicate her right now, and we never have, but in order to stick to that, we do have to limit things like red dye and a lot of sugar and we have to be a really active family, because when we do that, she's wonderful, but when we don't, she's not.
Speaker 1:Cause she is on the line. I know there's some kids that avoiding sugar and red dye and getting exercise isn't enough and and they're not on the line where they can not be medicated. And we're not against medication is what I'm saying. I mean she, she is, she's right, she's on the line where she can sit there and get A's and do what is expected of a kid that doesn't have ADHD, but it's miserable for her. That's the problem.
Speaker 2:She's extremely unhappy and all of these things that we're talking about when I was thinking about it, and sending them every single day for hours a day. I'm sending them to a place that literally goes against all of my, my big values. Right, I want my kids to eat well, I want my kids to get outside and have a good like balance in their lives, my kids to get outside and have a good like balance in their lives, and it's like none of those things are being done at school and that's their life and training them for being adults is.
Speaker 1:you know, schools were set up to train kids to work in factories to not the kids to work in factories, but train them to become adults that work in factories. They were set up on eight hour schedules like factory work, but that's not the world we live in. That's not the kind of job I really want for my kids. I don't have anything against factory workers. It's just not where I think any of my kids are heading. It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't train them for the kind of adult that I want them to be.
Speaker 2:Well, and it only gets worse. I've talked to middle school parents and the kids. They don't have recess, they don't go outside, so it's just a very long day sitting in a desk, and that simply wasn't working for our daughter with ADHD. There was not one thing, obviously, that caused all of this, but we did experience some bullying and things like that, which is just par for the course. I understand that's going to happen, but it sucks when it happens to your kid Really, really sucks.
Speaker 2:All of our kids experience some of it, but I think what bothered me the most was some of the things that our young kids were telling us at school, and it was usually a result of kids that were exposed to things that they shouldn't be exposed to either from older siblings or from well, sometimes bad parents, or from youtube, because their parents don't get on youtube and they learn stuff they didn't need to learn yeah, my daughter kept telling me stories she was in kindergarten that her friend told her, and every day her friend would tell her about what he saw on youtube, and so one of the stories was that this mom and dad were beating their child over the head with a hammer because he didn't clean his room, and every day she was telling me different stories that her friend was telling her, and wondered why our room was so clean that week. It is not funny, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:What about the one that told one of our kids that their favorite show was Dexter? And I don't mean Dexter's Lab, I mean Dexter the serial killer.
Speaker 2:Also kindergarten. Long story short. Things are changing, and I think kids are being exposed to things that they shouldn't. It is a lot different than it was when we were in school, don't you agree?
Speaker 1:Some of the things, and then some of the things that are not different were bad back then and they're bad now. I mean, we have some of that too. That was one of the things that I'm concerned about is we did have a kid that tested into GT and it works the exact same way it did when I was a kid. They once a week or once every other week or something like that, the GT teacher pulls you out and you do these special extracurricular activities. And I'm not trying to knock it, they're trying to do something, but that's not what you need.
Speaker 1:The gifted children need to be in a different classroom for all of their work, and then the kids that need more catch up need to be in a different classroom for all of their work, and then the kids that need more catch up need to be in a different class for all of their work, and then all the average kids need to be in classrooms together, because then no one is getting left behind, no one is. Parents would freak out, I know, because then they're like I don't want my kid to be in the dumb class, but that's not what it is. It's the kids that just need more help and they could catch up and maybe move up into another class, but they're getting ignored because the teachers have to teach the kids in the middle, and so the kids at the top are the kids at the bottom. A lot of times I feel like they get left behind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely it's. It's not set up for a kid that like we have a kid that's really ahead and gifted. It's just not. And I think sometimes that's fine. They'll go through and go through the motions every year and be fine. But ours hated school. I mean, he loves learning, he loves math, he loves reading and it was getting to the point where he hated school and I did not want him to hate learning.
Speaker 1:And it's just because he was bored. Nothing happened, nothing. He didn't have, you know, like a mean teacher or anything like that. I mean he did get some bullying from other kids, but I think that was part of it, but mostly I think it was just because he was bored.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and I hated that all of a sudden, like he was excited about school and then over the course of the year he just ended up hating it. He was counting down the days. He kept asking us to homeschool him early and it just turned into a battle every day. So did you ever think that you would homeschool your kids?
Speaker 1:No, I used to tell people all the time that, oh man, I am, you know, educated, but I'm not a good teacher, and that's a separate skill set that I don't have, because I tutored some in college and I was not good at it.
Speaker 2:This might sound really dumb, since we're homeschooling, but I don't think I don't think either one of us are great teachers. I don't.
Speaker 1:Okay. The thing is there's programs, there's a lot of options, there's different things that you can do, so whenever, I think, most concepts will explain it and they'll understand, and whenever that doesn't happen, there's more in-depth videos on that they can watch, or there's things that they can read from the program that we're going to be using, and if that's not working, there's plenty of other programs to choose from too. So, I mean, I think that we will find a way.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We, we good team. When things come up, we just get through it and we're going to figure it out. I know we can figure this out. We never thought we would be here. I think that that is something that shocked even us. So we never, ever thought we would homeschool. We actually moved here because of the schools. We wanted our kids to go to a small school and we actually loved their school. There's nothing wrong with the school, I think, just the school system. We love their teachers, we loved the community, everything about it. It's just, and in my head I imagined them all graduating from this high school and it still kind of makes me a little bit sad to think that they're not going to, because you have something in your head as a parent and that's how you think it's going to go, and we all know that it doesn't always go according to plan.
Speaker 1:I know, I'm like, can we still just go to football games there and play sports with them and walk the stage with them when they graduate?
Speaker 2:but then do all their schooling at home. I mean, I know it's it's it's hard. That part of it is very, very hard. We had this. We were just like so committed to this school and these people and these friends and this just community of people, and there are so many things I love about that that it's hard to just kind of start over, and that's what I feel like. But this wasn't the plan. But this wasn't the plan, but we're doing it anyway.
Speaker 1:I think you're struggling with that part more than me, because you loved high school Like you want to go back and relive high school, but that's just not the way it is anymore.
Speaker 2:I know it's like in my head, I know this is what's best for them. I know I it's like in my head, I know this is what's best for them. But before, when I made this decision, I made it because I wanted them to have the experience I had, and I realized that that doesn't exist anymore. It's it's not the same at all, but it was so fun. I love that experience.
Speaker 2:I loved school and that's what I, like, imagined that they would be, and I had a lot of cousins around me and my like I was in high school with my sister and I loved it and that's exactly what they would be getting. They would be going to a small school, they could play sports if they wanted to, they would be with their cousins and I imagine like we would have a senior, a sophomore and a freshman, right, yeah, I just like I imagine that over and over again and that's just not the case anymore and I think that is hard to like settle with. I mean, I'm there now, it's just it's been a while, but that was hard for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's other things that are hard for me about it, but you know, all everything's changed so much too. I mean, more people are getting, you know, I'm not saying that they're going to go to college on sports scholarships, but I'm just saying if you, even if you are super into sports when we were kids, that meant playing in high school for a good high school and moving even sometimes to a better high school to play for a better high school team If you wanted to get looked at by colleges. But you know, more kids are getting picked up from select basketball leagues and select volleyball teams for, you know, college scholarships and stuff than anything. So that's not to say that that's going to be what our kids do, it's just that saying. It's saying that there are plenty of sports options out there, even if you're not in the public school, and so I mean there's a lot of things you can do, things are different.
Speaker 2:now, that really wasn't my like. I don't care if they play sports, it was more for just like the experience.
Speaker 1:Right, or you know going, just going to the football games, or, or being a part of I was in music. But you know, being a part of that group and having those kind of built-in friends and and know there's some cool stuff with that, but yeah, we're not gonna have part of a community is.
Speaker 2:It's awesome, you know that a small town feel small town, friday night, football games, all of that. I loved it and that's what I chose for our kids. It just, you know, that was my plan, but this is a different plan, so that was a thing that we definitely had to get over. Even though we listed all of those reasons why school just wasn't working for us, it still was hard to make that decision. And then I think the next hardest part for me was telling everyone yeah, that was tough and it still is tough, I feel like you don't care what people like.
Speaker 2:I care more about what people think or what they say, and I feel like you don't.
Speaker 1:I don't care what people think about me, but I do care what they think that I think about them. If that's not too confusing, I, in other words, I feel like, okay, if you start, if you stop eating dairy, people start. The first thing they think is oh, he thinks I'm crappy Cause I don't eat dairy, or because I do eat dairy or whatever. I mean, if you don't let your kids have screen time or whatever, then if they let their kids have screen time, they immediately feel judged and like, oh, he must think I'm crappy because I do. And no, that's just what we're doing. It's just what we think is works for us.
Speaker 1:It's not necessarily what's best for anyone else's kid, and so I didn't want anyone to think that, oh, you like public school, You're stupid. No, I mean cause for a lot of kids it is the perfect situation. I mean it's it's free, it's like built in daycare, because you have parents that work outside of the home usually, and for your kids that fall in the right spots on the bell curve, it's usually set up just right. So for a lot of kids it's great.
Speaker 2:For the longest time. It was the only option. For us too, and a lot of families, it is the only option. We're not coming from a place of judgment, but that was not the reason why it was hard for me to tell people. For me, it was the judgment from other people and we've had a fair share of that. No one has taken it very well.
Speaker 2:I won't say no one. A few people have, but we've mostly been met with. Well, what if you change your mind? What will you do? Or what are you going to do about prom? Well, they'll probably be behind. Or how are they going to have friends and we haven't really been met with? Oh, that's great guys. It's been a, it's been a lot of negativity and I knew that was going to happen, so I was prepared for it. But it still stings, it still hurts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and we had thought about all that stuff. So we know that none of that stuff is a concern. And you know, I was lucky enough to, when Slate was doing Ninja, almost all the parents in there were like homeschool parents for some reason. I don't know how it worked out that way, but so I got to talk to them a lot and actually all of their kids were ahead. Most of their kids that were 15 were already in college, and so, yeah, I wasn't really worried about them getting behind or the socializing Everyone brings that up. I'm not really worried about that, because are they really socializing at school? Anyway, I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll talk about that more later, but yeah, so I don't, I don't care if anyone thinks I'm dumb for doing it, as long as they don't think that I think they're dumb for not doing it, cause I don't, I don't think that at all.
Speaker 2:We have in the past, and every day, every year, we do things that most people don't, and I feel like people think we're weird sometimes because we don't really do what everyone else is doing, and this is just adds one more tick to our, to our weirdness but we've been dealing with that since way before we decided to homeschool.
Speaker 1:We do a lot of things differently than other people and people think we're weird, but it works for us.
Speaker 2:I know it does work and we're still going to do it, but it gets. It gets to me Like I don't like to be the weirdo you know I don't and I definitely don't want to put that on my kids and them feel weird. I, right now they, they don't see homeschooling as a bad thing like we did. I feel like when we were kids it was kind of a negative word, like it just wasn't as common and it is now and they actually know a lot of homeschool kids and they play sports with them and so to them it's like they're not embarrassed by it. But some of the responses we're getting that you know it's, it's obvious what they think that our kids will be weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean there's less of a stigma than there was maybe when we were kids, but there's still a stigma, a big one. Like they think that I mean, I even saw. We just watched the show the other day and I laughed, cause I don't get offended by stuff, but this girl had the ugliest dress on and her friend goes oh my God, you look like you're homeschooled, and we just we just laughed, and that's everyone's perspective.
Speaker 1:I think the world's changing. I think in another 10 or 20 years, that whenever it becomes more normalized and people see you out in the wild working your job and they're like oh, you're homeschooled and you don't seem weird, then I think people will finally start to come around.
Speaker 2:But that does lead me to say that this we we don't even know if this is permanent. We're just, we're just, we think this is going to be a better fit for our family and we're trying it out Like and we've been telling people that we're not like married to it. You know, we were married to public school and look what happened.
Speaker 1:Didn't work out. Yeah, I mean, we're not that stubborn. I am stubborn, but we're not that stubborn. If we get to the end of a school year and it's like yo crap, they're dumber than they were when we started. We're terrible teachers. We were right. We'll send them back, for sure.
Speaker 2:So right now. We're just thinking about this year and what's working for our family right now or or maybe our kids will get so tired of us.
Speaker 1:They'll be like please send us back to school, and then maybe we will. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Maybe. I know there will be a lot of togetherness, so that'll be interesting. What is our plan for working and all of that? And that has been something that we have been working on. It wasn't overnight. We had to adjust our work and we had to adjust our work schedule and our business to be able to even try homeschooling.
Speaker 1:We're still working, but we're figuring out how that's going to work.
Speaker 2:We own a CPA firm, if you don't know, and we made some changes this tax season with the way our processes worked so that we are mostly working remotely with all of our clients. Now we were already like a big percentage of our clients are in different states and different cities, so you know we email, call, do everything with our computer, not as much in-person stuff anymore. But we had to kind of let go of that in-person stuff, the lingering stuff. So we tested that out this past tax season, just in preparation of all of these changes, and it worked, it went well, and so now it will be possible for us to work, both working full time and homeschooling the kids. It's possible. We don't know how.
Speaker 1:you know how it's going to go, but we did have to make a lot of changes in our our work to but if you're interested in homeschooling and if you're listening to this podcast, you probably already know this is one of the things almost everybody knows about homeschool. But the kids are probably doing two hours a day, or maybe three, but they're not doing eight hours of school. So if anyone's wondering, how are you possibly going to run a business and then also be a full-time teacher but you're not I mean two hours and some of that you know they'll even be working on their own or reading stuff on their own. And go back and add up the amount of time that they spend on math, reading history and science at school and you'll see that they're only spending about two hours at school as well.
Speaker 2:That was one thing I was actually surprised when we started doing our initial research was that a lot of people are homeschooling and working full-time. I thought you either had to have one person dedicated to it or, I guess, some sort of like part-time job or something to make it work. But there are a lot of people homeschooling right now with full-time jobs. Now they have to be flexible with it, but I've even seen people that are working full time and then they just do schooling like Friday, saturday, sunday, and so they do have to do, you know, more than the two hours, but you know it's working for them. So I was surprised.
Speaker 2:I thought we were oh, look at us, we're trying to do something that's never been done and that was not the case, but we are going to have a whole episode. We haven't recorded that one yet, but all about our schedule, um, how we're going to do it, just to give anybody ideas of how you could do it and work full-time flexibility we're really looking forward to. We love to travel and so we don't know what the next few years hold for us, but we know this year we are going to get to travel with the kids while other people are in school, which is really nice, just have more family time and, yes, it's going to be hard not getting as many breaks from the kids, but I am looking forward to like having this year with them. Every year year that passes by, I'm just like amazed at how fast it goes by, and with our oldest turning 11 on her next birthday, I just feel like it's too fast now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I couldn't get it to go fast enough earlier and now I like it makes me sad, like that. She's so old.
Speaker 1:Right, and when I mean when we first started talking about it, I was like man, we're going to be around the kids a lot. But you're right, it's different, because all the time we were around them it's always like rushing them to get something done, which makes them mad at us and makes us mad because they're not hurrying and we're always running late and we're always just angry at each other. But when everything calms down, it's like when we're in the summer and everything's chill, it's just it's better, I mean they're.
Speaker 2:It's just more fun to be around them. I think they like us better too, so it wasn't quality time that we were spending with them. That's the problem.
Speaker 1:So we were their wardens, not their. We were just bouncing around.
Speaker 2:We know it's not going to all go according to plan. We know that we have all of these high hopes for what is to come and we're going to have our good days and our bad days, just like when the kids are in school.
Speaker 1:But we'll be here to tell you all the things we do wrong. So if you ever decide to go down this road, then you won't have the same things. You'll find your own things to do wrong instead.
Speaker 2:This episode was really just supposed to be about what led us to homeschooling.
Speaker 1:And we better make the other ones shorter, and no one will listen to them yeah, probably not probably lost, like a lot of people already.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I just felt like I wanted to share everything. I didn't just want to be like. This is the reason we homeschooled, and it just be I. Just every time I answer that question with someone, I just felt like I want to say more, like I want to explain myself. I'm not crazy. I want you to know all the things.
Speaker 1:I still feel like there's things I didn't say. I feel like I've said more reasons why it's not than reasons why we are, but I just I don't want anyone from where we're leaving from to think that I don't know like that we don't like them or something we're not leaving on bad terms of the school.
Speaker 2:I, every single time I had to tell someone at the school I got emotional because the teachers were sad and the kids, the kids are sad, their friends are sad and I was just like are we making really like our kids?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they really like our kids.
Speaker 2:Our kids are good kids. They did well in school and their teachers love them and so it was so hard telling them, but they made me feel so much better actually, because every teacher that I had a conversation with made me feel so much better. Actually, because every teacher that I had a conversation with, when I just kind of told them what was on my heart about it and that I'm looking forward to like having the time with the kids, even if it doesn't, even if we don't homeschool forever, like I'm looking forward to having them right now, they said do it. Do that because of course they're all moms like they want their kids back, like they want that time back, and they would have done the same thing.
Speaker 1:So that's the craziest part is, yeah, we we actually had the least negative reactions from teachers. That's funny, huh. I don't think that any of them are experiencing what, in their heads, they hoped teaching was going to be like they're just they're. They're doing the best that anybody could possibly do in a situation that they're put in just they're.
Speaker 2:They're doing the best anybody could possibly do in a situation that they're put in. So it's not any of those reasons. Of course you've listed a million. We love everybody, we love the principal, all the things, but why homeschool? I have a whole list written down here to just wrap it up.
Speaker 2:More time with the kids. You know we're avoiding the phone battles at school, which that isn't even a thing right now. I hope that lasts. More time for the kids to do things that they like to do. We're going to start teaching them Spanish. We're going to do some piano lessons, things that we just didn't have time to do because they're at school all day. We get to travel more. We get to do what's right for our gifted kid and we get to do what's right for our ADHD kid and we can kind of tailor everything to what they need, not just like the school system. We can have slower mornings. I literally live for weekend mornings with them, so to be able to let everybody wake up slowly is like top on my list and closer relationships with them. I feel like as they get older they grow closer to their friends. So I'm glad that we have extra time with them to grow our relationships with them and their relationships with each other, and lots more outside time.
Speaker 2:We're starting our day getting outside, so I think that's going to be a huge improvement for our oldest and we can really focus on healthy eating. They're going to get in the kitchen with us. We're going to be able to make lunches at home. No more packing lunches and washing those things like. We can really focus on the healthy eating. And no standardized tests. They absolutely hate them. We hate that. It stresses them out so much. So that's a plus for me, feeling like I'm just fighting a daily fight every day to get through all the school stuff. I'm looking forward to not having that and the bullying. And then, obviously, what people don't want to say is I hate that we all have to live in fear of school shootings right now, and that is definitely on the pro list for me is I don't have to worry about the kids at school and there be a school shooting.
Speaker 1:And and for me it's it's a general thing that has a lot of specific items attached to it. That's being in more control over, you know, the kid's upbringing.
Speaker 1:And I feel like we have delegated more and more to the schools and in the beginning we delegated math and reading to the schools, and then we started having them teach the kids more and more stuff and before you knew it, you know they eat breakfast and lunch at school. We've delegated two out of three of the meals up there and then they're there for longer and longer. The school year lasts longer. Then all of a sudden, we're delegating sex ed to the schools. We're delegating teaching the music to the schools. We're delegating all the exercise to the schools. We've completely cut ourselves out of the equation in raising our children and I want to be in the control of that.
Speaker 2:No, I agree, I want to be involved in those things. I know it's not going to go according to plan. Maybe we've said that too much, because I feel like there's a lot of people doubting us. This episode was really just going to be about what led us here, and I know it was kind of long and chaotic chaotic but I do feel like we were able to say our piece. We have a lot more episodes coming your way. This all, the whole reason this podcast exists and you're listening is because our daughter had an idea to start a homeschool podcast and she wants to learn how to edit and she they're going to be on the podcast with us. We listen to a family podcast, so I'm sure that's where her idea came from. The episodes coming will definitely. This will be our start and you'll get to see the messy middle.
Speaker 1:And if you're looking for instructional things and stuff like that, there will be plenty of that as well Instructions on what we're doing, how we're doing it, the actual specifics, because there's not a lot of podcasts out there talking about that. I mean, there's plenty of people that talk about why they want to homeschool and that's what this episode was about but there's not very many that are like this is exactly what we do, this is the program we use, this is how we, this is our schedule. You know how fast we're going to go through the curriculum. I mean all of these things, all the nitty gritty details.
Speaker 2:We have listened to a lot of homeschool podcasts and this is not going to be like any of those. We are going to tell you how it's going, what's working, what's not working. If we switch curriculums, we will let you know what we don't like about one, what we do If our kids start struggling with homeschooling because a million reasons. We will share that on this podcast. This is just our real life journey of homeschooling this first year, so we're going to share the good, the bad and the ugly. Next episode we're going to talk more about our schedule and trying to figure that out, because that has been hard. When you want to do a million things with your kids and you only have a few hours in the day, it's becoming a little harder to schedule that and a full-time job and workout and you know all the things.
Speaker 1:There's not enough day left at the end of the schedule.
Speaker 2:No, so we're getting a little overzealous on the schedule, but we will share that on the next episode for sure.
Speaker 1:This was a long one. They won't all be this long, but we hope you tune into the next one and learn everything you can about this process.
Speaker 2:So that's a wrap for our very first episode of well, this wasn't the plan. Podcast.
Speaker 1:We did it.
Speaker 2:We did it and it wasn't the plan, so perfect.
Speaker 1:No, it was definitely not the plan.
Speaker 2:It was not the plan, all right, see you next time. Not the plan. It was not the plan, all right, see you next time. Bye, bye, okay, here's the deal. We just dropped our first three episodes. If you laughed, nodded along or yelled same at any point, please do us a favor leave a review or hit the subscribe follow button or share it with a friend bonus points if you do all three. It really helps more than you know, especially when we're just getting started. So let's get this little podcast out into the world.