One Bet, Six Plane Tickets, and a Decade in Africa We Never Saw Coming

It started with a bet over a glass of freshly squeezed goat milk, and ended up being a 10 year adventure that changed our lives and homeschooling forever.

In this episode, we share the story of how we ended up going to Cape Town, the unexpected opportunity that led us to move our family and how we stayed for nearly a decade.

We discuss how homeschooling gave us the flexibility to say "yes" to an unconventional path, what we learned from living overseas, the benefits from being 'unplugged' and what we learned that strengthened our family that you can apply to your family...no matter where you are in the world!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, hello, and welcome again to Outside the System. I'm your host, Brad Stafford, with my lovely wife Aubrey Stafford. Today we are going to dive into our experience in South Africa. So in Cape Town in particular. So we were over there for about 10 years, off and on. Homeschooled the whole time. Lots of struggles, lots of challenges.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Lots of fun.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Lots of fun. But ultimately we want to give you you guys a little bit more of a backstory and really what we learned over there and how we're applying a lot of the things that we learned over there in difficult times to today. So I guess the first thing is how did we get over there?

SPEAKER_04 0:52

How did we Yeah, because we were living on the farm, which we loved. Like we loved being able to have our own chicken and eggs and milk and cheese and yogurt. Loved all those things. But then um I think I had always kind of had an interest in in moving someplace else. Both of us were were like blessed with fantastic parents. Our parents were close by, lots of extended family close by. And really no one ever really moved away. Um so we kind of did that first little foray into living a little bit further away when we went to the Shenandoah Valley. That was like two hours. Because it's actually a lot harder than you think. You can't just like rock up to a country and be like, hey, we want to live here. You have to have visas and it's pretty complicated. So I'm I mean, we were kind of talking about it, and you were not super interested.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

No, we had we had um looked at a a number of different places. We looked at um the Basque region of France, just just because it was kind of like we loved our time on the farm, but we but we, and I say we uh me eventually, said we have a with with my work working online, right? And then with the homeschooling.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

And our kids were little. I mean Micah was the oldest, was like seven.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

That's right. So we we kind of we kind of looked around and said, not necessarily is this it, but should we do something different?

SPEAKER_04 2:26

And we had the opportunity, and that was the thing where a lot of people don't. Yeah you know, like most of my family members, your family members were tied to that area because of work.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Where you started working online like immediately after we got married.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:39

And so we you we could go anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

And that was like an exciting opportunity, but also a little bit like you all all of a sudden have so many open possibilities. I feel like that's always been a challenge for us because we haven't had a a tie in in a way to a lot of places.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Like our job, my job never like a lot of times I think people's jobs are their like tap roots to a location.

SPEAKER_04 3:04

Yeah, and it helps you make decisions because you only have so many options. Like our parents, my parents couldn't have left. You know, I mean, it would have been silly for them to leave their jobs, right? You know, around the Maryland area. So for us, we had that opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:17

And also we were not um so this was when we had four kids. Um, and then the biggest trip we had taken, remember, where we were like, okay, let's just try a couple, a couple, like a little tr travel with the kids, and it was Texas we went to. Yeah. And I can remember, I just laughed so hard because I was trying to control like every single I was pregnant with our fourth baby. So that means Michael was six. So it was like six, four, and two, not even.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

So like five, three, and you know, eighteen months or something. I brought um blackout shades, blackout curtains, and a noisemaker. Because to me, the most important thing was like naps, and which I still will stand by. That I feel like having nap time for your little kids is essential.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:02

But I think I was you you do just try to control as much as you can. And that was a big learning process for me that I think all the big travel and the big moves helped me to see the reality that you actually can't control everything.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

Um so you know, we went to Texas and it was super fun. Yeah. And that was our first, that was our biggest trip we had ever taken with our kids.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:24

Was Texas.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

That we flew there.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

And then we flew. And then I I th it was I guess the summer of 2014. Um, my best friend Dustin had married a South African girl. And for years, and this was before WhatsApp, this was before Telegram, before Signal. He was living over there, and every time I got a chance to talk to him, or he came back, it was, oh man, you guys have to come over. You have to come over and visit, you have to come over and visit. And every time I would say no.

SPEAKER_04 4:55

Because we had no clue what it was like.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

I'm not going to the dark continent. I'm an American. We don't do that.

SPEAKER_04 5:01

Well, yeah, we had no idea. Like, I didn't even have a clue. You can't. Like Nelson Mandela, like you've heard of him, if you've been public schooled, you know, you've heard of Nelson Mandela. You've heard of things in South Africa, but you don't really have any clue of what it's actually really actually like there.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Right, right. And so he came back, and it was at the time when when we were milking a lot of goats and doing a lot of the farm stuff, and he kept saying, Oh man, you guys have to come. You s you guys have to come over. And I'm like, no, man, I'm not, I'm not going. So it was it was at uh it was in Reva at Mike's bar and grill. Crab house. Crab house, sorry, it's crab.

SPEAKER_04 5:41

Get it ranked.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Um and I said, If you drink this, leave it.

SPEAKER_04 5:45

No, he then was it he came to our house, right? Wasn't he? Because you had the goat milk there.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Maybe. Yeah. I forget exactly how the bet went down. Right. But ultimately I said, if because he was like, I'll never drink that goat milk. And I said, I'll never go to Africa.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

So I slammed down the liter of milk in front of him and I said, if you drink this, then we're good. I don't know why he even had a he's just it's just Dustin. Delicious. But he ended up drinking it, and then w the day before he left, um, we bought tickets. Right, and the other cool because he had a place over there. Yeah, so we just had to pay.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

And do you remember at the time we had been looking because I had a cousin who was stationed in Alaska.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

And we were looking with another cousin um about like because they also had young kids, about like doing a big trip and taking our kids to Alaska.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

And by the time we paid for airfare, Airbnb, or wherever we're gonna stay, and renting a car, it was gonna be so much more expensive than actually flying to South Africa because his um his wife's family had a place we could stay for free.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:46

And so all we were doing was paying for tickets and renting a car, which is if you have dollars going there, so far. So much cheaper. So that's how we yeah, we decided to do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yep. So we went over and um that was in February of 2015. And the and so we, you know, we packed up and we're preparing every time. Three-week trip over there.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

Um I did have to pack lighter.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

You did have to pack lighter. We had to we we learned the we learned the you have to weigh your bags on international flights.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Um but we got over there and the trip itself was terrible. Right. The the the flights over Micah and Eliza were both air sick.

SPEAKER_04 7:30

Well, because the first flight over, you're just flying the seven, you know, six or seven hours to London.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:34

And then I think we did virgin, virgin air, whatever. And the flight was really nice. So it was a super nice flight, but then you don't realize that no matter what, like you you're basically waking up in the middle of the night. So you get the six or seven-hour flight, you like pretend sleep on the flight, and then you're waking up in the middle of your your body's like, it's the middle of the night.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

And with little kids, it was the middle of the night. And kids don't ever sleep well on airplanes. Like, I just don't think they do. And our so our youngest was she wasn't even one. So having to be on an airplane for that long, and that was just the seven-hour flight with a one-year-old. Um, and also just like that, that like kind of internal fear of knowing that you're gonna be the annoying person that maybe you know their baby might cry.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

And she was really, really good. So she was fine. But it was that we had the long layover, remember? And we made the fatal error of taking them to the children's play area at the Virgin Atlantic Lounge. Yeah. That was our fatal flaw because we're like, oh, we have such a long layover. We'll just take them play in that little like, you know, child pit they have with like the all the different soft stuff. And so they were climbing around there and they had a fun time and then Might as well have been licking the bottom of a train or something. We realized that. And so then we fly down and Brad gets motion sickness. I don't. We were pretty sure Micah probably would. So we were giving Dramamine.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:56

But then I didn't realize that the 11 hours would just you can you get a sick. You have to dose them again. Again, right? So, and it was so hard because I remember Micah was seven years old, and he was just started throwing up, and we still had probably two hours left, and I couldn't, I wasn't next to him. Like he was at the far end of the row. And there was this older couple, an older American couple that were going for a holiday. Yeah, and they were so nice and kind, and they're like, You're doing such a good job, buddy. He was so it was so rough. And I think I'm sure we'll talk about this a lot more, but doing those kind of things where it's so hard as a parent to like let go of control, especially for me, like it was hard to let go and be like, oh my gosh. And then you realize he's gonna be okay. Yeah, like it sucks that he's vomiting. Yeah, it sucks, and then Eliza started vomiting.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Yeah, and then we get off the plane.

SPEAKER_04 9:43

Right, so we make it off the plane.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, finally, everyone's like, Yay, everything's fine. And then at Cape Town International Airport, I guess a number of planes had landed at that time. People were going down the escalator and bailing off because they were just packing in, and I said, Oh rude. We're gonna give it five minutes to get it.

SPEAKER_04 10:01

It was like I just felt like I was like, we're in Africa. Like it was so different. I just feel like that never would have happened in America. That you literally, there's so many people that you couldn't, people couldn't get off the escalator at the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah, they were.

SPEAKER_04 10:13

The line was so long and so packed that people were jumping off. So we're like, all right, we're just gonna stay up here in the second.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Who's managing this? But nobody.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

But the other, do you remember they were so people were so nice when like this was, you know, 2014. 2015. They if we we had kids, they would let us skip the line every time. Yeah. We hardly ever had to wait in line.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

All you had to really do was ask.

SPEAKER_04 10:35

Yeah, but they wouldn't even come up to you, remember? I mean, they wouldn't come up and see that you had kids. Especially in Africa. You have kids. They even even the Europeans sometimes would like let you bump up and not just get on the plane early.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah. We opened lines, like we went through like passport checks faster. Yes. Yeah, it was it was it was gonna get in the car. It was very nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

And get the rental car. And Brad's driving, you know, on the wrong side of the road.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:02

And then we I think we had given them Dramamine again. I'm pretty sure I re-gave it on the airplane.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

But I just don't know if it didn't take or whatever, because then they're still they're car sick.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

Because we're going around mountains. Mountains.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Mountains and like ocean road and but it was it It was so big. It was such a it was it was such like a hard thing, and I think it it really um kind of set us to life as doing hard things.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Even if even if you don't know the end of the outcome, you just have to do the next right thing, and sometimes the next right thing is gonna be hard. Like, how do we find a bag for that kid in the bag? Yes. How far are we away? Right.

SPEAKER_04 11:43

And that you are stronger, like, and they are stronger than you think. You know what I mean? I think for us, we like had an abhorrence of vomits.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yep. I I the most. Yes. I the most.

SPEAKER_04 11:54

I mean, and this trip, like it was that was the beginning of the vomit. Like that, I mean, it was coming pretty much the whole three weeks. Yeah. There was vomit involved. Yeah, yeah. Like, never in our lives had we ever experienced so much vomit. And and so we so but and Micah was so tough. I can literally still picture them in the back of the car. And um but it was so just pale face. Pale face. I'm like, it's okay, you guys are doing so well. Uh they were they're everyone's tired. But then we get there, and this is this is how I approached all those things afterward, is we get there and we are literally on like in an ocean front flat. I mean, we go out on our balcony and you just are looking out at false bay. Yeah. It's it was mountain, beach. We had never we were East Coast people. You had been to California before. I had never been to California. I just I had never seen really such a like such a beautiful place.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

Then there's you watch the sunset, and I feel like that helped me from then on to be like, if you can picture yourself where you're going to be, that would always be my trick. I would just imagine myself like sitting on the couch of where I knew I was going. Yeah. And then thinking of myself two days before, thinking, you're gonna be sitting there. Like you're gonna get there, it's gonna be over, it's gonna be hard, yeah, you're gonna survive, you might not sleep. And so then we would always tell people, you just go into it expecting to not sleep.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Like you don't, and the only way out is through, is kind of is kind of the the mindset. And I think that's a good picture, even if you're not even even us coming back to Florida where we're not seeing sunsets, we're not having a review. We're not it's okay, well, we're gonna be on our couch and there's an there is Well yeah, that just that feeling of relief.

SPEAKER_04 13:38

It's you know, that feeling that you you know there is an outcome. It's not going to last forever.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

It will be over. Right. That air that flight will be over. You know, you you will just figure out a way to get through. And then, you know, with the long flights, like, you know, we've end up doing the 16-hour flights, also with toddlers and babies. And really just it helps you to see it will be over.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:02

It's gonna be long, it will be over. You you kind of celebrate like half-hour chunks. Yeah. You know, another hour's gone by. Another hour's gone by, and you just find things to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Either the plane, either the plane crashes and we're off the flight, or we get there and we're off the flight. Right. It's got to be. You just have to and I think the one thing that um that is is really just a just something that I I feel like with homeschooling, work, dad parenting, mom parenting, everything. The only thing that you can really control is your attitude.

SPEAKER_04 14:40

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

That's that's it. And and especially with kids, if you're if if you're fr flustered and frustrated and losing your temper and complaining, guess what?

SPEAKER_04 14:51

They're gonna see right.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

They're gonna see that and they're gonna do that as well. So it's like really the only thing that you have control over.

SPEAKER_04 14:56

Yeah, and I think as you know, sometimes in your you feel like you have more control when you're in your everyday life. Right? When you're in your everyday life and you're in your home, you're in your normal routine, you can feel like you have control.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

And I think for me, what works so well was that like we kind of forced ourselves to get into these positions that we knew were going to be difficult.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:18

And I can literally remember being on those fights and being like, okay, I've never actually had to pray like this in my life. Like just to pray for patients. Like dealing with a one-year-old that's uncomfortable, tired, wants to nonstop nurse, you know, and having other kids to take care of, and then we had, you know, had more kids. And and yeah, that it's that thing of the only thing I control is my attitude. They're looking to you. Yeah. Your kids are looking to you, right? They're looking to how you handle it. Right. If you're smiling, if you're relaxed, they're going to be like that. And it was for me, it was that we actually all know we don't have control really about everything. But sometimes you kind of have the illusion of being more in control of things than you really are. And for for me, it was doing those kind of really hard trips that and also that's the mental preparation for something you knew was going to be really hard.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yeah, because I You knew. Spoiler alert, I don't like flying. I don't like flying. I don't like it. I would rather, I would rather drive.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

I'm gay driving.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

I'm not averse to flying, but I just am not. I I just yeah, I just don't like flying.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

And so Brad's like a newborn baby. Like, I think they call it self-habituating or something like that, where like, you know, when you have like a literal newborn a couple weeks old, it doesn't matter where you take them, and they will just sleep on their mom. That's Brad on the airplane.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

I'm just like just sleep.

SPEAKER_04 16:44

Falls asleep and like before there I'm not exaggerating there. It's been before the flight's taken off, where he's back there with his eyes closed in the blanket like tucked up to his chin.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Maybe not that way.

SPEAKER_04 16:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

I'm still helpful. He will do, he will wake up and help.

SPEAKER_04 16:59

Well, totally well, he will totally help, but it's like I have to kind of like whack his. I always make sure I can like hit him somehow. So I can be like, wake up, I need something from up here. I need something. And he will he there's there's been times where he's had to like sleep in between two kids, like with his arm between them because they were fighting over their one little seat.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Well, they fall they the I remember it, I I forget which flight it was, but um Eve and Susanna were laying sort of like foot foot foot to face.

SPEAKER_04 17:25

Because we had the plane pals, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Yeah. Yeah. On in between two seats, and then what would happen was one of them would flop, the other one would flop, then they just like bicker. And so I kind of I would I would I would hardly call it sleeping more of like laying and nodding off, like narrowing. With your arm in between them. With my arm between them, knowing my okay, I'm gonna if I stay like this for too long, I won't be able to turn my head for a week. But I'm like the fighting and trying to get them to sleep was was more important.

SPEAKER_04 17:53

And then you would usually then like once we had when we kept having more kids, you would end up having the toddler, like or like the two or three-year-old, if I would have the baby.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:00

Which newborns are the easiest.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, newborns are a are a secret. Yeah. But anyway, so we the the trip itself, I would say it kind of went in so the the sickness and the and the challenges were were were one thing. But we get there, we're overwhelmed with the beauty of the place. Right. It's stunning. Everyone should go to Cape Town, South Africa. Period. It is a beautiful country. Um it's just beautiful. Then by week two, we had we had just met a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 18:37

Because we weren't going there as tourists, right? We were going there because because Dustin was there.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 18:42

Karin was there, and then we also, my friend, my aunt had a friend who her son, or her no, her brother and his family were there. Yeah. So we had met people. We also didn't say that, you know, the first night then Eliza puked.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah, she puked in the bed.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

And then the whole rest of the time, we, you know, it is it is in America. Like we're drinking water, we're eating things that the kids weren't used to. So when I say it was a non-stop having to deal with kids being sick, it was the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yeah, it was all the way.

SPEAKER_04 19:06

It was the whole time. So but in the midst of that, yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

And so the in the midst of all that, the the people that we met, because it was because I think what happens is um when people go to foreign countries, sometimes they just stay in their little they stay in cliques. They stay like their expacts group. Like the yeah, they stay in the expac group. And we never were like that. We would never we we did things with Americans, we did things with expats, but not they weren't our our sole friend group there. Oh, right. So that first like the second week we're just blown away by the people. And then by the third week, there through that friend, uh, we met another another another f American family. They were leaving, and that organization needed someone to teach business who knew farming, who was willing and able to to move over there, and so that sort of fit into wow, we could actually live here. And so after the three weeks, we went back and prayed a lot about it and consulted and said, let's go.

SPEAKER_04 20:16

Yeah, because I can remember we were driving and I just remember it's so different, yeah. You know, and I and I had been to like Scandinavia before, but like and we had been to like you know, Mexico, yeah, the Caribbean. But when you go someplace where it was just it's was so different, and this was way before COVID. Yeah. So s is so in a lot of ways Cape Town was more like it was like when we were growing up. Yes, that's like when did the iPhone like the it wasn't until COVID that it was. Well, yeah, because I'm trying to remember, like, obviously people had iPhones there, but like it was much different in the terms of the way, like the culture, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

So they say that South Africa is about ten years behind the US. Or was. Or was until until COVID, everything sort of exponentially increased with the globalism and the technology and yuck. But at that time, it very much felt more even within those three weeks, pop in and have dinner with random people and just go out and to the beach and meet up with other people that you knew. And it was a that area was a I mean it was probably, I think it's probably 250, 200,000 people. Yeah, and not as a huge. But it felt it felt very sm it felt felt very small town and felt very, very safe. I mean, that was that was the other thing.

SPEAKER_04 21:39

We felt and also it was just different where you know, we grew up and like when I we grew up on a farm, but wasn't we didn't really have any experience with like towns really. You know, like we were kind of more like suburban kids where you didn't really have like a town center, right? And and you didn't really have um that feeling of like clearly you went to school. With the same kids, you played sports with the same kids, you went to church with the same people, but it wasn't really like you would just go to a coffee shop and be friends with the people there.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

And know their name.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

And and so there, it also the the whole restaurant culture being different there, where even back then, going to a restaurant in the US is always more expensive than it is to prepare your own food.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:21

But there, it was pretty similar in the price. And then they would always have places for the kids to play. Yes. So it became much more of like a like an actual um experience, not just like, all right, let's go get some food. Right. Let's eat some food really quick. All right, let's go home. It'd be like, okay, you get there kind of early, maybe you meet friends there, the kids all play, you have like a like a leisurely dinner. Um and also the I mean, as we found out later, there's a lot of different things about that. But I think for us, one of the for me at least, the m the the attraction in the beginning was it just was so different. It was unlike anything else that I'd ever had.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

It was a very it's a very uh it's a very cafe culture.

SPEAKER_04 23:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Where in the US it's turntables over culture. Right. So that's the difference. Yeah. You you there's there's blessings and curses because sometimes it takes you 20 minutes to get your your check.

unknown 23:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

But other times you're not feeling rushed to make the next decision. You're not feeling, oh, I need to do this. And especially with the kids, I think that was another thing. It just felt like an old like it felt more old school where people didn't view kids and families as burdens, and there were issues in terms of more general like kid management where parents didn't manage our kids in their wild and need to tase them and like tie them up in the in the back or something. But for the most part, everyone was generally more familially oriented and um and welcoming.

unknown 23:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

So it wasn't felt different.

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Do you remember around that time? Because I can remember that was when like the younger like teenagers were having phones.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

Or like, you know, teenagers had that. Yeah, in the US. Or like an 11-year-old would have a phone.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:08

And we were already feeling a like that kind of pressure when we had little kids, not to give them phones, but to really just start kind of like jumping on the carousel of, okay, you've got kids, and now you need to sign up for sports. Now what are you gonna do for this? What are you gonna do for that? Even with homeschooling, yeah, there was just like a really like um, there's just an assumption that you're just gonna have a bunch of things to do. And I didn't want to live like that. You and I both grew up playing sports all the time. And and our parents, you know, were like great parents, and they wanted us to be able to experience all those sports. It wasn't as bad when we were kids, but we both did like the travel teams. Yeah. Where you're playing every weekend, yeah, you that's your whole life is the sport. Yeah. And we didn't want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:51

And it was also, I remember feeling like in the US, and again, living outside the US makes you appreciate America in ways you didn't realize. Yes, for sure. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

But then they're also, it was hard to find people like us, I felt like who didn't exactly already when your their kids were seven to start signing up for sports. Because we put Mike into soccer, remember? And I can remember being like, okay, these dudes are like some overweight dads who are, I mean, we're gonna teach him more playing in our backyard.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Right.

SPEAKER_04 25:19

Then he would just, and then you're looking at, okay, it's right at dinner time. So then one of us is gonna have to either take him to the game to the to the practice, and the other one stays home and has kid has dinner with the kids. Yep. Or we all go and then I have to figure out dinner at the practice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

So yeah, I think we both, I think we we both recognized that it had the the the cheese of sports had already started to slide off the cracker.

SPEAKER_03 25:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

And and I think we'll do I would love to do a dedicated sport ball episode because I've got a lot of feelings on that. A lot to say about that. A lot of feelings on sportball. But we recognized back then that it had become an idol, and it had become at at the and the thing that you're when you're when you're worshiping something, you're sacrificing something else. Yeah, and so very clearly the worship of the travel teams, the sports, the busyness came at the sacrifice of our family, and we had been really just so blessed to be always around each other. Right. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we always were around each other. And so to say, well, we're gonna have to sacrifice some dinners for what?

SPEAKER_04 26:31

And it was also, do you remember? I I don't even remember, it was a guy that wrote a book like literally that long ago, like 10 plus years, and it was something about busyness, and he was saying how it was a it was like a it was like a you know it was like a badge of honor to be like Yes, hey, how are you doing? Oh, you know, just like super busy, and that's how everyone was talking, and we had really felt that a lot.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Very much.

SPEAKER_04 26:53

Where there would be people that, you know, they said they wanted to be like, yeah, yeah, we want to like hang out and do things, and then you'd get like on their calendar three weeks later on a Tuesday night.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

If that.

SPEAKER_04 27:02

If that's when they had an opening with their kids. And so, and I also feel like I realized that a lot of that is actually easier to sign up your children for a lot of activities and sports than actually look at them and be like, okay, what are we gonna do together?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Right.

SPEAKER_04 27:18

What are we gonna do as a family?

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Right.

SPEAKER_04 27:20

Um, do you know what could your cid be doing instead? Yeah. Because you are, like you said, you're giving something up.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

You're replacing something with those activities. And it is easier for a lot of people because you don't really have to think about it. You're just like, okay, they've got soccer on this day, they've got this on this day.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Outsource, outsource, outsource. Yes. And that comes at a at a significant cost. I feel like in today's society, the the more younger people, I guess, that that I talk to anyway, because I'm I pretty I go pretty hard on the sport ball with any guy that I know, they recognize the trade that isn't worth it. And they can also kind of see it in the in the culture itself. They see the fruit in parents who um have sacrificed everything for their kids' sport, where the per it it's it's just mind-blowing to me the the tiniest percentage of people actually become do anything with that sport beyond at best they become a coach of something. But what they end up sacrificing more often than not is a close family, a level of of authority and respect, understanding who these people are and why I need to change.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

An identity apart from the sport. That was a big yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yes. So I feel like um I'm I'm hopeful in terms of as I as I continue to to spread the gospel of sport balls. Um that more and more families are gonna I I don't because that's the other thing is when I when when we when I start talking about in particular, people are like, oh, you don't like sports. I'm like, no, I don't like what sports has become. I like athleticism, right? I like staying in shape, I like making good food choices, I like taking too much. Those are all good things. It's gone too far. It's right, it's it's moved too far. And what was interesting, and that was something we noticed when we had moved back there, uh, or when we moved there the first the first time, is the friends that we made, um, not all Americans, mostly South Africans, the the sport that their kids did didn't actually sacrifice their family time, it didn't sacrifice their time to be around other people.

SPEAKER_04 29:30

Because it was built into the school day. That was the bigger difference. Yes, so it was built into the school day. So school was over early, like one o'clock or one thirty for depending how old the child was. And then if they played sport, they would do it right after school.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:44

So it wasn't at dinner time. It wasn't when, you know, your family should be having a meal together. And I was super convicted about that pretty young that, you know, in our marriage, yeah, that we would be having dinner together. Like I think that once you let that domino fall, it's so easy to let other things go. So once you, you know, you were like, okay, well, it's only two days a week that they have a you know soccer practice.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Right.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

And then before you know it's like, oh yeah, but then also now they've got a game on Friday. And now, you know, Saturday they've got a game. And so you you just your whole life becomes oriented around the sports. And then the shocker is then people are surprised that their kids are narcissists because literally their whole life revolves around the sports. And you know, we were really fortunate that my aunt and uncle live right near us, and they have three of like the most athletic boys that are in their 20s now.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Stellar human beings.

SPEAKER_04 30:33

Stellar. And we're seeing them, and we're like, okay, they are the best that they're gonna get.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

And you still see, like even my aunt like said to me not long ago, like sometimes she she thinks maybe they shouldn't have leaned so into um just supporting every decision that their sons wanted to do to make them like live their dream. You know?

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Because I think it's it doesn't start it, I think the the hard part is it's it doesn't start out as like you you don't start out bowing to the idol.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

You s you you slowly move.

SPEAKER_04 31:08

Because it has a good aspect. That's the thing. Because the sports have a good aspect.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

Especially, you know, when the dad's involved in the coaching and the family's all going to the games and you know, you're learning things. I mean, we probably should just do a whole other Yeah, we're gonna have to do a sportball episode. But I think that was the thing back to Cape Town was that and the kids could be involved in things. And it wasn't that kids weren't. No, and our kids did, and our kids did things, but it would be in the early afternoon. Yeah. So it would be at two or three o'clock, and then we'd still be able to have dinner together. You'd still be able to spend your time as a family. And then um, you know, the when we when we first came back and were telling people that we were gonna go do it. Because so what we we also we went as uh on a volunteer visa. So we were like working for a missionary organization, but we were not like a typical missionary in the missionary model of raising money. So Brad continued to work.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Right.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

So he he worked, so we were able to go over pretty quickly because we didn't do the normal kind of thing that people do to get a volunteer visa.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Yeah, there's all there's the whole missionary thing, we can do another ambush. H comes with a lot of sacrifice as well. Yeah. And and a lot of I I think a lot of unnecessary pressure, bureaucracy, and financial implications.

SPEAKER_04 32:24

But we were able to actually do a pretty quick turnaround.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

And I don't think our parents were very thrilled, enthused about it. Um and so we ended up going back, and it's you know, you think about like it was because our life was already in such an easy way to make it happen. Because you could work from anywhere. We were homeschooling, yeah, we were able to rent our house out, so it actually was really pretty simple to get everything in place, and we ended up getting the visas pretty quick. I think it took about six months or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

And then by that time we were pregnant with our fifth baby.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:59

And I just remember too, just be like not even having a care in the world. I'm like, this will be fine.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

People were more worried about that. About that. Uh-huh. Well, maybe you should wait. No. What's no, no? I mean, at this point, it was our fifth. You were you were you've always stayed, and that was the other thing, is you've always stayed active. Yeah. You've always figured out we can do another episode on actually like homeschooling and taking care of yourself.

SPEAKER_04 33:22

Or even and also just the fact that like I had four like hospital births, like, you know, natural, but like with medication.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:29

Hospital births. And then went to Cape Town and just went the whole other way with midwives and that whole thing, which again, like you just see how doing certain things opens up like a realm of things that you didn't really think was possible before. Yeah. And I think going to Cape Town really, it changed a lot of the way, like, who I don't know what it would have been like if I had stayed in the United States as far as homeschooling, but it made there, it was not a normal, like most people did not homeschool. We had one other family, maybe two families that we knew that homeschooled.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Yeah. And it's I th I think ultimately what the what the blessing was is when you kind of uh are able to step out of it because we there's already this, ugh, we don't like this, and you can't really put your finger on it. You know, like I remember, yeah, like my dad mostly doesn't like music at church. And what it what it was was the music is very effeminate. So being able to put your finger on the music in most churches is very effeminate and emotional.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

That's why a man doesn't like that.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

That's why men don't don't like that, or they shouldn't, they shouldn't like that. It was the same thing with us being outside of the United States, gave us a different view. And it's not you don't have to leave America to do that, no, but for us, that was how it worked. Yes, especially now when we were all we were early kind of radicalizing out and and questioning a lot of the things that were quote unquote normal. Everyone did this. Right. You just put your kids in sports, you just do this, you just do we were already questioning that. So the amount of people doing that now is a million more people than we're doing it back then. We needed to get out in order to really help to also strengthen our family and to say this homeschooling is val is the most valuable thing, our meal time is the most valuable thing, our time together is the most valuable thing. Right. Where I think in the United States, we also could have been caught up in because our kids are athletics. Because you're kids are good at sports.

SPEAKER_04 35:35

Yeah, and you're having you have to actually fight against it. I think that was the thing with that it really felt like a fight to stay true to what principles you wanted to, where I feel like when we went over there, it was just a lot easier, like even in the sense of um like screens and and you know, at time like for the kids to even have like an iPad or their own anything. Yeah, where when we first got there, there was no Amazon there. There was there there was no like quick delivery of anything of anything. I couldn't get stuff, I couldn't get like homeschool curriculums sent, I couldn't get a lot of books delivered. We just had to deal with what you had there. And the internet too. Like, so the internet, you were working at night. So Brad would volunteer three days a week, all day, and then come home in the evenings and work.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

And he would be on the computer working. And so I couldn't get on the computer at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_04 36:28

So it just made me where I think it just made me kind of go back to being like, I'm just gonna read books when the kids are in bed then. I'm just gonna read books when the kids are in bed. Okay, the baby's awake, okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

Um get her. Yeah, but like it really It slowed, I think it slowed down the thinking process to to uh kind of allow us to take a step back and and say, well, like, well, what should we be doing here? Like, do we need to do we need to be buying all these things? Like you can't, it was much more difficult to get sold on products and services and stuff there because it wasn't this I would I don't want to say the sales process wasn't as good, but the delivery process made you actually think about what you were purchasing. So curriculums, books, that's why one of the things and and we've done a uh you've done a number of videos inside of the the membership on building your home library.

SPEAKER_04 37:26

Yeah, that is for sure the most crucial thing because we travel with so many books, like an embarrassing number, but not really, because that was a lot of a lot of uh international flight experience. But that was the thing, was that I knew that that's what I wanted our kids to be around books. So like the first year, I brought a lot, but I ended up leaving half of them back.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:48

But I knew that that's what I wanted our kids to be surrounded by books. I wanted them to have books all the time. I wanted them to just have constant access to it. So that meant that, you know, in each of our 50-pound suitcases, I would put 25 pounds of books.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:00

Almost everything. Really? And so, but there I didn't have access, and also I wasn't like on social media. I didn't, I wasn't watching what other homeschool women were doing. I I wasn't like, I wasn't really consuming that kind of stuff. I was just I I liked the classical pedagogy.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 38:21

And I had Charlotte Mason books, and I just went with that system and I kind of constructed my own um sort of just habits that then you're able to see that that's really what it is. It's the power of making big decisions, like we're just going to do a ton of reading. I'm gonna read out loud every day. We're gonna focus on memorizing a lot of things and build a foundation, and that really so much of it is just your life. Yeah. You know, like and that gave me a freedom because I didn't have a lot of um external inputs of this is what your day should look like. Yeah. This is what my homeschool looks like. This is all these things where I think a lot of people get get caught up in that caught up or overwhelmed with there's so many options and so many people doing things so well and beautifully, and a lot of you know, like encouragement that quote in air quotes that maybe isn't encouragement all the time because it's kind of taking you away from what the goal is.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Or what or what like you literally have in front of you. Right. You know, so if if you have two kids, you're seeing this idyllic um farmstead with this lady with five kids and she's in a linen dress and the dad's chopping wood and all this. It's it's actually fake. And so you as a person with two kids, you look at that and go, Oh, that'd be so nice. Maybe we should have another kid, as opposed to saying, Well, what am I blessed with right here? I've got these two kids. What can I do to get them reading more? What can I do to sacrifice other things in our life to make sure that we have a strong family? Yeah. How is my husband being involved? No, he can't chop wood, but you know what he can do? He can build computers, he can do electrical, you know, he can do so. I think that's the that's a that's the the trap that we um we never really and and still haven't fallen into because we know that that a lot of that stuff is is is purely fake.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

But it's also doesn't deal with what your situation is because our situation is different from our neighbor's situation where they have one, I guess she's two years old, a two-year-old, or our neighbor across the street, where they have a 13-year-old and a seven-year-old. Right. So these two different families seeing this idyllic, here's the best curriculum, and here's what my schedule looks like, and here's all that, that's not real life. And that's the thing that we were we were blessed with in Cape Town, is just dealing with what we had in front of us.

SPEAKER_04 40:53

Because we weren't being swayed and it's like, yeah, I think that's culturally either. Right, because there it just it felt like we were so much more in a community, and that's the thing that we've always had, like that's what always brought us back there all the time, was that it there was just a different lifestyle there.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:13

And you know, we've not lived in a lot of different places in America, and so I wouldn't I wouldn't ever s I wouldn't say that that doesn't exist in America at all. But I think it's harder to find in the United States in in some ways, and so you really have to look for it or like try to create it yourself.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:28

Um, and I but I think the homeschooling there, it helped my mind as far as like a kid that was, you know, I was public schooled, went to a you know, public four-year university, I was good at school. It helped me break that model of school. Homeschooling needs to look like school.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:44

It helped me break that the idea of like you're preparing them for a job.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Because that's the other end of the extreme. Then the then the farm lady over here and the the super academic, like you've got to check all these boxes off.

SPEAKER_04 41:56

And our kids were not even enrolled. They were basically, Micah was seven, so he was enrolled when we were in Maryland, I think, for f kindergarten, first grade. And then maybe Eliza was enrolled for kindergarten, I don't know. But then for the whole side, they were not enrolled ever, anywhere. They were not enrolled in South Africa. They were we were completely outside of any educational institution structure.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:22

Um, and I think that helped me, and I still have to speak still remind myself, it's not about all the stuff you accomplish in one day.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:29

You clearly need to construct a foundation that is like robust for your child.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:35

They need to be able to read well, they need to express themselves well, they need to write well, you need to work on memory. And the big thing for us too was that we realized that their worldview was the most important thing.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

And thinking about the world around them. Because being in South Africa, you're dealing with people eating out of the trash can. Right. You're dealing with taxi drivers, which I love taxi drivers. I love the freedom of the wild west of taxi drivers. But they're booking, you know, there's traffic and they're but barreling down the middle lanes, you know, barely not hitting people. Right. You're dealing with a culture from the apartheid, and then also looking at the United States from afar and seeing the the blessings and the curses of that, I think me helping our kids to have that really a strong biblical worldview to help them discern those things.

SPEAKER_04 43:29

Well, I see to see that that was actually um, it doesn't matter if you teach your kid how to spot every logical fallacy that exists.

SPEAKER_03 43:37

No.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

If they do not have a um like a foundation that's based in a transcendent truths that you help them to see, yeah, then they're gonna fall for anything that comes their way.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:49

So I think because we were able to separate ourselves and we didn't have like for for good, for bad, for good and for bad, we didn't have the um our family around that we didn't have a Lot of reason, you know, we couldn't say, can your you know, parents watch the kids while we do this? Like we did everything together and we were around a lot of different people, and I think that helped us to really focus on that truth of saying, if you don't have this foundation, what's it worth? Yeah. Like homeschooling, you might as well have just set up public school in a way, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 44:22

We really built our own family culture because we didn't allow a lot of the South African culture to infiltrate our family, just as much as when we were in the US and even now, we don't allow that Western consumer.

SPEAKER_04 44:38

Right, because you can spot it a little easier. And I think, especially because the timing, and I think we talked about this before while like everyone's so nostalgic about the 90s, which the 90s are terrible. I watched Beverly Hills 902 and oh like it was so bad. Stop nineties are not good, but I think what it is is they're nostalgic for that time before we had smartphones and iPhones and things like that. So to us, we're a bit nostalgic because that was what early living in Cape Town at that time was for us. Because it was just it was before it really had really, really um sunk its teeth into every single thing about our lives. And I think we still have a choice on that. Yeah. You know, we we definitely have a choice on like how we engage with that, and I think it gave us a bit of a buffer. We were over there because we were able to kind of be a little bit more purposeful about how we approached it because it didn't come on quite so fast, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:28

So we had a little buffery couple years where we were able to say, okay, our kids are not gonna get cell phones until you know they show the maturity to understand they they are aware of the dangers of the technology, they understand we still have oversight.

SPEAKER_04 45:44

Right, and they'll never have social media. So, like Micah bought his own phone. He bought his phone when we came to Florida the first time in 2023 when he was 16 off of like back market or something. It's like an old but he's never had social media. And Eliza has a phone now, really purely as a 16-year-old, for being able to message us if we actually have to like leave her home because we don't have a landline. Yeah. So it's kind of like those things are and communicate with friends with friends. Yeah, and the grandparents, yeah, like being able to talk to her.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

Um, but I think that it gave us a buffer there and it a and it enabled, especially it enabled me to really be able to focus on what was the really the most important part about homeschooling. And like the why you're homeschooling is the most important thing because there's gonna be so many different um issues that get in your way. Yeah. But if you can really come down to like why you're actually doing it, and it's great to spend time with your kids, it's great to do all those things, but really it's you want to be able to to give your child an actual true worldview to show them what is the actual reality. Like, because the reality is not iPhones.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Right.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

That's not the reality, the reality is not Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Right.

SPEAKER_04 46:55

So I think that's what that living there for so long gave us was the ability to really like synthesize our own worldview. To not not not our own worldview, but our own way to help our children see that. And you know, like Brad says all the time, I think one of the things that's hard for a lot of people is it's hard for them to be firm enough with their kids um regarding the reality of the world. And I think that was something that we were able to do is to help them to actually um teach them that it's not attractive to fall for all those things. You're not missing out on something better.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Right.

SPEAKER_04 47:34

We're not trying to withhold good things from you here.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Yeah, you know, one of the consequences of the school systems today and these poor kids that you we see them get off the bus, they're pale, they're hunched over, all of them are looking on their cell phones. Like it's it's it and they go, Well, I'm glad you didn't you you picked that fight with me. Right. Because the addiction that a lot of people have, and it was it really was a blessing because we didn't we we still fought those fights, but it wasn't as um, I would say as challenging as it is now. So if we had teenage if we never left the US, I feel like we would I wouldn't change my opinion. I don't think that changed our opinion on phones. But if everyone else has a phone, yeah, that becomes a more difficult challenge. And then you have to really um, which I think a lot of people sort of fall short on, is you cannot compromise. You you have to if this is if you know that cell phones are evil, if you know that social media is evil, you've gotta fight that fight. You've gotta do that hard work.

SPEAKER_04 48:43

And maybe not like evil in the sense like that it's it's like because we talked about this with our kids all the time. When would the time be that you would go back to? Because even now, I mean it's pretty handy having the find my feature on an 18-year-old boy. Yeah like I tell them all the time, I'm like, dang, when we were your age, no one knew where we were. It was like absolute freedom. And we got into a lot of trouble. Yeah, like because no one knew where we were.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

No oversight.

SPEAKER_04 49:06

Right. So obviously it's kind it's it's it's nice to be able to like send your older kids out into the world with a little bit more of a buffer and to say, okay, you still need the influence of your parents. Right. Like you didn't turn 18 and all of a sudden become a man that knows everything and is wise and can just make all of his own decisions. Right. So it's kind of helpful for I think it's helpful, like there are there are benefits.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

There's a value. There's a value in the data. It's a valuable tool, but if you don't have the right framework of understanding where the you know, the the big where are the ditches? Yes. Where are the ditches in no social media, no, or no phones rather, versus full unfettered access. There's there's a healthy, appropriate medium, just like with sports, just like with eating. You know, there's all these really healthy mediums that I think there's such a a pull in one direction or the other that people just fall into detrimental.

SPEAKER_04 50:00

And you kind of have to always be re-like aligning yourself.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

Uh and I and for me, you know, the big part for me was like realizing that you're not in control. And that was what all those big traveling, the all the trips did for me. It was like a n it was like a real, like you just really have to um, you have to see that you're gonna get through it. It made me realize the kids are a lot stronger than you realize, you know. Like they're actually capable of a lot of hard things.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

All kids actually are. Right.

SPEAKER_04 50:29

And it's actually good to put them in situations where they do have to be tough and strong. Um, like I remember Abram being like three, and the I hated Dulles International Airport. You know how like you get off the airplane and you have to drive ride that big bus thing. And I remember, like, I think I had Eve strapped on me and he's like falling asleep, and I remember being like, oh, I feel so bad for him. But then it's like, he's fine, he's gonna go home and sleep, he's gonna be fine, he's gonna catch up on all of his sleep.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:56

So to me, it was like that big thing of of realizing that I'm not actually in control of everything, and then really seeing that school, the school systems that we all went to are actually not like they're not um, I was gonna say natural, but they're actually a completely contrived social experiment. Like education does not happen like that. Education does not happen, you know, just checking off boxes and then you feel like you've done a good job for the day. Homeschooling, and that's why we kind of, you know, we say we've been doing it for 18 years, even though our oldest is only 18, because really that's what homeschooling is. It's education is all the time, like all the interactions you have to have with your kid, the home that you create, the habits you have. So it's a freeing thing in a way because you realize that it's life.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Yeah. Because that's because I think that's that was another um blessing of being over there because we weren't overwhelmed with all these different curriculums. Yeah. We had to sort of get down to what is what is the point. And the point is biblical worldview, having them understand how the world works through the framework of a foundational truth.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 52:03

And then ultimately that you never stop learning. That's it. You never, there's never, I think modern school systems, and I think what most people have a fear about in terms of homeschooling is they're gonna get behind. They're gonna get behind. Yeah, they're not gonna know their presidents in by the age of 12 and they don't know all the bones of the box. Who who actually cares? Yeah. I think that's a blessing of technology.

SPEAKER_04 52:30

You can learn that.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

You can learn that you can learn that. But the blessing of technology is you can you can figure that out in five seconds, but ultimately the biggest, the the biggest thing about homeschooling, bar none, is that you're teaching them to learn. Right. Because I grew up hating to learn. I see in the I I thought that I hated learning. I didn't read. So I think, and that's and unfortunately, even in South Africa, we see that these school systems break kids. Yeah. They they break them. It takes them from these gregarious, um learning, uh curious, and then fit into this mold. Right. You have to learn all the you have to learn Afrikaans. If you don't learn Afrikaans, you don't pass. If you don't learn Yeah. And it doesn't, it's such a it's such a broken system where when you realize, yes, there are foundational things that you need to teach your kids. And praise the Lord, there's so many resources available that can make it easy for you. Right. But when you when you sort of release the uh thought that there's a certain amount of information that I have to fit in my kids' brain, when you say that's not it, if I can teach them to learn, if I teach them to love to read, to understand how to approach different topics, how to think, right, then there is no there is no like There's no limits really of what they can learn.

SPEAKER_04 53:54

Right. Yeah. It's not it's like not a scarcity model, you know, like you can you can keep learning all the time.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

Yeah, I'm 42. I learn every day.

SPEAKER_04 54:01

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

You have to be learning every day. And the the school systems trick people into thinking that they that that it ends when they're 18.

SPEAKER_04 54:09

Oh, the other thing.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

And they want to get more advanced, and so they go to a college and then right.

SPEAKER_04 54:12

The other thing that came to my mind as you're saying that is I feel like South Africa is really where we realized that school is basically daycare.

unknown 54:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 54:21

Where you actually you're like, the this this entire school system exists to have a place to put all the kids.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:28

That's actually it. Like that's the purpose. Like there's 40 plus kids in the class, the teachers, some of them can't read. I mean, there's so many. There's so many things where you're like, if this, if if you actually had the goal of quote unquote educating children, yeah, to make them at least literate and be able to do basic math, the school system fails at this, so just comp just objectively fails.

SPEAKER_03 54:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:52

Because that's not their goal. Their goal literally is just to have kids in some type of daycare. Like they they need they need to manage all the children.

SPEAKER_02 54:59

Right.

SPEAKER_04 54:59

So it's just funny how you see, and I'm sure we maybe would have realized that if we had, yeah, but I think for our family, I felt it in my bones. Yeah, for our family, that was just the the path that God chose for us was that that was how we're we were gonna learn all those things. Yeah, you know, and again, it like just reinforced um that homeschooling is just your life style. It's a light, it's a lifestyle that you create, yeah, and that you don't need a specific curriculum to do it.

SPEAKER_01 55:27

You know, it's it's um it can't you don't need to go to Africa to un to unlearn things. No, you don't need to go, you know, you don't need to farm experience. Alienate your entire family so they don't impact you negatively. You have to learn how to manage those things. So a lot of it is is uh parental responsibility. And I really think um, you know, we had uh Ronnie and that guy Nick over here yesterday, and I'm just hopeful because more and more people saying it's my responsibility to do the hard work. Where the gener for for generations it was outsource, outsource, outsource. And so to see a younger generation say, It's my responsibility, is just it just gives me hope because I feel like grow you know, looking at where we are in the United States, it's no one wants to take responsibility. And really the responsibility starts at home. You take you're you're responsible for yourself, then you're responsible for if you're a husband, you're responsible for your wife, if you're a wife, you're responsible for your kids. That that sort of responsibility hierarchy only works with when you're homeschooling. It only really and and the more people that do that and take on that responsibility, I mean, I'm hopeful about the future. I don't care how crazy things get, because it it's like number one, I've got eight kids, so I have to be hopeful about the future. But the more people that are that are recognizing that they have to take the responsibility and also to understand there's like I said, there's so many resources, so many podcasts that are encouraging people to reject this thing. There's so many different curriculum studies. You've done one within the roadmap course to understand, okay, what are all these curriculums? Right. You know, how do I deal with these fears? How do I frame my day? We did that in the roadmap course. Right. But there's also tons of other things that are that are really meant to help people really get outside the system and do right, and we can all we can all learn.

SPEAKER_04 57:29

You know, one of my like just favorite things about having homeschooled like our older kids so far is that I've gotten to relearn. Like I've re I've had to unlearn a lot of the things I learned from public school, but then I've got I've gotten to learn with them. And you really can create this really awesome life for you and your kids. You know, I mean I did, and it's cool to look at how we've changed. It doesn't have to look the same all the time. So the way that I do school with our I did school with our three older kids, yeah, and the way that I do it with the youngers now, it's different than how I did it.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

But doesn't mean that it's you just adapt to whatever situation And also kind of what I want to do.

SPEAKER_04 58:08

Yeah. Like with them, I did tons of notebook pages. We all learned to draw. Like I never learned how to draw. So we did lots of drawing and painting, uh obviously lots of like reading, narrations, copyworks, all that stuff too. And with the younger kids, we do kind of more language stuff. And yeah, so it you really can create a really amazing, beautiful life without with without the can like the constraints of this is how it has to look and this is how it has to function.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:33

You know, and I think that's the freedom of it.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

Yeah.

unknown 58:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:37

Well, very good. I hope this was encouraging for everyone. And as always, if you have questions, you can shoot us an email, rad at anyone can homeschool.com. If you would like to take our roadmap course, we would encourage you to do that as a as a new mom or as a refresher. It's anyone can homeschool.com slash roadmap. Or if you want to actually have a mentor to talk to uh who's been there and done that, who's raised kids, who can help you fill in those sort of generational wisdom gaps of managing your house as a homeschooler, we have coaching available. So go to anyone can homeschool dot com, click on the link that says parents start here and get going. Have a great rest of your day.