February 7, 2026 • 39 mins
What does homeschooling look like after the kids are grown — and what advice actually holds up over 25 years? This week, I bring back a favorite episode of mine to help remind me what's really important while taking this homeschooling journey.
In this episode of The Homeschool How To Podcast, I talk with Rosemary, a New Jersey mom of four who homeschooled all the way through high school and is now on the other side: kids launched, college decisions made, careers started, and the long view finally clear.
Rosemary shares the approach that shaped her homeschool—part structure, part freedom—with a few non-negotiables (like math facts and early reading), plus a powerful reminder: you’re replaceable at work… but irreplaceable in your child’s life.
You’ll also hear:
- Why agency is one of the biggest gifts homeschooling can give
- How she balanced academics + interests + sports as kids got older
- When and why she started testing (and what she learned)
- How her kids handled the culture shock of college environments
- A practical framework every family can use: Dojo • Cafeteria • Library
- A “well-kept secret” resource: Learning Unlimited (Saturday classes taught by graduate students)
If you’re new to homeschooling—or you’re deep in the weeds—this conversation will help you zoom out and build a homeschool that’s less about checklists and more about raising capable, grounded kids who know how to learn.
🎹 Have your kiddos learn piano from this amazing resource, check out: Simply Piano. We love it! 🎶
Cheryl's ebook: The Homeschool How To: Complete Starter Guide
🎁 Free resource: Grab my free 30-day homeschool quick start guide at thehomeschoolhowto.com
Instagram: TheHomeschoolHowToPodcast
Facebook: The Homeschool How To Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
I didn't plan to homeschool.
I started asking hard questions,realized how little control
parents actually have, and madethe hard decision to leave a
government job to homeschool mykids.
Now I interview otherhomeschooling parents to learn
how this all works.
I'm Cheryl, and this is theHomeschool How to Podcast.
Let's learn this together.
(00:23):
Welcome with us today.
I have Rosemary Labris from NewJersey.
Welcome, Rosemary.
Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_00 (00:29):
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (00:31):
I would like to start out by asking you just how
many kids do you have and theirage?
SPEAKER_00 (00:35):
Okay, so I um have four and I have been finished
homeschooling now for a fewyears because my youngest is 20.
So their ages are 20.
I'm gonna try and get thisright.
Soon to be 24, 27, and 29.
Oh, and they were allhomeschooled.
Yeah.
It's so strange to be lookingback, which is all I do these
days, is look back on all thoseyears.
(00:57):
And they're now in relationshipswhere they meet people who say,
You were homeschooled?
Oh, like just like you know, inelementary school, and they're
like, Nope, all the way through,through high school.
I went to college, but uhhomeschooled the and people are
always they're just sointerested in like what was your
life like?
And I just I love hearing myadult, my young adult kids talk
about their experiences becausethey're all extremely happy that
(01:20):
they didn't go the traditionalroute.
And it it was a blast.
I had so much fun.
It's very easy to findhomeschoolers who are doing it,
like they're currently in doingthat wet work, right?
And their kids are little andthey're in the weeds, they're
tired, there's so much going on.
But it's hard to find people whoare done with the job.
And I mean, I have a career now,I've moved on in my life from
(01:40):
doing a lot of things, but I'mtotally finished with home
education.
And but I love to talk about it.
And you just it's when I listento other people talk about
homeschooling, it's alwayspeople who are currently doing
the job.
It's never the ones who are doneand are now in the next life,
you know, grandparenting littleones or whatever.
So yeah, I fall in thatcategory.
SPEAKER_01 (01:58):
Well, it's funny that you say that because the
episode I released this pastweekend, which by the time we
released this one, it will havebeen a little bit back.
I think episode 23 was with DebHarris, and she is in the same
realm as you, but we weretalking about that and how there
were not many peoplehomeschooling back in the 80s
and 90s when she was doing itwith her kids and she had six
(02:20):
kids and lived in Chicago, andnow she is a data scientist, but
you know, and it was hard forher to make ends meet with just
the one income on a family withsix kids.
And she had talked about, youknow, I would clean um house a
house for a woman on the weekendjust to have money for
groceries, and then now here sheis, you know, later in life,
looking back on the fun that shehad, the bonds that she had with
(02:44):
her kids, and still do, and howdeep those bonds are because of
what the home education allowedthem to have over the years.
And she's just loving it.
So that's so great to hear thatthis is more, you know, more
common than not, right?
SPEAKER_00 (02:58):
It is, and you know, those years when you're raising
children, whether you'rehomeschooling or not, but when
you're raising kids, it goes byso quickly.
Everyone says that.
It sounds so trite, but itreally does zip by.
And I remember when my husbandand I were first making the
decision to homeschool.
It was for the first year.
Our oldest was going intokindergarten, and I said, I
(03:18):
think I want to homeschool him.
And he was like, Well, you know,it's kindergarten.
Like, how badly can one mess upkindergarten, right?
So go ahead and try that, youknow?
So we so I did.
And it was wonderful.
And we just did it one year at atime, and then it, you know,
more kids came along, and thenext thing I knew, they were
going off to college.
I mean, it really was like that.
Like the next thing I realized,I was filling out college
(03:40):
applications and I realized,well, my work is probably done.
I'm very, very glad that I gavea quarter of a century to them.
You know, if you have like askill set, like let's say you're
well organized, you're a goodcook, you're you're whatever
loving person, your kids shouldbe the beneficiary of those
skills.
And I was working at the time, Ihad a career.
I'd had my kids later in life.
(04:01):
I have four, and I had them atages 37, 40, 42, and 46.
Really?
Not the way most people do it.
Not sure I would recommend iteither.
I had my career first.
I was a manager at uh PriceWaterhouse when I met my
husband, and I wasn't planningto stop working, and I never
even knew what home educationwas.
And then, you know, we gotmarried, and then we were
expecting our first son, andaround the seventh month, I
(04:23):
thought, well, you know, I'mpretty good with like admin
stuff and details.
I'm pretty organized.
I think I want to give that giftto my family, to my husband and
my son.
I didn't know I was gonna havethree more, and I didn't know I
was gonna homeschool.
But those skills really, reallycarried me through those years.
And I went back to work when Iwas done, and I literally picked
up where I left off.
(04:43):
And I thought, so many days Ithink to myself, yeah, I'm
really glad I gave it to thembecause when you stop working,
you are so replaceable.
You are highly replaceable.
I work at the children'shospital in a management
position.
If I left tomorrow, they arethey'll find somebody to fill my
shoes.
I'm not foolish enough to thinkthat I'm irreplaceable.
But in my children's lives, Iwas irreplaceable.
(05:06):
And so I'm really glad I gavethem that time.
SPEAKER_01 (05:08):
I literally said that exact same thing in the Deb
Harris podcast because I work ingovernment right now.
And like you, I had a my career,I've been there for 15 years.
And you know, they especially ingovernment work, it's you'll get
this pension, this pension, thispension, and that's all you're
focused on for the 30 yearsyou're there is your promotions
(05:30):
in order to get your pension.
It's never a promotion becausethat's the work I want to do,
and especially in governmentwork, because it's all civil
service exams.
That's you never get the jobthat you like went to school for
or have a passion in.
It's I had this score on a test,and this was a job available,
and I was the next in line, andthat's the one I got.
So for the last 15 years, I'vebeen in a cubicle thinking of
(05:54):
myself as a career woman.
And for what?
Because I got placed inpositions because I happened to
get a score on a test, and um, alot of that's trained by
society.
I'm not needed there.
I haven't been there since lastAugust.
I am sure they haven't.
The government hasn't skipped aB.
I'll tell you what.
People are still getting theirbenefits, and I'm not missed.
(06:15):
I'm completely replaceable.
But I can't even leave mydaughter with her grandparents
for more than four hours.
Mom, I want my mom.
And that is just such a goodfeeling.
And why are we?
I mean, we were watching a showrecently, my son and I, and they
were talking about how walrusesstay with their mom for three
whole years.
And I'm like, they expectmothers to give up their babies
(06:37):
at six weeks and just go back towork.
SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
It's really I see it every day.
I see it every day.
I couldn't do it, but I alsounderstand that some moms don't
have a choice.
SPEAKER_01 (06:48):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (06:48):
There are single moms, there are moms who they
just can't they can't not havethat check.
And if they're an essentialworker, they have to show up,
then it's daycare.
SPEAKER_01 (06:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (06:58):
And so, I mean, not everyone has the choice, but I
really believe that every parentthat can make it work
financially should give it atry.
That should try it.
Just try it.
You know, I was listening to thenews and Kamala Harris was
talking about artificialintelligence.
So she was educating an audiencethat didn't need to be educated,
(07:18):
by the way, on what artificialintelligence was.
And I'm listening to her, andshe went through it like very,
very slowly, saying the machinelearns from what you put into
it.
So what words you say, whatideas you have, that's what goes
into the machine and that's whatcomes out.
And that's why it's so importantthat we know what's going into
(07:40):
artificial intelligence so thatit's not racist and biased and
prejudiced.
And I thought she just perfectlydescribed why parents want to
homeschool their kids.
Because little kids, their mindsare the machines.
And yes, we care very muchwhat's going into the machine
because we know it eventuallycomes out.
So we'd like to have a say aboutwhat goes in, right?
(08:01):
I wish that I could change thetitle of her speech to why you
should home educate your kids.
SPEAKER_01 (08:06):
Yeah, and I bet that was them promoting some sorts of
censorship.
We have to censor and havecensorship because of what goes
in, comes out.
Garbage in, garbage out.
But that's exactly, yeah.
You don't want your kid going tothe government schools because
garbage in, garbage out.
We want them to be thingwriters.
So, what sort of approaches didyou take with your kids?
(08:29):
There's, I mean, right now,there's everything from the
traditional like a Beccacurriculum stuff to people that
unschool, and that's a big thingnow, where we just kind of go
out in nature and we see acaterpillar and hey, let's go to
the library and get all thebooks on caterpillars and watch
videos on caterpillars and andthen the life cycle and take it
from there, or whatever's kindof tickling my kids' fancy.
(08:52):
And I respect both of them, andthey all, I'm sure, can work for
so many different ways.
So, what was your approach?
SPEAKER_00 (08:58):
Well, it was a mix of both completely hands-off,
letting them run crazy, andcracking the whip.
There were things I did notrelent on, and that had
primarily to do with math facts,making sure that they knew their
math facts, it was automatic, itwasn't a labored slow, let me
try and think what nine timesseven is kind of thing.
It was a lot of drilling.
(09:18):
Everything else was prettychill.
I made sure they knew how toread early on.
I'm very blessed in that of thefour of them, no one was
dyslexic or had any kind ofchallenges learning to read, and
they all learned to read veryyoung.
One was reading at two and ahalf, the others read between
three age three and four.
And we would go to thelibraries, we belonged to like
four or five differentlibraries.
(09:40):
Every week we went a few times aweek.
We'd bring these big bags and Ilet them.
They got to pick the book.
So even if it was a picture bookwith three words in it, I never
I didn't say anything.
It was like okay.
And then they would come homeand it was like it was like
Christmas.
They would be so happy becausethey each had a giant bag of
books and they would just sitand look at the books they
wanted.
(10:00):
They had a 15-minute readinglesson, and that I did not uh,
you know, unless somebody wassick or really ornery, we did
not skip that 15.
They were able to read likelevel one, level two books by
using that approach.
Frankly, all the rest of thetime of the day when they were
in early elementary school, theywere outside playing and we were
going places.
We traveled and did things.
(10:21):
I never had them tested at alluntil they were like late middle
school.
Okay.
Then I started to think aboutbecause they were bright, and I
I at the time wanted them to getinto the best colleges that they
could get into.
So I knew that eventually theywere gonna have to take the SAT.
And I didn't know, I mean, uhevery mother who homeschools her
(10:41):
kids knows if there's a deficit.
I never met a mom who had a kidage 10 or 12.
Maybe the kid struggled readingor struggled with math, that the
mom was not aware.
Mom is aware because it'spainful to get it done when
there's a problem.
So I didn't have any sense thatthere were any problems, but I
wanted to know how they weregonna do.
So they started taking testslike seventh or eighth grade,
(11:04):
and there were no issues at all.
So, especially for the reading,because that was something that
they always did voluntarily.
They would sit and read paperbooks.
I read a lot of paper books, sodoes my husband.
So the behavior was modeled forthem.
Also, at least two, and I couldargue three, were raised before
the iPhones were so ubiquitous.
(11:26):
Like the fourth one, iPhoneswere ubiquitous, and he stopped
reading paper books at aroundsixth or seventh grade.
He was too cool for that.
He just wanted to play on theiPhone.
I didn't have that issue withthe other three because they
didn't have smartphones.
So I think that the era in whichI was raising them was a little
bit different.
I do think it's harder today toget kids to sit down and read
paper books.
(11:46):
So, since we had as a goal forthem to get into the best
schools they could, we traveled,we visited colleges very young.
Like starting in middle school,I drove all along the East Coast
and we visited every top collegejust so they could see.
Like, this is the goal.
This is why I ask you to workhard, this is why I want you to
do preparation for the SAT.
(12:07):
Because since you'rehomeschooled, that kind of
matters, that test, if you wantto get into this school.
Long story short, the first twodid go to an Ivy League
university.
The third one got intoPrinceton, said no, went to the
Naval Academy.
And my fourth, who is an unevenlandscape of skills, let's say,
if JJ were here right now, hewould say it himself.
(12:27):
He's gifted in languages.
He can learn languages likenobody's business.
Wow.
And he got a scholarship when hewas in high school to study in
Macedonia, tiny little countrythat borders on Bulgaria.
He's now completely fluent inMacedonia, decided at the time
he wanted to go to college inthe Balkans because he thinks
Balkan people are really cool.
So he's actually in college atthe American University in
(12:47):
Bulgaria and loves it there.
Says he's going to go back.
Yes.
So they're all fully launched.
Everyone's out, everyone's kindof off on doing their thing.
But in retrospect, because ofthe things that my first two
were exposed to at University ofPennsylvania where they went to
school, the shock that they werein with helicopter parenting
from other students, likeparents calling.
(13:08):
Like they had differentroommates over the years.
Parents calling them, did youstudy for this test?
What did you get on this quiz?
So and so I I never asked themonce what their grades were.
I didn't even know until theytold me what their grades are.
I didn't hound them because Iknew they were going to get good
grades.
I knew they were gonna study.
I knew them as students, right?
And it just the environment ofPenn.
The environment is to say it'swoke, doesn't even scratch the
(13:32):
surface.
So there was a lot of stuff toresist every day for them.
And while now they areparticipating in alumni events,
for the first year or two, theydidn't want to have anything to
do with alumni events.
They were like, no, I'm Isurvived it.
My first one had a double majorand graduated with honors.
So he did really well.
My daughter was a science major.
She did well, but it was a lotharder for her because she was
(13:53):
in, she had chosen a STEM topicat Penn.
So she's she lives in Austin, helives in New York, and one's in
San Diego, and one's inBulgaria.
So my husband and I are gettingready to retire.
It's like, where are we gonnalive?
It's like the Kansas.
That's kind of like in themiddle of everybody.
If we pick a point on the map,that's that's in the middle,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (14:10):
Whoever has the most kids or has the first kid,
that's where you go.
SPEAKER_00 (14:13):
Yeah, that's right, yes.
But to go back to your questionabout teaching style and all
that, I started out veryorganized.
I had a list of everything thatwe were gonna do every day.
I had my three-ring binders, Ihad my checklists, and it went
pretty well until they got alittle bit older, and they they
definitely wanted to have moresay over how they spent their
time.
And they were developinginterests.
(14:34):
You know, one was doinggymnastics.
My sons all rode for a rowingclub in South Jersey, so that's
takes up a lot of time, and thenthey made a lot of friends
through rowing, so they had adifferent emphasis.
Like, okay, um, I'm gonna takethis class at this community
college, I'll do this oneonline.
I need to be done by three,everything, because I need to
(14:55):
get the rowing practice bythree.
And so they had differentpriorities as they got by the
time they got to middle school.
In a way, it got easier becauseall I had to do were was reverse
engineer things into theirschedules for all the hard math
and all the hard science, all ofit I farmed out to tutors or
small learning groups or thelocal community college.
Okay.
(15:15):
I did not, except for biology, Idid not attempt to teach any of
those.
I just don't know enough.
Even if I could learn ittemporarily, my knowledge would
never have been fluent enoughto, or fluid enough, to like
answer a question that theymight have had.
I mean, I would I would say,like, wait, I gotta look that
up.
You miss the moment then.
There's really um I believe inteachers, and I think that
(15:37):
finding good teachers when youhomeschool, you can actually
find the best.
You can you can you can find thebest person who might even have
access to a lab.
We did that for physics.
Um, it was an ex-physicsteacher, and she had a lab in
her house.
It was fantastic.
She was an outstanding teacher.
I couldn't uh and you know, weshared, there were two other
students, and so we shared thecost of a three-hour class once
(16:00):
a week.
Wow.
So those are the kinds ofcreative um exactly things that
you can do.
You can do anything you want,depending on your budget.
You can skin academically, moreso now, frankly, than back then,
because post-pandemic, there'sso much more available online
that I think that homeschoolersmight drown in a sea of options
more than when the options werefewer.
(16:22):
Yeah.
When I was doing it the onlineoption.
SPEAKER_01 (16:26):
So you for you to even connect with other families
nearby that were homeschooling,it was harder to connect if you
didn't have the internet to oh,hey, here's a Facebook group in
our area.
Let's go join them.
And yeah, I would imaginecertain parts, like you said,
were easier because you didn'thave to worry about them on an
iPhone, but other parts wereharder, like the connecting and
seeing all that's available toyou.
(16:47):
Now, do you think college I wasjust talking to someone about
this that college should thatevery career or that should be
the goal, or are we kind of in Ifeel like we're kind of in a
phase where the college is soexpensive and you know, if we're
like there are jobs that ifwe're working on this creativity
in our children for, you know,the 13 years, do they do a lot
(17:10):
of them need to go to collegeanymore?
SPEAKER_00 (17:12):
Yeah.
I think the answer is no.
Yeah.
I think the answer is no.
And if I had if I had thatdecision to do over again, I
think my daughter would chooseto go.
I think all my sons would say,nah.
I just would like to get towork.
I'd like to start to find outwhat I want to do for a living
because my oldest son is infinance.
Now he was a philosophy and aRussian major.
Really doesn't have anything todo with uh the work he's doing
(17:33):
right now.
His degree is very useful fromPenn, but he himself would say
you could have saved yourself alot of money.
My son, who's went to the NavalAcademy, he studied English.
He studied English at the NavalAcademy, and it's like an
engineering school, right?
So you have He said that's onething I'm really interested in.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
You have your babies with you for, you know, the
first 18 years.
How do you handle sending themoff?
You know, sending your baby tokindergarten is anxious, you
know, anxiety ridden.
But you've had him with you forso long, and you're like, okay,
here you go.
How did you get through that?
SPEAKER_00 (18:07):
That was well, you'll find out by the time your
son is 17 or 18, there's notmuch telling them what you want
them to do or be.
They have a good sense of it.
With Andy, you know, I triedtalking to him about other
universities.
He visited many otheruniversities.
He was the fastest lightweightrower in New Jersey in the year
(18:28):
that he was applying tocolleges, and he had almost
perfect SAT scores.
So he was recruited by everymajor university.
He said, No, I want to serve mycountry.
And I said, Why?
No, we don't come from Peter andI are not military fam.
We I didn't understand it.
I really, really didn't knowanybody who was in that life.
I didn't know anything about theNaval Academy.
He was absolutely certain that'swhat he wanted to do.
(18:50):
He had what's called a blue andgold officer come to the house
to sit with Peter and I andexplain to us like what it was
that Andy what he wanted to do.
It's it's one of the mostdifficult things in the world to
go through.
SPEAKER_01 (19:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (19:03):
He doesn't he doesn't give me a lot of details
about what he goes through.
He does talk to my husband aboutthat.
He knows I don't want to hear itbecause I actually want to sleep
at night.
SPEAKER_01 (19:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (19:13):
You know, that's so hard.
SPEAKER_01 (19:15):
You know, we protect our kids for so long and give up
so much to be close with themand then to send them off into
like uh just just to have themdrive a car is like scary
enough.
Like when they get their licenseand a vehicle.
SPEAKER_00 (19:30):
You know, all four of my kids traveled abroad when
they were in high school.
I applied for scholarships.
I got really good at that.
That was what I helped a lot ofother students in New Jersey
with getting scholarships totravel abroad.
So starting for each of themstarting at age 14 or 15, they
went on the other side of theworld for anywhere from one to
six months.
Now and I was not there.
SPEAKER_01 (19:51):
Was that possible to a homeschool opportunity, or was
that through a communitycollege, like they were getting
college credits for that?
SPEAKER_00 (19:57):
No, these are state-sponsored scholarships.
They are open to school kids andthey are open to homeschool
kids.
So the NSLIY scholarship, theAYLP scholarship, AFS has some
scholarships, yes abroad, theCongress Bunkstad Scholarship.
So basically, the state paysyou, students, that is, to go
(20:18):
and live in a foreign country.
Usually it's a country wherewe've had some conflict, or it's
a country with a high Muslimpopulation.
The goal, of course, is to haveother countries see that
American students and to beambassadors for your country.
But you go to school whileyou're there.
Whatever grade you're in andwhatever school they put you in,
you go to school while you'rethere.
Unless you're going over summer.
(20:40):
So each of them had spent monthsaway in another country where I
really couldn't help themnavigate the world at all.
And I got better out of justfrom the practice at letting go.
And I think that that helps alot by the time your kids are
ready to go to college.
You do want to be able to letgo.
And they, I think my own kidswould say, I'm not, I'm pretty
good at letting go.
(21:00):
I don't know if that's a goodthing or not.
SPEAKER_01 (21:02):
Do you think your kids will homeschool their
children?
Have you ever asked them?
SPEAKER_00 (21:06):
Yes, I do ask them that.
Mm-hmm.
The first three, John, Nora, andAndy, all say yes.
They all say yes.
They're very, very interested.
Well, they see the differencebetween themselves and friends
their age.
Friends their age, especiallyfemales.
My daughter, she sees areticence, an anxiety, a
nervousness, a fearfulness inher friends that she thinks is a
(21:27):
carryover from all their schoolyears, where if you're the first
one to show up for a party,you're weird.
There's something's wrong withyou.
Like, you know, and she's she'salways the one that will go to
the restaurant first and waitfor her friends to get there.
No one will walk in.
Or she'll talk to the Major Gsaying, yeah, we're gonna have
five more arriving, like we'lljust wait here.
Like they're fearful.
Um, they lack agency.
(21:48):
And I think that the greatestgift that you give a young
homeschool student is theagency.
They're in charge of their owndays.
They might not be when they'refive, but by the time they're
15, they are in charge of theirown days.
SPEAKER_01 (22:00):
Quick pause to share something that's been a great
fit for our homeschool.
My son, he's seven, and we buttheads if I am teaching him
directly.
So his reading and math are donemostly independently, and I'm
just there to support andcorrect when needed.
I really wanted him to learnmusic too, especially knowing
how closely music and readingare connected in the brain.
That's why we started usingSimply Piano.
(22:21):
He's learning to read music andplay piano on his own using
songs he already knows andloves.
And it feels more like a gamethan a lesson.
It's been amazing to watch hisconfidence and skills grow.
If you want to check it out,grab the link in the show
description.
SPEAKER_00 (22:36):
And their peers are being told when to stand up,
when to sit down, when they canuse the toilet.
They're all looking at the samebooks, they're all taking the
same tests, they're all wearingthe same clothes, they get on
the same bus, they get up at thesame time, they get home at the
same time.
They are absolutely in lockstep.
Talk about a way to rob someoneof their agency.
I think the greatest gift youcan give to a homeschool kid is
(22:57):
that.
And I actually think have beingon the other side of it now, and
I saw this many times withhomeschool families where they
had a student with a specialneed.
They had um a son or a daughterwho simply could not learn to
read, and they were strugglingacademically, so they had some
kind of learning disability.
Those kids whom I now know asyoung adults are the nicest, the
(23:18):
most well-adjusted young peoplethat you would meet anywhere.
They look you in the eye,they'll shake your hand.
They don't think there'sanything wrong with them.
They might not be, you know, onthe uh star track, but they're
gonna become managers at a fastfood restaurant or a wawa or
something like this.
And they're good at their jobsbecause they have a sense of
responsibility and haven't beenthen taught that there's
(23:40):
something wrong with them.
Yeah.
I really feel that sometimesjust not sending your kid to
school, that alone is anadvantage.
Yeah.
And then everything, anythingyou add on to that is like is
like icing on the cake.
But the real cake is thatthey're not in that environment.
SPEAKER_01 (23:55):
Yeah, I agree.
The more I look into it and likemy reasons started out on
episode one.
I talked about the reasons thatI want to homeschool and then
the reasons I'm fearful tohomeschool.
And then just this week, Ireally thought about that list
and expanded it now that I'vetalked to, you know, dozens of
homeschooling families andreally thought about the
(24:17):
intricate intricacies of thesereasons and expanded on them.
And I I put a post on Instagramabout it, and just from simple
things like we had fire drills,but now they do shelter-in-place
drills, and that's for schoolshootings.
So kids are at young ages,kindergarten, first grade,
second grade, getting this putinto their mind that a peer or
(24:40):
someone in the neighborhoodmight come in with a weapon and
shoot them, and this is whatthey have to do, and that has to
do something to the psyche, thatalone, you know?
Um, and not to mention what youthink of guns and your trust for
your peers or lack thereof trustin your peers because they could
turn on you at any moment.
Um, you know, that was one ofthem all the way into you know,
(25:04):
the ideology of um thetransgender and how I mean it's
just it's getting pushed so muchby the government that I can now
I probably five, 10 years ago,20 years ago, would have, you
know, yeah, let's go go to theparade and march for the people
for equality.
Now I see through that, if ifthe government is pushing this
(25:27):
so much, there is an ulteriormotive to that, just like the
women's movement of the 60s, youknow.
So what I've come to realize,um, and I don't know if
everybody would agree, but whenyou look at why China, just
before they turned to acommunist country, the
government was pushing agenderless society.
And when you remove the genders,you no longer have that physical
(25:50):
attraction from a man to awoman.
Well, then you're losing themarriage and the creation of a
family, and you're losing thecreation of a family bond.
And then when you no longer havea family bond, or you don't ever
have a family bond to live for,what's the purpose of living?
Why are you living?
Will you look to your governmentthen for answers?
Well, government, tell me mymeaning.
(26:11):
Tell me my purpose.
Well, I'll tell you yourpurpose.
Your purpose is to serve us andusher in communism or socialism,
whatever you want to call it.
And that makes so much sense.
And you mentioned before abouthow your kids, when they
graduated from college, they gotthrough the wokeness and didn't
even want to be part of thealumni events for a couple of
years.
(26:32):
Was that even a conscious thingas you were raising your kids to
teach them about, you know, Idon't know, you know, your
religion or or your politicalvalues, but you obviously they
came out knowing somethingdifferent than what's being
pushed in school today.
Was it a conscious decision onyour part?
And did they have to were youafraid that they might meld with
(26:52):
the crowd once they went intoschool?
SPEAKER_00 (26:54):
Um, the answer to that question is yes, I was.
I definitely was, but I knewthat they were going to go to
college.
And I knew that like 99% ofcollege campuses are extremely
liberal.
I wasn't so concerned about myoldest son when he went off
because his ideas about theworld were so well formed.
He chose to study philosophybecause he read very, very
(27:15):
deeply and um has a you knowwell-established kind of
doctrine in his own mind.
And he's also very calm, so Iknew he wasn't gonna get
triggered.
He would be and he would be ableto hold his own.
So he got through all that andjust found it a little bit
disgusting at how overwhelmingthe pressure is to conform.
My daughter, I think, suede.
(27:37):
She was a little bit, um, Idon't know what the right word
is, but uh a little shaky.
And I remember she was in herjunior year when Donald Trump
was elected president, and shestarted texting me saying the
school, I mean, University ofPennsylvania, actually brought
little puppy dogs in to have thestudents sit with little puppy
dogs in order to calm them downbecause the students were
(27:58):
hysterical because they thoughtsince Donald Trump had been
elected president that the worldwas going to end.
I mean, and I said to mydaughter, I said, Let me ask you
something.
Do your friends know anyone whomight know someone who might
know someone who might havevoted for Donald Trump?
She said, No.
I said, but what does that tellyou about their lives?
How could they be so isolatedthat they don't even know
(28:20):
someone who knows someone whoknows someone who voted?
How could they be so separated,so many degrees of separation
from what ended up being, whatwas the 70 million people who
voted for the man?
How could they not know a singleone?
Like that doesn't make sense.
And it tells you something abouttheir world.
SPEAKER_01 (28:34):
Now that you're at the other end of the spectrum
from a lot of moms that justkind of woke up during COVID and
are now like, I gotta homeschoolmy kid, I can't send them to
public school.
What advice would you have forus?
SPEAKER_00 (28:46):
Well, a couple of things.
What kids really want the most,what they want more than
anything in the world is ourtime, right?
And that's the thing that'shardest to give them is that
like time.
I think that the first decisiona homeschooling parent has to
make in order to becomesuccessful at the job is that
decision.
You're gonna give them yourtime.
So that means you're not gonnado all the things you want to
(29:06):
do.
You can always carve out, and Ialways carved out a little bit
of time for myself at the end ofthe day where I would exercise
and have like my own like alittle treat and a cup of decaf,
and then okay, fine, so I I hadtime for myself, but everything
else during the day, it wasabout them and it was for them.
So, with that as a backdrop, Ithink that taking them places,
(29:26):
traveling, I think you know, ifyou to focus on a curriculum and
to check boxes all day is amistake.
You want them to come out in theworld not not thinking like
inside of a box.
You want them thinking outsideof a box all the time.
So I wouldn't give them booksthat come in a box and have you
working like within that box.
I would take them places tomuseums and spend time talking
(29:50):
about ideas.
And wherever you go, just to beasking, well, I wonder why the
people here do this.
Why do you think that it evolvedthat way?
To be engaged with them inconversation.
I mean, uh there were times Iwould lose my voice because we
were talking.
My kids and I were talking somuch about, you know, something
we saw at a science museum or anart museum.
(30:10):
We did a lot of museums.
I mean, at least once a week wewent to a museum before they all
started into their sports andstuff like that.
Teaching them basic skills,cooking.
I had this theory that a goodhomeschool has three parts to
it.
It's one third dojo, one-thirdcafeteria, and one third
library.
So to go back to that, like thedojo is it doesn't matter
(30:32):
whether you live in a city or acountry, but it's just making
sure that they have plenty oftime.
Play.
Unstructured play.
Where you know you don't sitdown in front of the Legos and
like you got 30 minutes, quick,put together your Legos because
then we gotta leave.
But just unstructured time forthem to do what they want, make
a mess inside, outside, andtaking physical risks, you know,
jumping from one thing toanother, maybe falling down and
(30:55):
scraping your knee.
It doesn't matter.
So the idea of dojo is that forthem to reach their physical
potential, they have to do a lotof stuff without a lot of
supervision.
So you have to figure a way toget that in there, and it can be
inside the house or outside thehouse.
The cafeteria, that's that's thekitchen.
And I really am pretty seriousabout nutrition and making sure
(31:15):
that they're not eating fastfood.
One of the greatest advantagesthat you have as a homeschooler
is that you can provide homecooked meals.
It's way better than processedmeals.
And so once they learn how to doit themselves, you know, the old
Bible verse, rather than likegive them a fish, teach them how
to fish, they invested timeteaching them how to make the
things they really liked.
They like making pancakes fromscratch.
(31:36):
I'm gonna show you how to do it.
Here, so you know, just theseingredients are the only ones
you need.
Now make yourself some pancakes.
And they had all differentcafes.
They used to make up cafes, theywould make up little menus, and
they would make me buy a cookieoff the menu from them.
They could spend an entireafternoon doing something like
that.
So the kitchen was a hub, and Itaught them to cook, and I did a
lot of cooking.
And they they came to like likereal food, and they eat real
(31:59):
food, they eat meat and potatoesand vegetables, and they know
how to bake cakes and thingslike that.
So I think that the dojo, thecafeteria, and then the library.
It's just to fill your housewith interesting books and not
to have fights with them overwhat they want to read.
I learned this early.
My oldest son, when he was aboutsix, got into these books called
(32:20):
Secrets of the Drune.
I hated it.
It was sci-fi and it to me itwas junk reading.
Of course, the library had like50 of them, and he wanted to
read every one of them.
And I just like zipped it up andsaid, Okay, secrets of the
drone, it is.
And he read every single one ofthose.
He became such an enthusiasticreader because I let him choose
what he wanted to do.
(32:40):
So I think um having books laylaying around everywhere.
A lot of times families willover the years have asked me to
come to their house because theywant to talk to me because their
kids won't read.
My kids won't read.
I don't know why my kids won'tread.
And I look around the house andI don't see any books.
I said, Well, where are all yourbooks?
Do you read?
And they're like, No, no, myhusband and I, we don't read.
I said, Well, you know, try trysetting up a reading hour where
(33:02):
all the devices get turned off,but let them read what they
want.
If it's Ripley's believe it ornot book, so what?
It just let them give them somesome choice in this realm.
So the dojo, the cafeteria, thelibrary.
I think that that it just hitsthe three main realms of
healthful living.
If you're reading well andyou're eating well and you're
(33:22):
moving around, then all theother stuff is gonna get filled
in.
It doesn't take long to sign upfor, you know, a little
chemistry class or or something.
You know, they'll get all thatother stuff.
And frankly, half of it theydon't need.
They're not going to college,most of it they don't need, but
they do need how to read, knowhow to read critically.
And you know, I think that's itit's important to emphasize
that.
(33:42):
So I don't know if I answeredyour question or not.
Oh, absolutely.
But I have a suggestion.
I have a suggestion.
You're probably aware of this,but I didn't become aware of
this this company until 20, Ithink.
It's called Learning Unlimited.
Okay.
So it's a nonprofit organizationthat organizes graduate students
in universities all over thecountry to teach classes on
(34:04):
Saturdays to kids on any subjectunder the sun.
So the classes might be like thechemistry of chocolate brownies
or the Latin in Harry Potter,how to make a lollipop, fossils.
It could be some extreme topicin math or geometry.
They tend to be fairly arcane,but they're broken down into a
(34:24):
small piece and made likeintellectually available to like
middle school age kids, andthey're cheap.
You sign up and it's like$30 forthe day, and your student, your
kid might go to four or fivedifferent classes.
Oh wow.
And they're all it's all overthe country.
It's primarily the East Coast.
Okay.
Most of the schools on the EastCoast have, I mean, there's one
(34:45):
Columbia, MIT.
I mean, all the majoruniversities, and also some just
like regular universities.
And they're springing upeverywhere.
And when we first went, we did atwo-day learning thing at MIT.
And I took three of my kids, myoldest was in college by then,
and they said, unbelievable, wefinally feel like we're around
(35:05):
our people.
Like these are kids who reallyare interested in learning.
They will not let parents pickout the classes.
The kids pick out the classes.
You don't have to take notes.
There is no test.
And if you're not interested inpaying attention, they just
kindly ask you to go and sit inthe back of the room and just
don't make noise.
So they don't care if you don'tlearn anything.
They just want the kids who arereally interested in learning to
(35:26):
be able to ask questions andthey just talk.
It was wonderful.
We went to as many as we couldin a year, and I never stopped
going.
And they even have specialweekends that they have things
like at Yale, they have onewhere it's three or four
weekends in a row on aparticular topic.
So you can actually get to knowthe other kids in the class and
actually get some good learningin.
(35:46):
They'll take you to the PeabodyMuseum and you'll learn about
every single thing that's there.
I mean, this is the kind ofstuff that makes learning
exciting.
SPEAKER_01 (35:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:54):
Not dull.
You know, when you're sitting atthe table, kitchen table with a
workbook, like it's as dull asdeath, right?
So I would say do as many thingslike that as you can.
But you see, it does all beginwith giving them your time.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (36:06):
I'm gonna put a link to that in the show notes.
And you said it was calledLearning Unlimited.
Learning Unlimited.
Learning Unlimited.
Okay, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (36:14):
It's just a wonderful organization.
And like I said, there areprograms going on all the time
all over the country.
They just started back up lastyear.
Of course, they had to give itup over COVID.
It was all online during theCOVID years, but that's just not
the same as being there andseeing other kids with whom you
feel sympathetico because youknow they also gave up their
Saturday to come and learn aboutrocks and minerals or or
(36:35):
whatever the topic is, you know?
SPEAKER_01 (36:37):
Yeah, and that's what I've loved about this
podcast is like just learningall the different things.
Like I hadn't heard of this oneyet, and you know, there I
always write down the resourcesand put them in the show notes
so that people can go back andyou know look at it and have a
link to go to in case they aredriving and missed it.
But I mean, stuff like that isamazing.
(36:57):
And who knows, who knew that itwas even, you know, that it
exists.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (37:01):
It's a well-kept secret.
I don't understand it.
The MIT one is now so popular,theirs is the largest, that it's
a lottery system.
When it first opens, you quicklyapply and then they'll let you
know if you got in or not.
There are up to like kids justpouring into the classrooms, and
the students, I have to say, doa fantastic job.
I now volunteered to go and talkto parents at these events
(37:23):
because lots of times parentsstay around.
They don't want to leave, like,say, a 12-year-old.
They're not going to go home andleave the 12-year-old with
because these kids also have tofigure out how to get around
campus because they're not allthe classes in the same room.
So, since the parents tend tohang around, they look for
something, some programming forthe parents.
So I had volunteered many timesto talk to anybody who wants to
(37:44):
hear more about homeschooling,and usually the room fills up
and I talk until I don't have avoice.
SPEAKER_01 (37:50):
Oh, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (37:51):
Not hard to imagine, huh?
SPEAKER_01 (37:52):
No, that's amazing.
I'm sure you're a wealth ofknowledge and so helpful to
these families.
Rosemary, thank you so much forbeing with us today.
This has been so wonderful tohear and so heartwarming and so
nice to see that you know, fourchildren grown, and I always
love hearing will theyhomeschool their kids?
Because then you kind of reallyknow.
Like, did they appreciate it anddo they want to provide this for
(38:13):
their kids?
So, congratulations to you.
Women, we can have it all, justmaybe not all at the same time.
SPEAKER_00 (38:21):
Indeed, that is true.
True words were never spoken.
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (38:24):
Well, thank you so much.
This has been a pleasure.
Same here.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you for listening to theHomeschool How To Podcast.
If today's episode helped you,please be sure to follow the
show and leave a review.
It's the best way to support thepodcast.
And if you're just gettingstarted or need a reset, head to
thehomeschoolhow2.com and grabmy free 30-day homeschool quick
(38:45):
start guide.
Until next time, keep learning,keep questioning, and thank you
for your love of the nextgeneration.
I didn't plan to homeschool.
I started asking hard questions,realized how little control
parents actually have, and madethe hard decision to leave a
government job to homeschool mykids.
Now I interview otherhomeschooling parents to learn
how this all works.
I'm Cheryl, and this is theHomeschool How to Podcast.
Let's learn this together.
(00:23):
Welcome with us today.
I have Rosemary Labris from NewJersey.
Welcome, Rosemary.
Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_00 (00:29):
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (00:31):
I would like to start out by asking you just how
many kids do you have and theirage?
SPEAKER_00 (00:35):
Okay, so I um have four and I have been finished
homeschooling now for a fewyears because my youngest is 20.
So their ages are 20.
I'm gonna try and get thisright.
Soon to be 24, 27, and 29.
Oh, and they were allhomeschooled.
Yeah.
It's so strange to be lookingback, which is all I do these
days, is look back on all thoseyears.
(00:57):
And they're now in relationshipswhere they meet people who say,
You were homeschooled?
Oh, like just like you know, inelementary school, and they're
like, Nope, all the way through,through high school.
I went to college, but uhhomeschooled the and people are
always they're just sointerested in like what was your
life like?
And I just I love hearing myadult, my young adult kids talk
about their experiences becausethey're all extremely happy that
(01:20):
they didn't go the traditionalroute.
And it it was a blast.
I had so much fun.
It's very easy to findhomeschoolers who are doing it,
like they're currently in doingthat wet work, right?
And their kids are little andthey're in the weeds, they're
tired, there's so much going on.
But it's hard to find people whoare done with the job.
And I mean, I have a career now,I've moved on in my life from
(01:40):
doing a lot of things, but I'mtotally finished with home
education.
And but I love to talk about it.
And you just it's when I listento other people talk about
homeschooling, it's alwayspeople who are currently doing
the job.
It's never the ones who are doneand are now in the next life,
you know, grandparenting littleones or whatever.
So yeah, I fall in thatcategory.
SPEAKER_01 (01:58):
Well, it's funny that you say that because the
episode I released this pastweekend, which by the time we
released this one, it will havebeen a little bit back.
I think episode 23 was with DebHarris, and she is in the same
realm as you, but we weretalking about that and how there
were not many peoplehomeschooling back in the 80s
and 90s when she was doing itwith her kids and she had six
(02:20):
kids and lived in Chicago, andnow she is a data scientist, but
you know, and it was hard forher to make ends meet with just
the one income on a family withsix kids.
And she had talked about, youknow, I would clean um house a
house for a woman on the weekendjust to have money for
groceries, and then now here sheis, you know, later in life,
looking back on the fun that shehad, the bonds that she had with
(02:44):
her kids, and still do, and howdeep those bonds are because of
what the home education allowedthem to have over the years.
And she's just loving it.
So that's so great to hear thatthis is more, you know, more
common than not, right?
SPEAKER_00 (02:58):
It is, and you know, those years when you're raising
children, whether you'rehomeschooling or not, but when
you're raising kids, it goes byso quickly.
Everyone says that.
It sounds so trite, but itreally does zip by.
And I remember when my husbandand I were first making the
decision to homeschool.
It was for the first year.
Our oldest was going intokindergarten, and I said, I
(03:18):
think I want to homeschool him.
And he was like, Well, you know,it's kindergarten.
Like, how badly can one mess upkindergarten, right?
So go ahead and try that, youknow?
So we so I did.
And it was wonderful.
And we just did it one year at atime, and then it, you know,
more kids came along, and thenext thing I knew, they were
going off to college.
I mean, it really was like that.
Like the next thing I realized,I was filling out college
(03:40):
applications and I realized,well, my work is probably done.
I'm very, very glad that I gavea quarter of a century to them.
You know, if you have like askill set, like let's say you're
well organized, you're a goodcook, you're you're whatever
loving person, your kids shouldbe the beneficiary of those
skills.
And I was working at the time, Ihad a career.
I'd had my kids later in life.
(04:01):
I have four, and I had them atages 37, 40, 42, and 46.
Really?
Not the way most people do it.
Not sure I would recommend iteither.
I had my career first.
I was a manager at uh PriceWaterhouse when I met my
husband, and I wasn't planningto stop working, and I never
even knew what home educationwas.
And then, you know, we gotmarried, and then we were
expecting our first son, andaround the seventh month, I
(04:23):
thought, well, you know, I'mpretty good with like admin
stuff and details.
I'm pretty organized.
I think I want to give that giftto my family, to my husband and
my son.
I didn't know I was gonna havethree more, and I didn't know I
was gonna homeschool.
But those skills really, reallycarried me through those years.
And I went back to work when Iwas done, and I literally picked
up where I left off.
(04:43):
And I thought, so many days Ithink to myself, yeah, I'm
really glad I gave it to thembecause when you stop working,
you are so replaceable.
You are highly replaceable.
I work at the children'shospital in a management
position.
If I left tomorrow, they arethey'll find somebody to fill my
shoes.
I'm not foolish enough to thinkthat I'm irreplaceable.
But in my children's lives, Iwas irreplaceable.
(05:06):
And so I'm really glad I gavethem that time.
SPEAKER_01 (05:08):
I literally said that exact same thing in the Deb
Harris podcast because I work ingovernment right now.
And like you, I had a my career,I've been there for 15 years.
And you know, they especially ingovernment work, it's you'll get
this pension, this pension, thispension, and that's all you're
focused on for the 30 yearsyou're there is your promotions
(05:30):
in order to get your pension.
It's never a promotion becausethat's the work I want to do,
and especially in governmentwork, because it's all civil
service exams.
That's you never get the jobthat you like went to school for
or have a passion in.
It's I had this score on a test,and this was a job available,
and I was the next in line, andthat's the one I got.
So for the last 15 years, I'vebeen in a cubicle thinking of
(05:54):
myself as a career woman.
And for what?
Because I got placed inpositions because I happened to
get a score on a test, and um, alot of that's trained by
society.
I'm not needed there.
I haven't been there since lastAugust.
I am sure they haven't.
The government hasn't skipped aB.
I'll tell you what.
People are still getting theirbenefits, and I'm not missed.
(06:15):
I'm completely replaceable.
But I can't even leave mydaughter with her grandparents
for more than four hours.
Mom, I want my mom.
And that is just such a goodfeeling.
And why are we?
I mean, we were watching a showrecently, my son and I, and they
were talking about how walrusesstay with their mom for three
whole years.
And I'm like, they expectmothers to give up their babies
(06:37):
at six weeks and just go back towork.
SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
It's really I see it every day.
I see it every day.
I couldn't do it, but I alsounderstand that some moms don't
have a choice.
SPEAKER_01 (06:48):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (06:48):
There are single moms, there are moms who they
just can't they can't not havethat check.
And if they're an essentialworker, they have to show up,
then it's daycare.
SPEAKER_01 (06:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (06:58):
And so, I mean, not everyone has the choice, but I
really believe that every parentthat can make it work
financially should give it atry.
That should try it.
Just try it.
You know, I was listening to thenews and Kamala Harris was
talking about artificialintelligence.
So she was educating an audiencethat didn't need to be educated,
(07:18):
by the way, on what artificialintelligence was.
And I'm listening to her, andshe went through it like very,
very slowly, saying the machinelearns from what you put into
it.
So what words you say, whatideas you have, that's what goes
into the machine and that's whatcomes out.
And that's why it's so importantthat we know what's going into
(07:40):
artificial intelligence so thatit's not racist and biased and
prejudiced.
And I thought she just perfectlydescribed why parents want to
homeschool their kids.
Because little kids, their mindsare the machines.
And yes, we care very muchwhat's going into the machine
because we know it eventuallycomes out.
So we'd like to have a say aboutwhat goes in, right?
(08:01):
I wish that I could change thetitle of her speech to why you
should home educate your kids.
SPEAKER_01 (08:06):
Yeah, and I bet that was them promoting some sorts of
censorship.
We have to censor and havecensorship because of what goes
in, comes out.
Garbage in, garbage out.
But that's exactly, yeah.
You don't want your kid going tothe government schools because
garbage in, garbage out.
We want them to be thingwriters.
So, what sort of approaches didyou take with your kids?
(08:29):
There's, I mean, right now,there's everything from the
traditional like a Beccacurriculum stuff to people that
unschool, and that's a big thingnow, where we just kind of go
out in nature and we see acaterpillar and hey, let's go to
the library and get all thebooks on caterpillars and watch
videos on caterpillars and andthen the life cycle and take it
from there, or whatever's kindof tickling my kids' fancy.
(08:52):
And I respect both of them, andthey all, I'm sure, can work for
so many different ways.
So, what was your approach?
SPEAKER_00 (08:58):
Well, it was a mix of both completely hands-off,
letting them run crazy, andcracking the whip.
There were things I did notrelent on, and that had
primarily to do with math facts,making sure that they knew their
math facts, it was automatic, itwasn't a labored slow, let me
try and think what nine timesseven is kind of thing.
It was a lot of drilling.
(09:18):
Everything else was prettychill.
I made sure they knew how toread early on.
I'm very blessed in that of thefour of them, no one was
dyslexic or had any kind ofchallenges learning to read, and
they all learned to read veryyoung.
One was reading at two and ahalf, the others read between
three age three and four.
And we would go to thelibraries, we belonged to like
four or five differentlibraries.
(09:40):
Every week we went a few times aweek.
We'd bring these big bags and Ilet them.
They got to pick the book.
So even if it was a picture bookwith three words in it, I never
I didn't say anything.
It was like okay.
And then they would come homeand it was like it was like
Christmas.
They would be so happy becausethey each had a giant bag of
books and they would just sitand look at the books they
wanted.
(10:00):
They had a 15-minute readinglesson, and that I did not uh,
you know, unless somebody wassick or really ornery, we did
not skip that 15.
They were able to read likelevel one, level two books by
using that approach.
Frankly, all the rest of thetime of the day when they were
in early elementary school, theywere outside playing and we were
going places.
We traveled and did things.
(10:21):
I never had them tested at alluntil they were like late middle
school.
Okay.
Then I started to think aboutbecause they were bright, and I
I at the time wanted them to getinto the best colleges that they
could get into.
So I knew that eventually theywere gonna have to take the SAT.
And I didn't know, I mean, uhevery mother who homeschools her
(10:41):
kids knows if there's a deficit.
I never met a mom who had a kidage 10 or 12.
Maybe the kid struggled readingor struggled with math, that the
mom was not aware.
Mom is aware because it'spainful to get it done when
there's a problem.
So I didn't have any sense thatthere were any problems, but I
wanted to know how they weregonna do.
So they started taking testslike seventh or eighth grade,
(11:04):
and there were no issues at all.
So, especially for the reading,because that was something that
they always did voluntarily.
They would sit and read paperbooks.
I read a lot of paper books, sodoes my husband.
So the behavior was modeled forthem.
Also, at least two, and I couldargue three, were raised before
the iPhones were so ubiquitous.
(11:26):
Like the fourth one, iPhoneswere ubiquitous, and he stopped
reading paper books at aroundsixth or seventh grade.
He was too cool for that.
He just wanted to play on theiPhone.
I didn't have that issue withthe other three because they
didn't have smartphones.
So I think that the era in whichI was raising them was a little
bit different.
I do think it's harder today toget kids to sit down and read
paper books.
(11:46):
So, since we had as a goal forthem to get into the best
schools they could, we traveled,we visited colleges very young.
Like starting in middle school,I drove all along the East Coast
and we visited every top collegejust so they could see.
Like, this is the goal.
This is why I ask you to workhard, this is why I want you to
do preparation for the SAT.
(12:07):
Because since you'rehomeschooled, that kind of
matters, that test, if you wantto get into this school.
Long story short, the first twodid go to an Ivy League
university.
The third one got intoPrinceton, said no, went to the
Naval Academy.
And my fourth, who is an unevenlandscape of skills, let's say,
if JJ were here right now, hewould say it himself.
(12:27):
He's gifted in languages.
He can learn languages likenobody's business.
Wow.
And he got a scholarship when hewas in high school to study in
Macedonia, tiny little countrythat borders on Bulgaria.
He's now completely fluent inMacedonia, decided at the time
he wanted to go to college inthe Balkans because he thinks
Balkan people are really cool.
So he's actually in college atthe American University in
(12:47):
Bulgaria and loves it there.
Says he's going to go back.
Yes.
So they're all fully launched.
Everyone's out, everyone's kindof off on doing their thing.
But in retrospect, because ofthe things that my first two
were exposed to at University ofPennsylvania where they went to
school, the shock that they werein with helicopter parenting
from other students, likeparents calling.
(13:08):
Like they had differentroommates over the years.
Parents calling them, did youstudy for this test?
What did you get on this quiz?
So and so I I never asked themonce what their grades were.
I didn't even know until theytold me what their grades are.
I didn't hound them because Iknew they were going to get good
grades.
I knew they were gonna study.
I knew them as students, right?
And it just the environment ofPenn.
The environment is to say it'swoke, doesn't even scratch the
(13:32):
surface.
So there was a lot of stuff toresist every day for them.
And while now they areparticipating in alumni events,
for the first year or two, theydidn't want to have anything to
do with alumni events.
They were like, no, I'm Isurvived it.
My first one had a double majorand graduated with honors.
So he did really well.
My daughter was a science major.
She did well, but it was a lotharder for her because she was
(13:53):
in, she had chosen a STEM topicat Penn.
So she's she lives in Austin, helives in New York, and one's in
San Diego, and one's inBulgaria.
So my husband and I are gettingready to retire.
It's like, where are we gonnalive?
It's like the Kansas.
That's kind of like in themiddle of everybody.
If we pick a point on the map,that's that's in the middle,
right?
SPEAKER_01 (14:10):
Whoever has the most kids or has the first kid,
that's where you go.
SPEAKER_00 (14:13):
Yeah, that's right, yes.
But to go back to your questionabout teaching style and all
that, I started out veryorganized.
I had a list of everything thatwe were gonna do every day.
I had my three-ring binders, Ihad my checklists, and it went
pretty well until they got alittle bit older, and they they
definitely wanted to have moresay over how they spent their
time.
And they were developinginterests.
(14:34):
You know, one was doinggymnastics.
My sons all rode for a rowingclub in South Jersey, so that's
takes up a lot of time, and thenthey made a lot of friends
through rowing, so they had adifferent emphasis.
Like, okay, um, I'm gonna takethis class at this community
college, I'll do this oneonline.
I need to be done by three,everything, because I need to
(14:55):
get the rowing practice bythree.
And so they had differentpriorities as they got by the
time they got to middle school.
In a way, it got easier becauseall I had to do were was reverse
engineer things into theirschedules for all the hard math
and all the hard science, all ofit I farmed out to tutors or
small learning groups or thelocal community college.
Okay.
(15:15):
I did not, except for biology, Idid not attempt to teach any of
those.
I just don't know enough.
Even if I could learn ittemporarily, my knowledge would
never have been fluent enoughto, or fluid enough, to like
answer a question that theymight have had.
I mean, I would I would say,like, wait, I gotta look that
up.
You miss the moment then.
There's really um I believe inteachers, and I think that
(15:37):
finding good teachers when youhomeschool, you can actually
find the best.
You can you can you can find thebest person who might even have
access to a lab.
We did that for physics.
Um, it was an ex-physicsteacher, and she had a lab in
her house.
It was fantastic.
She was an outstanding teacher.
I couldn't uh and you know, weshared, there were two other
students, and so we shared thecost of a three-hour class once
(16:00):
a week.
Wow.
So those are the kinds ofcreative um exactly things that
you can do.
You can do anything you want,depending on your budget.
You can skin academically, moreso now, frankly, than back then,
because post-pandemic, there'sso much more available online
that I think that homeschoolersmight drown in a sea of options
more than when the options werefewer.
(16:22):
Yeah.
When I was doing it the onlineoption.
SPEAKER_01 (16:26):
So you for you to even connect with other families
nearby that were homeschooling,it was harder to connect if you
didn't have the internet to oh,hey, here's a Facebook group in
our area.
Let's go join them.
And yeah, I would imaginecertain parts, like you said,
were easier because you didn'thave to worry about them on an
iPhone, but other parts wereharder, like the connecting and
seeing all that's available toyou.
(16:47):
Now, do you think college I wasjust talking to someone about
this that college should thatevery career or that should be
the goal, or are we kind of in Ifeel like we're kind of in a
phase where the college is soexpensive and you know, if we're
like there are jobs that ifwe're working on this creativity
in our children for, you know,the 13 years, do they do a lot
(17:10):
of them need to go to collegeanymore?
SPEAKER_00 (17:12):
Yeah.
I think the answer is no.
Yeah.
I think the answer is no.
And if I had if I had thatdecision to do over again, I
think my daughter would chooseto go.
I think all my sons would say,nah.
I just would like to get towork.
I'd like to start to find outwhat I want to do for a living
because my oldest son is infinance.
Now he was a philosophy and aRussian major.
Really doesn't have anything todo with uh the work he's doing
(17:33):
right now.
His degree is very useful fromPenn, but he himself would say
you could have saved yourself alot of money.
My son, who's went to the NavalAcademy, he studied English.
He studied English at the NavalAcademy, and it's like an
engineering school, right?
So you have He said that's onething I'm really interested in.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
You have your babies with you for, you know, the
first 18 years.
How do you handle sending themoff?
You know, sending your baby tokindergarten is anxious, you
know, anxiety ridden.
But you've had him with you forso long, and you're like, okay,
here you go.
How did you get through that?
SPEAKER_00 (18:07):
That was well, you'll find out by the time your
son is 17 or 18, there's notmuch telling them what you want
them to do or be.
They have a good sense of it.
With Andy, you know, I triedtalking to him about other
universities.
He visited many otheruniversities.
He was the fastest lightweightrower in New Jersey in the year
(18:28):
that he was applying tocolleges, and he had almost
perfect SAT scores.
So he was recruited by everymajor university.
He said, No, I want to serve mycountry.
And I said, Why?
No, we don't come from Peter andI are not military fam.
We I didn't understand it.
I really, really didn't knowanybody who was in that life.
I didn't know anything about theNaval Academy.
He was absolutely certain that'swhat he wanted to do.
(18:50):
He had what's called a blue andgold officer come to the house
to sit with Peter and I andexplain to us like what it was
that Andy what he wanted to do.
It's it's one of the mostdifficult things in the world to
go through.
SPEAKER_01 (19:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (19:03):
He doesn't he doesn't give me a lot of details
about what he goes through.
He does talk to my husband aboutthat.
He knows I don't want to hear itbecause I actually want to sleep
at night.
SPEAKER_01 (19:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (19:13):
You know, that's so hard.
SPEAKER_01 (19:15):
You know, we protect our kids for so long and give up
so much to be close with themand then to send them off into
like uh just just to have themdrive a car is like scary
enough.
Like when they get their licenseand a vehicle.
SPEAKER_00 (19:30):
You know, all four of my kids traveled abroad when
they were in high school.
I applied for scholarships.
I got really good at that.
That was what I helped a lot ofother students in New Jersey
with getting scholarships totravel abroad.
So starting for each of themstarting at age 14 or 15, they
went on the other side of theworld for anywhere from one to
six months.
Now and I was not there.
SPEAKER_01 (19:51):
Was that possible to a homeschool opportunity, or was
that through a communitycollege, like they were getting
college credits for that?
SPEAKER_00 (19:57):
No, these are state-sponsored scholarships.
They are open to school kids andthey are open to homeschool
kids.
So the NSLIY scholarship, theAYLP scholarship, AFS has some
scholarships, yes abroad, theCongress Bunkstad Scholarship.
So basically, the state paysyou, students, that is, to go
(20:18):
and live in a foreign country.
Usually it's a country wherewe've had some conflict, or it's
a country with a high Muslimpopulation.
The goal, of course, is to haveother countries see that
American students and to beambassadors for your country.
But you go to school whileyou're there.
Whatever grade you're in andwhatever school they put you in,
you go to school while you'rethere.
Unless you're going over summer.
(20:40):
So each of them had spent monthsaway in another country where I
really couldn't help themnavigate the world at all.
And I got better out of justfrom the practice at letting go.
And I think that that helps alot by the time your kids are
ready to go to college.
You do want to be able to letgo.
And they, I think my own kidswould say, I'm not, I'm pretty
good at letting go.
(21:00):
I don't know if that's a goodthing or not.
SPEAKER_01 (21:02):
Do you think your kids will homeschool their
children?
Have you ever asked them?
SPEAKER_00 (21:06):
Yes, I do ask them that.
Mm-hmm.
The first three, John, Nora, andAndy, all say yes.
They all say yes.
They're very, very interested.
Well, they see the differencebetween themselves and friends
their age.
Friends their age, especiallyfemales.
My daughter, she sees areticence, an anxiety, a
nervousness, a fearfulness inher friends that she thinks is a
(21:27):
carryover from all their schoolyears, where if you're the first
one to show up for a party,you're weird.
There's something's wrong withyou.
Like, you know, and she's she'salways the one that will go to
the restaurant first and waitfor her friends to get there.
No one will walk in.
Or she'll talk to the Major Gsaying, yeah, we're gonna have
five more arriving, like we'lljust wait here.
Like they're fearful.
Um, they lack agency.
(21:48):
And I think that the greatestgift that you give a young
homeschool student is theagency.
They're in charge of their owndays.
They might not be when they'refive, but by the time they're
15, they are in charge of theirown days.
SPEAKER_01 (22:00):
Quick pause to share something that's been a great
fit for our homeschool.
My son, he's seven, and we buttheads if I am teaching him
directly.
So his reading and math are donemostly independently, and I'm
just there to support andcorrect when needed.
I really wanted him to learnmusic too, especially knowing
how closely music and readingare connected in the brain.
That's why we started usingSimply Piano.
(22:21):
He's learning to read music andplay piano on his own using
songs he already knows andloves.
And it feels more like a gamethan a lesson.
It's been amazing to watch hisconfidence and skills grow.
If you want to check it out,grab the link in the show
description.
SPEAKER_00 (22:36):
And their peers are being told when to stand up,
when to sit down, when they canuse the toilet.
They're all looking at the samebooks, they're all taking the
same tests, they're all wearingthe same clothes, they get on
the same bus, they get up at thesame time, they get home at the
same time.
They are absolutely in lockstep.
Talk about a way to rob someoneof their agency.
I think the greatest gift youcan give to a homeschool kid is
(22:57):
that.
And I actually think have beingon the other side of it now, and
I saw this many times withhomeschool families where they
had a student with a specialneed.
They had um a son or a daughterwho simply could not learn to
read, and they were strugglingacademically, so they had some
kind of learning disability.
Those kids whom I now know asyoung adults are the nicest, the
(23:18):
most well-adjusted young peoplethat you would meet anywhere.
They look you in the eye,they'll shake your hand.
They don't think there'sanything wrong with them.
They might not be, you know, onthe uh star track, but they're
gonna become managers at a fastfood restaurant or a wawa or
something like this.
And they're good at their jobsbecause they have a sense of
responsibility and haven't beenthen taught that there's
(23:40):
something wrong with them.
Yeah.
I really feel that sometimesjust not sending your kid to
school, that alone is anadvantage.
Yeah.
And then everything, anythingyou add on to that is like is
like icing on the cake.
But the real cake is thatthey're not in that environment.
SPEAKER_01 (23:55):
Yeah, I agree.
The more I look into it and likemy reasons started out on
episode one.
I talked about the reasons thatI want to homeschool and then
the reasons I'm fearful tohomeschool.
And then just this week, Ireally thought about that list
and expanded it now that I'vetalked to, you know, dozens of
homeschooling families andreally thought about the
(24:17):
intricate intricacies of thesereasons and expanded on them.
And I I put a post on Instagramabout it, and just from simple
things like we had fire drills,but now they do shelter-in-place
drills, and that's for schoolshootings.
So kids are at young ages,kindergarten, first grade,
second grade, getting this putinto their mind that a peer or
(24:40):
someone in the neighborhoodmight come in with a weapon and
shoot them, and this is whatthey have to do, and that has to
do something to the psyche, thatalone, you know?
Um, and not to mention what youthink of guns and your trust for
your peers or lack thereof trustin your peers because they could
turn on you at any moment.
Um, you know, that was one ofthem all the way into you know,
(25:04):
the ideology of um thetransgender and how I mean it's
just it's getting pushed so muchby the government that I can now
I probably five, 10 years ago,20 years ago, would have, you
know, yeah, let's go go to theparade and march for the people
for equality.
Now I see through that, if ifthe government is pushing this
(25:27):
so much, there is an ulteriormotive to that, just like the
women's movement of the 60s, youknow.
So what I've come to realize,um, and I don't know if
everybody would agree, but whenyou look at why China, just
before they turned to acommunist country, the
government was pushing agenderless society.
And when you remove the genders,you no longer have that physical
(25:50):
attraction from a man to awoman.
Well, then you're losing themarriage and the creation of a
family, and you're losing thecreation of a family bond.
And then when you no longer havea family bond, or you don't ever
have a family bond to live for,what's the purpose of living?
Why are you living?
Will you look to your governmentthen for answers?
Well, government, tell me mymeaning.
(26:11):
Tell me my purpose.
Well, I'll tell you yourpurpose.
Your purpose is to serve us andusher in communism or socialism,
whatever you want to call it.
And that makes so much sense.
And you mentioned before abouthow your kids, when they
graduated from college, they gotthrough the wokeness and didn't
even want to be part of thealumni events for a couple of
years.
(26:32):
Was that even a conscious thingas you were raising your kids to
teach them about, you know, Idon't know, you know, your
religion or or your politicalvalues, but you obviously they
came out knowing somethingdifferent than what's being
pushed in school today.
Was it a conscious decision onyour part?
And did they have to were youafraid that they might meld with
(26:52):
the crowd once they went intoschool?
SPEAKER_00 (26:54):
Um, the answer to that question is yes, I was.
I definitely was, but I knewthat they were going to go to
college.
And I knew that like 99% ofcollege campuses are extremely
liberal.
I wasn't so concerned about myoldest son when he went off
because his ideas about theworld were so well formed.
He chose to study philosophybecause he read very, very
(27:15):
deeply and um has a you knowwell-established kind of
doctrine in his own mind.
And he's also very calm, so Iknew he wasn't gonna get
triggered.
He would be and he would be ableto hold his own.
So he got through all that andjust found it a little bit
disgusting at how overwhelmingthe pressure is to conform.
My daughter, I think, suede.
(27:37):
She was a little bit, um, Idon't know what the right word
is, but uh a little shaky.
And I remember she was in herjunior year when Donald Trump
was elected president, and shestarted texting me saying the
school, I mean, University ofPennsylvania, actually brought
little puppy dogs in to have thestudents sit with little puppy
dogs in order to calm them downbecause the students were
(27:58):
hysterical because they thoughtsince Donald Trump had been
elected president that the worldwas going to end.
I mean, and I said to mydaughter, I said, Let me ask you
something.
Do your friends know anyone whomight know someone who might
know someone who might havevoted for Donald Trump?
She said, No.
I said, but what does that tellyou about their lives?
How could they be so isolatedthat they don't even know
(28:20):
someone who knows someone whoknows someone who voted?
How could they be so separated,so many degrees of separation
from what ended up being, whatwas the 70 million people who
voted for the man?
How could they not know a singleone?
Like that doesn't make sense.
And it tells you something abouttheir world.
SPEAKER_01 (28:34):
Now that you're at the other end of the spectrum
from a lot of moms that justkind of woke up during COVID and
are now like, I gotta homeschoolmy kid, I can't send them to
public school.
What advice would you have forus?
SPEAKER_00 (28:46):
Well, a couple of things.
What kids really want the most,what they want more than
anything in the world is ourtime, right?
And that's the thing that'shardest to give them is that
like time.
I think that the first decisiona homeschooling parent has to
make in order to becomesuccessful at the job is that
decision.
You're gonna give them yourtime.
So that means you're not gonnado all the things you want to
(29:06):
do.
You can always carve out, and Ialways carved out a little bit
of time for myself at the end ofthe day where I would exercise
and have like my own like alittle treat and a cup of decaf,
and then okay, fine, so I I hadtime for myself, but everything
else during the day, it wasabout them and it was for them.
So, with that as a backdrop, Ithink that taking them places,
(29:26):
traveling, I think you know, ifyou to focus on a curriculum and
to check boxes all day is amistake.
You want them to come out in theworld not not thinking like
inside of a box.
You want them thinking outsideof a box all the time.
So I wouldn't give them booksthat come in a box and have you
working like within that box.
I would take them places tomuseums and spend time talking
(29:50):
about ideas.
And wherever you go, just to beasking, well, I wonder why the
people here do this.
Why do you think that it evolvedthat way?
To be engaged with them inconversation.
I mean, uh there were times Iwould lose my voice because we
were talking.
My kids and I were talking somuch about, you know, something
we saw at a science museum or anart museum.
(30:10):
We did a lot of museums.
I mean, at least once a week wewent to a museum before they all
started into their sports andstuff like that.
Teaching them basic skills,cooking.
I had this theory that a goodhomeschool has three parts to
it.
It's one third dojo, one-thirdcafeteria, and one third
library.
So to go back to that, like thedojo is it doesn't matter
(30:32):
whether you live in a city or acountry, but it's just making
sure that they have plenty oftime.
Play.
Unstructured play.
Where you know you don't sitdown in front of the Legos and
like you got 30 minutes, quick,put together your Legos because
then we gotta leave.
But just unstructured time forthem to do what they want, make
a mess inside, outside, andtaking physical risks, you know,
jumping from one thing toanother, maybe falling down and
(30:55):
scraping your knee.
It doesn't matter.
So the idea of dojo is that forthem to reach their physical
potential, they have to do a lotof stuff without a lot of
supervision.
So you have to figure a way toget that in there, and it can be
inside the house or outside thehouse.
The cafeteria, that's that's thekitchen.
And I really am pretty seriousabout nutrition and making sure
(31:15):
that they're not eating fastfood.
One of the greatest advantagesthat you have as a homeschooler
is that you can provide homecooked meals.
It's way better than processedmeals.
And so once they learn how to doit themselves, you know, the old
Bible verse, rather than likegive them a fish, teach them how
to fish, they invested timeteaching them how to make the
things they really liked.
They like making pancakes fromscratch.
(31:36):
I'm gonna show you how to do it.
Here, so you know, just theseingredients are the only ones
you need.
Now make yourself some pancakes.
And they had all differentcafes.
They used to make up cafes, theywould make up little menus, and
they would make me buy a cookieoff the menu from them.
They could spend an entireafternoon doing something like
that.
So the kitchen was a hub, and Itaught them to cook, and I did a
lot of cooking.
And they they came to like likereal food, and they eat real
(31:59):
food, they eat meat and potatoesand vegetables, and they know
how to bake cakes and thingslike that.
So I think that the dojo, thecafeteria, and then the library.
It's just to fill your housewith interesting books and not
to have fights with them overwhat they want to read.
I learned this early.
My oldest son, when he was aboutsix, got into these books called
(32:20):
Secrets of the Drune.
I hated it.
It was sci-fi and it to me itwas junk reading.
Of course, the library had like50 of them, and he wanted to
read every one of them.
And I just like zipped it up andsaid, Okay, secrets of the
drone, it is.
And he read every single one ofthose.
He became such an enthusiasticreader because I let him choose
what he wanted to do.
(32:40):
So I think um having books laylaying around everywhere.
A lot of times families willover the years have asked me to
come to their house because theywant to talk to me because their
kids won't read.
My kids won't read.
I don't know why my kids won'tread.
And I look around the house andI don't see any books.
I said, Well, where are all yourbooks?
Do you read?
And they're like, No, no, myhusband and I, we don't read.
I said, Well, you know, try trysetting up a reading hour where
(33:02):
all the devices get turned off,but let them read what they
want.
If it's Ripley's believe it ornot book, so what?
It just let them give them somesome choice in this realm.
So the dojo, the cafeteria, thelibrary.
I think that that it just hitsthe three main realms of
healthful living.
If you're reading well andyou're eating well and you're
(33:22):
moving around, then all theother stuff is gonna get filled
in.
It doesn't take long to sign upfor, you know, a little
chemistry class or or something.
You know, they'll get all thatother stuff.
And frankly, half of it theydon't need.
They're not going to college,most of it they don't need, but
they do need how to read, knowhow to read critically.
And you know, I think that's itit's important to emphasize
that.
(33:42):
So I don't know if I answeredyour question or not.
Oh, absolutely.
But I have a suggestion.
I have a suggestion.
You're probably aware of this,but I didn't become aware of
this this company until 20, Ithink.
It's called Learning Unlimited.
Okay.
So it's a nonprofit organizationthat organizes graduate students
in universities all over thecountry to teach classes on
(34:04):
Saturdays to kids on any subjectunder the sun.
So the classes might be like thechemistry of chocolate brownies
or the Latin in Harry Potter,how to make a lollipop, fossils.
It could be some extreme topicin math or geometry.
They tend to be fairly arcane,but they're broken down into a
(34:24):
small piece and made likeintellectually available to like
middle school age kids, andthey're cheap.
You sign up and it's like$30 forthe day, and your student, your
kid might go to four or fivedifferent classes.
Oh wow.
And they're all it's all overthe country.
It's primarily the East Coast.
Okay.
Most of the schools on the EastCoast have, I mean, there's one
(34:45):
Columbia, MIT.
I mean, all the majoruniversities, and also some just
like regular universities.
And they're springing upeverywhere.
And when we first went, we did atwo-day learning thing at MIT.
And I took three of my kids, myoldest was in college by then,
and they said, unbelievable, wefinally feel like we're around
(35:05):
our people.
Like these are kids who reallyare interested in learning.
They will not let parents pickout the classes.
The kids pick out the classes.
You don't have to take notes.
There is no test.
And if you're not interested inpaying attention, they just
kindly ask you to go and sit inthe back of the room and just
don't make noise.
So they don't care if you don'tlearn anything.
They just want the kids who arereally interested in learning to
(35:26):
be able to ask questions andthey just talk.
It was wonderful.
We went to as many as we couldin a year, and I never stopped
going.
And they even have specialweekends that they have things
like at Yale, they have onewhere it's three or four
weekends in a row on aparticular topic.
So you can actually get to knowthe other kids in the class and
actually get some good learningin.
(35:46):
They'll take you to the PeabodyMuseum and you'll learn about
every single thing that's there.
I mean, this is the kind ofstuff that makes learning
exciting.
SPEAKER_01 (35:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:54):
Not dull.
You know, when you're sitting atthe table, kitchen table with a
workbook, like it's as dull asdeath, right?
So I would say do as many thingslike that as you can.
But you see, it does all beginwith giving them your time.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (36:06):
I'm gonna put a link to that in the show notes.
And you said it was calledLearning Unlimited.
Learning Unlimited.
Learning Unlimited.
Okay, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (36:14):
It's just a wonderful organization.
And like I said, there areprograms going on all the time
all over the country.
They just started back up lastyear.
Of course, they had to give itup over COVID.
It was all online during theCOVID years, but that's just not
the same as being there andseeing other kids with whom you
feel sympathetico because youknow they also gave up their
Saturday to come and learn aboutrocks and minerals or or
(36:35):
whatever the topic is, you know?
SPEAKER_01 (36:37):
Yeah, and that's what I've loved about this
podcast is like just learningall the different things.
Like I hadn't heard of this oneyet, and you know, there I
always write down the resourcesand put them in the show notes
so that people can go back andyou know look at it and have a
link to go to in case they aredriving and missed it.
But I mean, stuff like that isamazing.
(36:57):
And who knows, who knew that itwas even, you know, that it
exists.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (37:01):
It's a well-kept secret.
I don't understand it.
The MIT one is now so popular,theirs is the largest, that it's
a lottery system.
When it first opens, you quicklyapply and then they'll let you
know if you got in or not.
There are up to like kids justpouring into the classrooms, and
the students, I have to say, doa fantastic job.
I now volunteered to go and talkto parents at these events
(37:23):
because lots of times parentsstay around.
They don't want to leave, like,say, a 12-year-old.
They're not going to go home andleave the 12-year-old with
because these kids also have tofigure out how to get around
campus because they're not allthe classes in the same room.
So, since the parents tend tohang around, they look for
something, some programming forthe parents.
So I had volunteered many timesto talk to anybody who wants to
(37:44):
hear more about homeschooling,and usually the room fills up
and I talk until I don't have avoice.
SPEAKER_01 (37:50):
Oh, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (37:51):
Not hard to imagine, huh?
SPEAKER_01 (37:52):
No, that's amazing.
I'm sure you're a wealth ofknowledge and so helpful to
these families.
Rosemary, thank you so much forbeing with us today.
This has been so wonderful tohear and so heartwarming and so
nice to see that you know, fourchildren grown, and I always
love hearing will theyhomeschool their kids?
Because then you kind of reallyknow.
Like, did they appreciate it anddo they want to provide this for
(38:13):
their kids?
So, congratulations to you.
Women, we can have it all, justmaybe not all at the same time.
SPEAKER_00 (38:21):
Indeed, that is true.
True words were never spoken.
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (38:24):
Well, thank you so much.
This has been a pleasure.
Same here.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you for listening to theHomeschool How To Podcast.
If today's episode helped you,please be sure to follow the
show and leave a review.
It's the best way to support thepodcast.
And if you're just gettingstarted or need a reset, head to
thehomeschoolhow2.com and grabmy free 30-day homeschool quick
(38:45):
start guide.
Until next time, keep learning,keep questioning, and thank you
for your love of the nextgeneration.
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