Arrows and Acres

Two and a half months before the wedding, the house was a frame on a trailer.

No electrical. No plumbing. No toilet. No shower.

In Part 2, Daniel and Allison finish the conversation with their oldest son, Ethan, and his bride, Savannah.

Ethan was nineteen with about $100,000 saved, a fencing business, and no debt. He could have built a $150,000 house. He chose a $30,000 tiny house instead so they could stay out of debt and have more t...

Ethan grew up with three older sisters. Four moms, really. They told him what to wear, how to do his hair, which bedding he was allowed to use. They dressed him up. They painted his fingernails.

He did not roll over and take it.

In Part 1, Daniel and Allison sit down with their oldest son, Ethan, and his new bride, Savannah.

First, the business. Ethan started selling moringa trees at twelve, with pots he asked people for and soil he m...

Josiah lived in a camper in their backyard.

He was also their employee. And their tenant. And the young man trying to marry their oldest daughter. Every other day Daniel and I changed our minds about what the rules were. You can't go into that room. Wait, no. You can go in that room, but not that one.

It was our first time walking a child through courtship. We did not have it figured out.

In Part 2, MaKenna and Josiah finish the story...

Meet our oldest daughter.

MaKenna was four or five when she ran a gumball machine at the studio. She was sixteen when she drove herself to the largest farmers market in Pensacola with healthy chocolate she had stayed up until 3 in the morning making. She was eighteen when she talked her way into ISR infant swim instructor training, a program that didn't take anyone under twenty-one, and paid the eight to ten thousand dollars herself...

She had eleven children. Two of her oldest had already walked away from everything she raised them for. And she was calling because she could see her third headed the same direction.

When I told her what I was observing, she finally broke down and said it:

"I am a mother of fear."

Fear in motherhood does not always look like panic. It looks like controlling everything your child touches. Rescuing them before the consequence has time t...

In Part 1, we told you the truth about how we started homeschooling, and how much we got wrong before we got it right. In Part 2, Daniel and I sit down to answer the questions we hear most, the ones that keep good parents up at night.

What about college? What about socialization? What if my child falls behind? What if my spouse isn't on board? We take them one at a time, honestly, from inside a home that has raised children from...

I didn't think I could do it. I had a college degree and still thought a classroom would do it better.

Daniel knew from the time he was sixteen that our children would be homeschooled. He wasn't arrogant about it. He was just clear. The worldview being taught in a classroom, that evolution is fact and God is theory, was enough for him to decide. That was enough for me too, eventually.

But even knowing the why, I put McKenna i...

The most common message I get from moms is some version of the same question: "Allison, what do we do? Our child is already fifteen. We've already made all the mistakes. Is it too late?"

It is not too late.

Joel 2:25 says, "So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten." God is in the business of restoration. That is not a metaphor for people who started early. It is a promise for parents who are right...

Most of you are here because your husband isn’t with you on this. Daniel and Allison know that, because they hear from you every week.

In this episode they walk through the three situations wives actually live in: the husband who isn’t a believer, the husband who is saved but passive, and the husband who loves the Lord but genuinely disagrees with the direction. Each one requires a different response. All three ...

Twenty-seven percent of American adults have cut off contact with a family member. That is roughly 67 million people, and the Cornell researcher behind the number says his own figure is low because people would not admit it on the survey.

Daniel and Allison Hartman sit down with Randy Schrum for a longer conversation than usual, because this one earned it. Between the two of them they can name five to ten families living this ri...

Recorded on location at Gulf Coast Family Camp with Ben and Nilli Stewart, the family Daniel and Allison run the camp ministry alongside.

Ben pastored for 21 years, coaches businesses for a living, and owns six of them. Nilli was diagnosed with leukemia at 19, back when she and Ben were still dating. The doctors gave her a four percent chance of living and told her children were unlikely. Nine children and 26 years of marriage l...

Marriages rarely fall apart in one loud moment. They erode. Quietly. One sigh, one silent treatment, one "are you sure that's right, darling" at a time.

Allison recorded this one in the middle of Gulf Coast Family Camp with Serene Allison, co-founder of Trim Healthy Mama, her close friend and her co-grandmother by marriage. Serene has been married almost thirty years, and she says it took the first ten to stop being her husband'...

Are these all yours? Do you know what causes that?

Daniel and Allison Hartman have heard every comment a family with 11 children collects. This episode answers the question underneath all of them, and it is bigger than any headcount: who actually gets to decide?

They told their premarital counselor they were planning on four children. Daniel quietly hoped for twelve. Then Scripture rewrote the plan, and what followed was never a ...

Only about 1 in 4 children today have regular chores. Prior generations would not recognize that number, and neither does the research. One of the longest running studies on adult success ever conducted found two predictors that outrank GPA, income, and talent: loving relationships and doing chores as a child.

In this episode, Daniel and Allison open up how their home of 13 actually runs. No sticker charts, no rotating lists. Ev...

Somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of American adults are estranged from a family member right now. That is not a fringe statistic. That may be someone at your table.

In this episode, Daniel and Allison Hartman sit down with Randy Schrum to name the no contact movement for what it is: an ideology moving through therapy offices, social media, and college campuses that teaches a generation that cutting off your family is self-care. T...

Most families are running the same playbook: over-busied parents putting out temporary fires all day, children who reach adulthood unable to do laundry, cook a meal, or manage a budget. The question nobody is asking is simple. What is that playbook producing?

In this episode, Daniel and Allison Hartman pull the lens back from days to decades. A University of Minnesota study tracked young adults over 20 years and found the best p...

Everyone wants a good marriage. Few people are building one. In this episode, Daniel and Allison Hartman open up the scriptures and open up their own 28 years together to answer the question most couples are afraid to ask plainly: what does a good marriage actually look like?

They walk through Ephesians 5 the way it was written, starting at verse 21, not 22. They talk about the covenant that obliterates the contract mindset, the...

The culture hands your children a boyfriend at 13 and calls it normal. Scripture calls it something else.

In this episode, Daniel and Allison Hartman take on one of the most avoided conversations in the Christian home: how you actually lead your children toward marriage with intention, integrity, and a covenant framework, not just hope and good intentions.

This is not a method. It is a posture. And it starts with a question m...

Daniel and Allison Hartman are in roughly 70 schools a year through their photography business. That means they get a snapshot of about 40,000 young people. What they see is sobering, and it does not change between public, private, and homeschool. We have raised a generation of consumers who cannot do the normal things.

This episode is the antidote.

Daniel and Allison walk through how they build producers instead of takers, s...