April 22, 2025 • 63 mins
"All the work in tending a house is life-giving work. It all matters because life matters and it's all fostering life." ~ Mystie Winckler
Yvette Hampton and Mystie Winckler dive into the world of joyful home management. Mystie shares her journey from feeling overwhelmed by household chores to finding joy and purpose in them. Learn practical tips on balancing home organization with homeschooling, preparing children for adulthood, and maintaining a peaceful home atmosphere. Whether you're a seasoned homeschooler or just starting out, this episode is packed with insights to transform your home into a life-giving space.
Recommended Resources:
Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done, by Mystie Winckler
Simplified Organization Podcast
Transforming Family Culture: A New Year Reset – Isaac Tolpin
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(00:00):
Getting rid of everything and going, you know, as minimalist
as possible sounds like a lovelysolution when you're tripping
over a bunch of stuff, but that's not really going to solve
the problem because a homeschoolfamily takes a lot of stuff.
Hey everyone, this is Yvette Hampton.
Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rock podcast.
(00:21):
I am so glad you have joined me this week and come back with me
next week because I have the same guest on both weeks and I'm
super excited to have her back. I'm back with Misty Winkler.
She has been on the podcast before and I loved having her on
the first time. And so I said let's let's come
back again. I want to talk about more
things. She has a lot of great things to
share. And so she is back with us this
(00:41):
week and we're going to talk about home organization, we're
going to talk about preparing our kids to launch them into
adulthood and just all the things that go with those
topics. And so I'm excited to have Misty
with me to talk about those things.
But before we get into our conversation, of course, I want
to say thank you to our sponsor,CTC Math.
If you guys are looking for great online math curriculum
(01:02):
that you do not have to teach yourself, they will do all the
teaching for you. Check out ctcmath.com.
They are amazing. Our family has loved them and
you can try them out for free. So if you're not sure if it's
going to be a good fit for you, you can check them out at
ctcmath.com and see if they are a good fit.
I think they will be, so try them out ctcmath.com.
(01:23):
Also, I want to remind you guys,you may have heard a few weeks
ago I talked about it. We are going to be at the Teach
Them Diligently convention in Branson, MO at the Branson
Branson, not Branson Branson Convention Center.
That's kind of a tongue twister.May 15th through the 17th and we
are super excited. I am not going to be speaking at
this conference. We are just going to attend the
(01:44):
conference, but we are going to spend probably most of our time
at Ginger Hubbard's booth. So just look for Ginger Hubbard
and you will probably find us there.
We would absolutely love to meetyou guys and if you would like
to join us either at this convention or any other, Teach
Them Diligently convention. They have one in Dayton, OH,
Pigeon Forge, and Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA Any
(02:06):
of their conference you can use the code Sr. for Schoolhouse
Rocked Sr. for $25 off of your registration.
And you can find out more about that conference at
teachthemdiligently.net. And we really, really hope to
see you guys there. We love getting to meet our
listeners and just getting to know you and your family.
So May 15th through 17th, Branson, MO.
(02:28):
Well, Misty, welcome back to theSchoolhouse Rock podcast.
I'm absolutely thrilled to have you back with me again.
It's been a little while. So for those who maybe don't
remember you, or maybe they justare not familiar with Misty
Winkler, introduce yourself to our audience.
Well, thank you so much for having me on again.
Yeah, I have been blogging for asuper long time, like more than
(02:50):
a decade blogging Dinosaur and have a podcast or two podcasts,
simply convivial and simplified organization and A blog and a
community about homemaking, homeschooling and doing life
cheerfully. So it's really like life
management, including life as a homeschool family.
(03:14):
Right, right. I love that.
And you're a second generation homeschooler.
Yes, both my husband and I were homeschooled.
I was homeschooled all the way through.
And then we have 5 kids. Our oldest is 21 and our
youngest is 12. So our oldest is married, has a
little baby. So I'm a grandma now.
I I levelled up and he's a realtor.
(03:41):
And then our second son is at New St.
Andrews College, He's a junior there.
And then we have three that werestill homeschooling a senior,
10th grade and 7th grade. Wow, so fun.
You have your hands full and busy.
Does your grandbaby live near you?
About a mile away. Oh.
That's the best thing that is mydream in life is to have all my
(04:04):
grandbabies and my daughters live right next door.
It is so. Fun.
I'll handle, you know, them living close by.
So. Oh man, that's exciting.
Well, I'm excited to have you back and I'm really excited
about this topic because we're going to be talking about
organization. And this is something that I
love and hate. It's one of those locate
(04:24):
relationships that I think many of us have.
Some of us are a little bit better at organization.
Some are not so good at organization.
And I think for homeschool moms,often times they want to give up
on homeschooling because they feel so unorganized or they
simply aren't unorganized. They don't know what to do They
don't they, they just don't havethat organization bone in their
(04:45):
body. And it comes very naturally for
some and others not so much. And so it can get very
overwhelming for homeschool momswho have their kiddos at home
and they're always making messes.
And that, you know, we're alwaystrailing behind them.
And then we've got all the schoolwork and we've got all the
meals that we have to make in the laundry and the dishes and
all the, I mean, there's just somuch to this homeschooling life
(05:07):
and it is a blessing, but it canalso be really, really hard and
it can be very discouraging, I know for many, many moms.
And so you have a, a newish bookout.
It's actually been out for a little while.
It's called simplified organization.
And I love the subtitle. It's learn to love what must be
done. Years and years ago, when, when
Brooklyn was little, teeny tiny,I remember going to a Bible
(05:29):
study and I was just feeling really kind of discouraged and
overwhelmed with housework. And it was really the first time
I had been home. I, I, I worked from the time I
was 14 until literally till likethe day she was born, I always
had a job outside of the home. And so when she was born, I
stayed home and I was like, I'm 31 years old.
I have never been a stay at homeanything.
(05:50):
And I don't know what to do withmyself right now.
And so I got into this very kindof complaining attitude where I
just was kind of irritated all the time because I felt like
they're all these responsibilities.
And I went to this Bible study and I remember one of the ladies
at our table, she said, you know, I've really had to change
my perspective on on housework and chores and the things that I
have, you know, that are part ofmy responsibility.
(06:13):
And she said, I look at them as blessings and look at them as,
you know, when you're having to wash dishes, praise God that
you've got dishes to wash. When you're having to do
laundry, praise God that you have laundry to wash and clothes
to wear because some people don't.
Praise God that you have food toprepare and put on your table,
because many people don't. And it really changed my
perspective on on on being a keeper of my home because I
(06:36):
realized this is not a curse. This is not a drag.
This is. And sometimes it's hard, you
know, but it's not something that we should fret about it
something that we should actually find joy in.
So I know that was a long intro,but I would love for you to kind
of start out by telling us like,why?
Why did you write this book? And how have you found joy in
(07:00):
being a keeper of your home? It's so common for all of us, I
think at some point at least, tofeel like it's just too much or
it's meaningless and tedious andpointless.
And it's so easy to start spiraling in those negative
thoughts about our home. But anything that's worthwhile
(07:24):
is hard work. But our culture for the last
several generations has pretty much said value and meaning only
comes if money comes with it. You know, if there's a paycheck
or if there's a grade or some kind of external pat on the
back, you know, mostly tied to paychecks at income.
(07:46):
And so to come home and not havethat and to not have any kind of
external grade or Gold Star on the back is really disorienting.
And even for me, I got married young.
I was 19 when I got married and I taught a couple homeschool
(08:07):
Co-op classes, but I was mostly at home even as soon as we,
well, our first year I was at school.
So our first year we were married, we were both still in
college, but then we graduated and I taught a class.
So I was like out of the home a couple hours a week.
And but our first apartment there after we were done with
school, it was just me and meal to cook and, you know, housework
(08:32):
to do. And I was also homeschooled, the
oldest of seven kids and a very typical oldest daughter in a
large family where I, I had help.
Like, I knew how to do all the things and I had helped prepare
meals before. And so I came into marriage and
motherhood with all the pride ofyour early 20s.
(08:58):
And I thought, OK, well, I know all the things that my mom
didn't do very well. And so I'm just going to get
like everything out, get everything under control, create
my systems and do everything thebest right out of the gates.
Way better than your mom did. Yes.
(09:20):
And so of course, because God isgood, I fell flat on my face
instead. Oh boy, Pride.
It goes before fall. That's right.
And so it took me many years really to diagnose that I had
even in my pride of wanting to get those systems in place so
that I could totally nail it, there was underneath that an
(09:45):
actual disrespect of the work and a thinking that it was
beneath me that, you know, it's just menial, tedious housework.
I need to do it as little as possible so that I can do more
meaningful things. And God worked on me with this
(10:08):
for a long time. And a lot of the stories are in
my book. But you know, I just came to
realize that all the work in tending a house is life giving
work, and it all matters becauselife matters and it's all
fostering life. If there was no life in the
home, then none of that work would exist.
(10:31):
But that isn't better. So the work is good work because
we're tending and keeping and promoting and growing life in
all these different ways. And so we can actually enjoy
doing the work instead of like dismissing it and diminishing
(10:53):
it. Even even the scrubbing the
toilets we can. There's something there that we
can actually enjoy, especially when we know the meaning behind
it. Yeah, talk about falling flat on
your face. What did that look like for you?
So after I figured out that I wasn't just going to be able to
(11:17):
nail all the systems and have everything organized right out
of the gates perfectly and efficiently and executed Florida
State, I started spiraling to like, well, if the goal of the
efficient system is to spend as little time as possible doing
housework, the other way to spend as little time as possible
(11:39):
not doing housework is just not doing it and not caring.
You know, some people like a clean house, but I don't care.
And some people, you know, are just naturally clean.
I'm not. So I'm going to, I'm not going
to try to be something that I'm not.
Right. You're just going to own it.
Yeah, we're just, we're just going to see how far things can
(12:03):
go. And I would do this boom and
bust cycle of, you know, we would still have someone over
or, you know, I'd have some kindof occasion to clean and I would
do a like a total day cleaning frenzy and then just like let
everything go for like weeks andweeks.
(12:26):
And it was just not pretty and it wasn't responsible.
And it it really both of those were the same principal
underneath, which was houseworks.
Not worth my time. Talk about it being life giving
because you mentioned that you know, you, you realized after
(12:48):
falling flat on your face, you came to that conclusion that
being a keeper of the home is life giving.
And, and I agree, I'm certainly not perfect at it, but I do like
my house to be tidy. It's much easier for me right
now because, you know, now we only have 114 year old at home
and she's fully capable of doingall the things herself.
(13:10):
You know, she can clean her own room, she could do her own
laundry, she can do the dishes, she can do all the things.
And so it does make it easier than when they, my girls were
little, but I, I, I enjoy, I enjoy having a nice home, but it
was much harder when I was when my kids were younger.
So what do you mean when you saythat you you came to that
conclusion that it could be and is life giving?
(13:32):
Yeah, I think it is because the work itself is there because
there's life. So because there are people who
need to live, they need to eat. So making meals is a part of
homemaking. And then because they ate,
they're living. And there are dishes and there's
a kitchen to clean. So, you know, it's totally true
(13:55):
that we can enjoy and be grateful for the luxuries and
resources that we've been given.And that's a piece of enjoying
the work as being grateful that we have these things.
But also on top of that, the work that we do is literally
giving life to the people in ourhouse by either the food, the
(14:17):
clothes are clothing them, they are sleeping in beds because
they're walking around, because they're alive.
The floors, they're walking and eating, you know, the floors are
full of crumbs. Like all the work is there
because life is happening. And so it's so the life giving
home is more about what's happening in the home and
(14:42):
facilitating that and enjoying your role in facilitating the
development and fostering of life rather than, you know, an
aesthetic achievement that you've made where everyone feels
cozy because of the decor that I've chosen and everything is
(15:04):
neat and tidy. So the atmosphere is peaceful.
That can be nice, but the atmosphere is actually peaceful
because of who you are as the mother.
Like our attitudes and our approach to our house and our
families is the atmosphere of our home.
(15:25):
And so if if the decor and styledoesn't match our attitude, like
one way or the other, the atmosphere is not good.
And one thing I like to say is that the house is a stage
because, you know, if you look up organization books, they are
full of pictures. Yeah.
You know, you look up organization tips on the
(15:47):
Internet or on social media and it's pictures.
Everything's about how it looks.And we can't make our homes that
are that are having life lived by that many people all day
long, all the time. It's not going to look like a
magazine, but it's not supposed to because it's actually a stage
(16:09):
where life is happening, drama is happening and we are
resetting the stage to facilitate the action.
But it's always the action. That's the point.
You know, the drama, the play. The play is the point.
The stage is never the point. The stage can get in the way, or
the stage can help, but a well done play on a very bare stage
(16:37):
is better than a bad play on a very elaborate clean stage.
Yeah, I know exactly what you'retalking about.
You know, I've been in people's homes before that are very, very
tidy and everything is in its perfect, proper place.
And you feel like you can't move.
Like you feel like, and especially if I've taken my kids
(16:57):
there, I feel like, oh, well, don't sit there or don't touch
that thing. Or, you know, it's almost like
you feel like you're in a museumand you can't just let down and
just be normal and human and that's not welcoming.
And and you know, the Bible talks a lot about hospitality
and you can't be hospitable whenyou're so afraid that everything
is going to get messed up. But then I think we can error on
(17:17):
the side of like you had talked about in the beginning, where
you fall flat on your face and well, I just don't care.
It doesn't bother me to live in a messy house.
And so I'm just not going to bother with it at all.
And then you bring people into your home and they're
uncomfortable on the other side of it.
They're uncomfortable because there's a mess everywhere and
there's, you know, dirty laundryall over the place and there's
(17:37):
dirty dishes. And, you know, not that there
can't be some of that, but I think we need to find a good
balance in on on both ends of that.
And so we're going to talk more about that.
But first, we're going to take abreak.
We'll be right back. Join Apologia for the Homeschool
Boot Camp, a free video series that provides practical guidance
and wisdom from experienced homeschool parents.
You'll discover how to equip your family for academic,
(17:59):
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Homeschool Boot Camp covers how to break free from the public
school mindset, daily planning, supporting students with
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parent, navigating the high school years, and much more.
Find this incredible free The Homeschool
resource@apologia.com/bootcamp We are back with Misty.
(18:24):
Before the break, we were talking about finding that
balance of not being too much ofA perfectionist, but also not
being so messy that you know youcan't live in either world.
I mean, you can, but it's not really comfortable.
And for the homeschool mom, it'sreally impossible for a
homeschool mom to live in the world of perfection, right?
(18:45):
For the mom, for those type Ayers, they want perfection all
the time and that can cause a lot of angst in their life
because they want their home to be perfect all the time.
And it won't be, it can't be when you've got children in the
home with you. And so how do we balance those
two things? And, and I know that part of the
way we can do that and that we need to do that is that we first
(19:05):
have to understand what our situation is.
And so kind of walk us through this.
And I know you walk through thisin the book as well, but walk us
through what it looks like to really understand what our
situation is. It's so overwhelming to be a
stay at home mom also homeschooling because there is
so much to do and there's so much coming at you all the time
(19:29):
and you are the decision maker all day long.
And so it's understandable that a natural for there to be a lot
of details and options and expectations that are making you
overwhelmed. And and then I think the world
feeds us a lot of potential solutions that don't work,
(19:54):
especially for a home school mom.
So, you know, just solving like getting rid of everything and
going, you know, as minimalist as possible sounds.
Like a lovely solution when you're tripping over a bunch of
stuff, but that's not really going to solve the problem
because a homeschool family takes a lot of stuff.
(20:15):
It just does. And so we have to manage life
and manage the stuff and just kind of hold so many things in
tension together and figure out what our particular family
needs. You know, I said before the home
is a stage and so the action matters more than the props.
(20:39):
But if the props are in a jumbleon the floor of the stage, it
actually gets in the way of the action.
Also, you know, the the action is impeded.
And so if you can clear the stage and have homes for things
and you know, kind of work that stage, it becomes a place where
the action can happen without a bunch of tripping and hazards.
(21:04):
And so that's what we we want todo.
And we want to do it with a cheerful, happy demeanor as the
atmosphere of our home. And we all know the
perfectionism of the type A who's trying to do it all
perfectly. But a part of what I was
describing in the giving up, my giving up stage is really the
Type B version of perfectionism where I'm not going to try being
(21:29):
perfect. I already know I can't be, so
I'm just not going to even get started or I'm not even going to
try. My plans not going to work, so
I'm not going to make a plan. So there's perfectionism on both
sides, and that perfectionism gets in our way so much.
And the world's messages about what your home is for and what
(21:53):
organization is feeds perfectionism and then feeds
discontent. And so when we know that our
homes are the stage for action and it's our job to just make
the home and make it foster life, then we have a mission
that we can enjoy working with. It's not just a checklist of
(22:15):
chores to do. We're we're doing something
real. And organization isn't about
having labeled containers and having your closet be picture
perfect and all these things that are easy to photograph and
measure. Organization is about being
(22:36):
prepared for your life. So it's really about being able
to mentally and emotionally handle your life.
And so a lot of organization really does start with and boil
down to our attitudes and approach to just life rather
than where does the stuff go andhow does it go there.
(22:58):
So that's a lot of what I cover in the book is how do we
organize our attitude and put our attitude in the right place
so that that everything else we can kind of work it out if
that's working. Yeah.
So let me ask you this for the mom who's she's not handling
well emotionally or mentally where she's at.
(23:20):
Where does she start? Because I think that's one of
the hardest things is just knowing even like where, you
know, you look around a house that's just a disaster, you
know, and you and, and sometimesit's easy to close doors and not
look at the disaster. You might have a few rooms that
are nice and tidy, but then you've got other rooms that, I
mean, you can't even walk through them.
(23:42):
And she just is so overwhelmed and she looks at it.
So she just closes the door and pretends like it doesn't even
exist. I have done that myself many
times. Where where does one even start
when it comes to just that? Like I, I can't, I, I just, I
can't even handle this, you know?
Yeah. So for organizing the attitude
(24:07):
portion of that, which is just how we emotionally respond when
we see that mess, two things I recommend doing. 1 is to brain
dump. And so that is just writing
things down. Like what are your thoughts
about that room that where you just closed the door about how
(24:28):
meals are going? Like whatever it is that's
bothering you, just start writing things down because we
get in little thought loops and we don't we just feel stuck.
But it's because we can't get out of that thought loop and
writing it down actually, yeah, it actually helps you stop the
loop and really see. And usually what you see is
(24:49):
unreasonable expectations. And you know, if you are
expecting or if you believe thatit's actually your job to make
the whole house picture perfect all the time, then you're under
a burden that you're not never going to be able to get out of.
(25:09):
And so you're closing door, you know, that's your coping
mechanism. Instead of saying, OK, my job is
facilitating life. And you know, what are the kids
alive? Do we get along?
Are we being educated? Then if there's a room that I
have to close the door on, well,we'll gradually be working on
that. But that's not the biggest deal
in the world. You know, if you start.
(25:31):
So you start to be able to thinkthrough things and really pray
through things and even be able to talk to your husband about
them more clearly rather than just coming from that emotional
overwrought state. And then an alignment card.
This is where you put scripture or a quote or something that is
true that you need to remember that answer is your like
(25:53):
negative account accusing thoughts so that you can replace
those thoughts with God's words with truthful perspective.
And then you know when there arethose areas that you need to
chip away at, just actually chipaway at it 5 minutes at a time
like I'm 5 minute timer. That's it.
And you begin to make progress and by ending the
(26:19):
procrastination and the perfectionism with really teeny
small steps, and you start realizing how much perfectionism
is actually getting in your way.If you say 5 minutes isn't going
to matter, it's like, well try it.
Right right one of my favorite resources that you have you
actually sent this to me and it's a bust out of burnout bingo
(26:41):
and it's so much fun and we'll we'll link to this in the show
notes it's a free print out, butit's so much fun.
It's it for those watching on video.
You can actually see the, the bingo card here, but you're,
what you've done with this bingocard, you know, it's just an 8
1/2 by 11 sheet that you print on your printer, but you've,
you've pieced it out exactly as you're saying so that it's not
(27:02):
one huge chore all at one time. You know, I mean, how many of us
can say I'm just going to clean my whole house today and the
entire house, you know, from topto bottom, every room from end
to end is perfectly clean and tidy.
That that doesn't happen. And so you have little things
and, and someone of the ones that I thought was the funniest
thing was you put remove trash from your purse.
(27:25):
This is the only one. Yeah, I'm not the only one who
has trash in her purse. You know, you shove that receipt
down and ends up at the bottom of your purse under your wallet.
And you know, you never find it again.
Then you can't find that receiptwhen you have to return
something or you need it for some reason.
But you have just little things on here.
You have clean 1 bathroom counter and toilet and you can
check that off of your, your bingo card.
And then you've got wiped down the outside of your front door.
(27:48):
I mean, like some of these are things that you don't even think
to do. You know, one of them is make a
dinner plan for the week. Another is wash all the dishes
in and around the sink. So they're little things, you
know, sweep or vacuum the livingroom.
So it doesn't mean you have to sweep or vacuum the entire
house, but just one room today, just one room.
Make that one thing your goal for the day and then eventually,
(28:10):
and she also you guys, she offers prizes.
I don't know what these amazing prizes are that she speaks of.
Maybe a new car or something, I don't know.
I like to send people stickers. Oh, is that what it is?
I love stickers too. But, and like I said, we'll link
this to the, the show notes, butI love that you're just giving
very practical ways for us as moms and writing it down is kind
(28:33):
of what you've done with the bingo card.
But taking a notebook, and I've done this myself too.
I love checklists because I think they're fun to check off.
You get that satisfaction of crossing it out.
But I've done this before when I've had a big job to do where I
will just take a notebook. You know, if I've got my school
room is the area and our house that gets the messiest by far
because I can close the door on it.
I, you know, can throw everything in there.
(28:55):
And then it gets to the point where I'm like, I can't even
walk in here. And so I've done that way.
I've taken a notepad and I'm like, OK, I need to today.
I need to just go through books and eliminate however many books
I can eliminate. You know, another day this week
doesn't have to be tomorrow. Another day this week I'm going
to go through our games or I'm going to, you know, do whatever.
And eventually you get to the end.
(29:16):
Like I can vacuum the floors because now I can see them
again. And just doing them little bits
at a time really does make an entire a big huge job.
So much smaller. So that's what you were talking
about when you were saying just do it little by little.
It doesn't have to be everythingall at once, but it's amazing.
It's kind of like with reading, you know, when we think, well,
(29:37):
we don't have time to read well,if you read 10 minutes a day in
60 days, you've read a whole hour.
That adds up very quickly. If you clean 10 minutes a day
in, you know, six days, you've cleaned a whole hour.
You couldn't clean a lot in an hour.
Hopefully you're cleaning more than 10 minutes a day because
your house probably requires it with, with kiddos around and
(29:58):
stuff. But, but it really does make it
easier when we make the list, wewrite it down, we make those
goals and then we bring our kidsinto doing those things with us.
And so talk about that for a minute because I know that as
we're raising our kids, even little ones, little kids can do
a lot. I mean, it's pretty amazing even
what a 2 year old can accomplish.
(30:19):
So how do we bring our kids intothis mix and and teach them to
be joyful keepers of the home aswell?
Yeah. One thing that helps when you've
broken a big project down is that usually means that you've
made it more specific. And that's key to bringing the
kids on board is they have to actually even know what you're
(30:41):
talking about. I remember at one point I had,
you know, we had all the toy bins and we had a playroom and
there was the Duplo bin and the railroad bin and all of the
categorization of all the toys made complete sense to me.
And I would send the kids, you know, unsupervised to go put
(31:03):
things away, go clean. And if the, if there were no
toys on the floor, they said they'd done it.
That was their definition. And then, you know, weeks later,
I'd come down and look at a bin,and every bin was just a Jumbold
mess. And at one point, I made some
(31:23):
comment to my husband, like, this bin is for railroads.
And like, I even at one point put a picture on it, like this
one's for free railroads and this one's for Duplos.
I thought, I'm making this obvious, right?
And my husband's like, no, it makes sense to you.
It doesn't make sense to other people.
Yeah, and I was. Like, oh so actually I just need
(31:45):
to like, unless I want to be theones putting all the toys in the
place that makes me happy. Right.
Maybe we should just their definition is their level right
now of if they've put the toys in a bin, that's actually good
enough. And so like letting go of, you
(32:07):
know, that organization, right? It's better for them to help
than it is to have everything categorized neatly.
And so like bringing things downto where they can do it, you
know, things like being the dishwasher and, and also just
(32:28):
being around. Then when we give them chores so
that we can give that guidance, we do, we call it ehop.
Everything has a place. And so that means since
everything has a place, it's time for everything to go back
in its place. And so we set a timer and so
(32:48):
that everyone knows it's not this never ending thing that
mom's going to keep having you do more and more for the rest of
the day. You know, that's how they feel
when you say let's clean. I was like, Oh yeah, 10 minutes.
All we're doing is putting things back where they belong.
And then you can say, is that where that belongs?
(33:09):
Is that where that? And then you also find out often
that they don't know where things belong.
And then you can fix that. But being there to supervise and
help and guide and teach, instead of expecting like that,
you can give them a list and have them basically be maid
service unsupervised where you get time back that happens like
(33:33):
when they're 15. Yeah, right.
You really got to put in your time before it's really paying,
paying off or or freeing up yourtime and mental energy.
And right as soon as it does, they go get a job and.
Then they're. Hopeful to someone else, but not
you. It's so funny.
(33:55):
It's so important to teach our kids.
You know, we talk about trainingthem up in righteousness.
And this is one of those things that we are training our kids to
do things well. We cannot expect our children to
know how to, you know, if we saygo clean the bathroom, we can't
expect them to know how to cleanthe bathroom if we have not
stood alongside of them, literally.
I mean, with my girls, I was like, OK, here's the cleaning
(34:17):
stuff. I'm going to clean the bathroom
and you're going to watch and that might take a couple of
times and then, you know, the next time say, OK, now you do it
and let them do it. And you watch while they clean
the bathroom and make sure that,and then you can go back and,
you know, let them do it on their own.
And you go back and say, OK, well, you completely missed this
sink or whatever, you know, you,you didn't lift the lid on the
(34:37):
toilet, you know, whatever it is.
But in a gentle way, just showing that correction of,
well, here's the correct way to do it.
You know, with doing dishes. I mean, that's a big thing.
How do you load a dishwasher? You know, that doesn't come
naturally to everybody. To some it might, but not to
everybody. And kids typically want to just
get stuff done, especially if there's a timer.
They're like, well, I'll just get it done before the timer
(35:00):
goes off, but they may not do itwell.
It's so important for us to train our kids to do things with
patients. It's hard to be patient with
them sometimes because we expectthem, like you said, we expect
them to have the maturity that we have, to have the work ethic
that we have, and to be able to do things the way that we do
them. And children do not typically
work that way. Some do, but most don't.
(35:21):
Yeah, or we even want them to have the work ethic that we wish
we had, we have in our imagination.
That's right. It's like, oh wait, I shortcut
my work also. Yes, I do that also.
And even once they can load the dishwasher or clean the bathroom
after that training process doesn't mean therefore from that
(35:43):
point forward they will evermoredo it the next way.
One motto I learned from an older homeschool mom was don't
expect what you don't inspect. Oh, that's a good one.
Yeah, that's excellent. Yeah, like if if I don't care
enough to check in on them, why should I expect them to care
(36:05):
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(36:47):
You have launched a couple of children into adulthood and we
have now launched I, I shared a few weeks ago with our audience
that our oldest daughter has moved in with a friend.
She's only 10 minutes down the road from us.
And Oh my goodness that I'm I'm not a crier.
I am not someone who's very emotional.
But that day, I cried and I, I, I just, I, I felt like I was
(37:12):
missing a limb, like someone wasliterally tearing A limb off of
me. There's something about being
with our kids through their entire homeschooling childhood.
We're with them all the time. And then all of a sudden she
wasn't. And we still see her several
times a week. I talked to her several times a
day. And it's exciting to see the
things that God is doing in her life, but it's so different.
(37:33):
I mean it. Nothing can prepare mama's heart
for her, her first child, and I'm assuming probably my next
will be just as painful of them leaving.
And as painful as it is, it's also exciting.
And you know, my husband and I are able to look back and say,
you know, we did the best we could.
We did what God called us to do.And we were, we were diligent.
(37:54):
We did our best to be diligent. We did our best to be obedient,
to raise her up to love and knowJesus.
And by God's grace, she is following him.
But it's still hard. And I look back to you and I'm
like, Oh, I wish I had done this.
And I wish I had done that. And I wish I had done this.
And, and I don't want to say I have regrets.
I just, there are things that I would have done differently.
(38:16):
And so, Misty, as you look at your two adults who are now out
of the home, you've got 1 married, you've got one in
college. Talk about what that transition
was like for you. And then I, I want to talk about
like, as those moms who are listening, who have little kids
telling you guys, it's going to be here very, very quickly, how
we can actually prepare our children to launch into
(38:39):
adulthood in a way that is honoring to the Lord.
Yeah, it is a big project. Project is a good.
Word And I think it's it's so tempting, especially as a
homeschooling family, to think of having your family in the
(39:00):
home as your project where you get really focused on our
relationships, which are super important and we need to be
focused on them. But to start thinking of the end
goal as being our relationships.But the relationships do change
(39:21):
and they're supposed to change and, and so we do want to be
building and nurturing them, butwith the goal of those children
being adults, not in our home. Instead of thinking of the our
goal for our home and our familybeing about all of our family
(39:43):
being home and around the dinnertable and all that.
I think family dinners are superimportant.
But the dinners are important because of, you know, the
conversations and how much teaching and relationship
connections are happening there as a tool that's helping them
(40:04):
become adults. And so nothing's being ruined
when they suddenly aren't cominghome for dinner every day.
And I think that's it. That time comes, I think, for a
lot of moms, sooner than they were expecting.
And it's and we don't even realize that we were thinking
(40:25):
of. Our little family as our project
that to keep together and so then when one starts leaving
because it it's it's a gradual process it's it's not usually
you know suddenly they're gone right right it's like they get a
driver's license and they I. Was going to say it's when they
(40:46):
get that license and they. Yep, and.
They get a job, and now you're not the only one in charge of
their schedule. Yeah, that's right.
These little baby steps and thatthe family that we are creating
in our home is a multiplying force, not a a stable unit, not
(41:13):
a static unit. That's supposed to be one thing.
It's a training ground and they're supposed to graduate out
and and the relationship does change.
And I know it's especially hard.I think when the oldest are like
12 or 13, it's easy to start feeling as a mom like OK, so we
(41:38):
really don't have that much timeleft.
So right now they should be like, this is what they are.
And that's nerve racking becausethey are not ready to handle
life at all at that age, but they often think they are.
And so much maturity and and rocky roads can happen between
(42:01):
that like 12 to 18 time frame. And I think we need to be
prepared for that so that we don't try keeping them close in
a way that's inappropriate for that stage of life.
And keeping them close for training is appropriate when
(42:22):
they're younger. And then they have to start
testing the waters independentlyand they have to actually fail
at things and do things without you.
And I think, I mean, I'm sure that it's different.
I haven't yet launched a girl. I've.
Launched 2 boys and you know, they, they don't want mom to
(42:48):
tell them what to do anymore andthat's actually a good thing
like that. They need to go through that
phase to become men and we so weneed to remember that that is
what we want. We don't actually want them to
stay children. So we need to not treat them as
(43:09):
children. We need to start treating them
as adults as soon as we can. I think after they hit the teen
years as practice for us and forthem, because we know that our
goal is actually that they become responsible adults out on
their own, starting their own family units that are distinct
(43:32):
from ours and and we can be excited to see what they do.
We've given them something and then it's not on us anymore.
What they do with it and also what they do with it right away
isn't necessarily the way it's going to play out.
Like, I think, you know, I was the oldest and got married
(43:56):
young. And one of the things both my
husband and I said when we were new parents at 21, I said, well,
you know, here are all the problems with homeschooling.
Do, do, do, do, do. And some of those we weren't
wrong, but there are, there are,there can be issues and there
(44:16):
can be. But we were very critical and
proud and overconfident. And so we got on the board to
start a school and that didn't happen.
And so at first, homeschooling was our Plan B like, OK, well,
we can if we have to. And then we got going.
(44:38):
And a few years in, it was like,oh, this is such a blessing.
And we were so ungrateful. And then so one of the things
that I like to tell my kids is you'll thank me when you're 30.
Right, right. Because their perspective is so
different at that point. Yes.
And so like just hang in there for the long haul, Mom.
(45:01):
And when you're 12 year old or 13 year old is telling you all
the things that you're doing wrong, that's maybe going to be
the lessons. What you're noticing are the
lessons you're going to be learning as an adult and.
We'll see, right? It is so funny to look back.
You know, we, we also got married young.
We got married at 20. We had just turned to 20,
(45:23):
engaged at 19. And I look at my 20 year old
self and I'm like, man, I didn'tknow anything.
I mean, I knew some stuff, you know, but I mean, 30 years
later, I'm a completely different person than I was when
I got married. And, and that's how it's
supposed to be. You know, you look at the
progression of our kids. Your, your 15 year old is
(45:43):
completely different than they were when they were five.
And your 25 year old is completely different than they
were when they were 15. I mean, that is the progression
of life. We're growing and part of that
is growing in our walk with the Lord.
We're growing in our maturity. We're growing as just human
beings, you know, you realize who people are and how people
respond to life and how people react to things and what, it's
(46:04):
just what it looks like to be a responsible human being.
You know, I, I look back and like I did some really dumb
things and really immature things, but I also did some
things that were right and made some decisions.
You know, I mean, I think about,of course, my, my two biggest
decisions, of course, they tell this to my girls all the time.
The two biggest decisions you'llever make are your decision to
(46:25):
follow Christ and the man that you choose to marry.
By God's grace, he gave me an amazing husband.
We've been able to, you know, doministry together for many years
and stuff. But you know, it, it was, it
hasn't always been easy. And as we've grown as people and
as a couple and as our family has grown, you know, we, we can
(46:46):
look back and go, OK, well, we made some some mistakes and we
have to remind ourselves to, youknow, Brooklyn, you know, she's
not making a disaster of her life by any means, but there are
some decisions that she's made that we're like, I wouldn't have
done it that way, you know, and I have to remember she's not
mine. She belongs to the Lord.
She doesn't belong to me. And just because her decision is
(47:07):
different doesn't make it wrong.It just makes it different.
But it's hard to, you know, close your mouth sometimes and
throw away that key and go. And it's like.
I will not see the fast food wrappers in your car.
You're eating a Taco Bell again for the fifth time this week.
Your paycheck. Right, right.
(47:29):
Exactly. But, and that is, I think,
especially hard for the home school mom who's been so
involved for so long. To.
Start letting that go and realize so hard, you know, Yeah,
if you think of, you know, yourself back at that age now,
you know that you didn't know that much, but also at the time
(47:52):
you were pretty sure you did. Right.
You didn't know that you didn't know.
And it's like now the tables areflipped and instead of trying to
convince your kids that they don't know as much as they think
they do, because now, you know, realize, oh, who, who in your
life at that time was telling you that that you didn't listen
(48:14):
to? And now you need to take that
place. Like, what should that person?
How could you have received something from that person?
And like, okay, they, they were right and I was wrong.
And this is about me repenting and maturing myself in a new
(48:34):
stage of life, right? Right now I say all those
annoying things that the older ladies at the grocery store
said. Yeah.
But, you know, it's so interesting because even at the
stage of life that I'm at right now, my mom, who's 77 years old,
she'll talk with me and, and in a very loving and kind way,
she'll say, you know, I rememberwhen you first got out, you
(48:55):
know, when you first moved out on your own.
And, you know, I struggled with this, this, this and this.
And, and she's helping to guide me through this new phase of
life. But now I know, OK, I can listen
to my mom and I know that what she's saying is wise, you know,
and I don't have to agree with everything that she's saying and
all the advice that she gives. But a lot of it, I'm like, oh,
(49:15):
mom, that's such good advice. I'm so glad you told me that
because you've been through it before.
And so we're still, I know for certain that I'm going to look
back in 30 years at my, you know, 50 year old self and go,
Oh yeah, I didn't know all the things I thought I knew at 50.
I know so much more now at the age of, you know, 77 or 80 years
old because I've had more life experience.
(49:36):
This is such a fun conversation.You know, it's, it's close to my
heart, of course, with, you know, having launched an, a
brand new adult into life. And it's scary and it's exciting
and it's all the things. How can we, I want to kind of go
back to what we talked about being organized and, and having
our not just our home, but our lives in order.
(49:57):
How can we prepare our kids? Like what, what steps?
And I know there are 1,000,000 steps we can take, but maybe you
can kind of narrow it down to some specific steps that we can
take with our. Kids to prepare them for
adulthood. Yeah, especially when we are
tempted by overwhelm and perfectionism, we can actually
(50:20):
use our growth process and that struggle to help our kids
because perfectionism is the temptation to say that I should
know before starting exactly howeverything is going to go and be
able to do it exactly right. So either you're going to burn
(50:44):
out trying to do it that way, oryou're going to give up
entirely. And especially when you start
having preteens and teens, if our kids can see us maturing in
that and recognizing it and talking to them about what we
(51:05):
are learning, that can help themstart to avoid those thought
patterns and expectations as well.
And sometimes it is our perfectionism that we put on our
parenting that makes us afraid for them, that makes us want to
have parented or have educated them fully and completely before
(51:28):
letting go. And for ourselves in our own
work and then for our kids as they grow in mature as well.
Failure is a part of the processand mistakes are a part of the
process. And what we all need more
practice in is not panicking when we fail and we make
(51:50):
mistakes and we sin like we knowwhat to do.
We repent, we receive forgiveness and grace, and we
get back up and try again. And our kids can see us doing
that. And they are learning that from
our modeling more than they willlearn it from our.
Words. And especially as they become
(52:14):
teens and we move from a more parental role to a coach or, you
know, older friend role, if we are learning and growing, that's
going to make us actually more more relevant, more available
(52:35):
than if they think we're going to be totally stressed out if
something goes wrong in their life, they're not going to want
to share or talk to us. But if we share that we realize
we're doing, we're messing up orwe're going to try something
new. Or, you know, if if you're just,
if you're living your own personal life of growth and
(52:56):
you're learning things and you're just doing that, not
publicly, but it publicly to your children where they know
and they can see it. That's way better than lectures
because you're modeling that life of learning and that keeps
(53:17):
you more limber in in dealing with their growth as well.
Like you're just able to have that more peer-to-peer
relationship a little bit more. Yes, yeah, for sure.
Talk about the difference between your parenting now.
So your oldest is 21 you said, and your youngest is 12.
(53:41):
How different of a parent are you now to your 12 year old and
your younger kids than you were to your older kids?
What things have, you know, because obviously you've grown
as a mom, as a person, What things have you learned along
the way that you've just gone? OK, maybe this thing doesn't
matter so much and this is more important.
(54:02):
Or, you know, vice versa. What?
How have you changed? I could think of two things in
particular. 1 is that now that Iam parenting more the younger
children than the older children, so the focus is more
on the younger children and or only on them and I was an oldest
(54:23):
child. I am learning again the things
that I was wrong about as a child and as a young adult and
how, you know, it's like, oh, younger, younger children don't
have, they're spoiled. They don't have the same rules.
And it's all unfair and they don't, it's fine because they
turned out as well anyway. They don't get the same levels
(54:47):
of responsibility. And so now it's like, OK, well,
here you go. Here's the youngest.
What are you going to do? My husband at one point told me,
you know, one of the children does have to be the youngest.
And it's like, OK, well, we haveto be intentional.
Like it is an actual younger, more attempting to let the
(55:10):
younger child off of responsibilities than the older.
Everything feels like a lot bigger deal with the older kids.
And then you realize, like, oh, I made mountains out of
molehills with my oldest, and I died on some hills that, like,
(55:33):
it's good that I won the battle,but I didn't actually need to
fight it in the first place. And so you do do things
differently, and you let up on things like 12 is often a
particularly argumentative stage.
And I would say with my oldest in particular, and then still
(55:54):
with my second, I would say I took the bait of all the
arguments. It's like, oh, you want to argue
with me? That's fine.
I'm up for it. We'll argue and I'm going to
win. And we just went and that.
And so I realized then with Young after that was over and
the next set comes around, it's like, oh, we're just not
actually even going to get into this, like.
(56:16):
Right, right. Not even going to waste.
My debate and then now is my very youngest being 12 and she
starts and it's like I I just laugh and I'm like, I'm sorry.
I yeah, go actually matter, drink water, go run and come
back later. Yeah, yeah.
(56:37):
It is so fun to have that big age gap, you know, between your
kids. And it's so interesting always
to me when there's families who have multiple kids with a big
age gap, you know, to just to see the difference in their
parenting styles from the oldestto the youngest and how much
that can change. So we have just a couple minutes
(56:58):
left. What is one last bit of advice
that you would love to offer to our audience, whether it's about
organization or, you know, raising our kids, launching them
into adulthood or both, whatever.
What would you like to leave with our audience if.
Any of these topics or issues make you feel stressed out.
(57:20):
Whether it's kids getting older and parenting issues, the state
of the house, That feeling of being stressed out, particularly
about the future and how things are going, is an indicator to
stop and take a deep breath. Brain dump.
(57:44):
Then pray over what you have brain dumped and talk about what
you have brain dumped to your husband and get on the same page
about the mission of your family, the big picture, why
you're doing what you're doing. And you have to sort out that
top level before the other things start falling into place.
(58:07):
But you know, the solutions online are usually the like
checklists and the stuff which is like a bottom up.
Like those are the very tangential things that aren't
going to ever bring you back to the point and purpose, but it's
the point and purpose of it all that centers us and makes us
able to get perspective and keepgoing and come back to what
(58:32):
matters and what's true and notice when we're off track and
know how to recenter and go the right direction again.
Yeah, it reminds me, you know, acouple months ago we did an
episode with Isaac Tolpen. It was back in January and he
talks about basically creating your family vision and and
knowing where your family is going and, and he goes into
(58:53):
pretty good detail about how to do that.
So if you guys missed that episode, go back and listen.
It's so good, but it's really just recalibrating and it's
something that we have to do constantly with our families.
You know, we're as as parents and as people.
We're not going to parent or five year olds the way we're
going to parent them when they're 15.
It's just a completely differentworld.
(59:13):
And so you have to have perspective, you have to have
goals, you need to know where you're going.
And ultimately, of course, we always need to come back to what
does God want from our family? What does he want our family
culture to look like, and how can we accomplish that?
That's the most important thing.That's far more important than
having the perfect, tidy, organized house.
(59:35):
That's more important than always having a perfect meal on
the table or our kids launching into adulthood exactly as we
want them to. The main purpose is that they
love and follow Jesus. And so even when things don't
work out exactly as we plan themto or exactly what we think,
because life happens, right, andlife is messy and life is busy
(59:55):
and life has interruptions and all sorts of things, if we're
keeping our main focus on Jesus,that's where it needs to be.
So Misty, thank you so much for being with us again this week.
It is always such a pleasure to chat with you.
Tell our audience really quicklywe've got like 2 minutes left
where they can find you again. And then what?
(01:00:15):
Because you've got a ton of resources.
We talked last week again about your book, Simplified
Organization. Learn to Love What Must Be Done.
You've got lots of other resources.
Tell us really quickly what someof those are.
Yeah, I have my website issimplyconvivial.com and I have
two podcasts. Simply Convivial is like 10
minute pep talks, just attitude pep talks get you back on track.
(01:00:38):
They're great for folding a basket of laundry.
And then simplified organizationis like 1520 minute
conversations with other moms. A lot of them are just moms from
our community sharing their insights on what they're working
on. So it's very casual, very fun to
just get that sense of like there are a lot of us out there
working on these things. You're not alone.
(01:01:00):
Keep going and and I have some simplified organization, The
Convivial Home School Gospel Encouragement for keeping your
sanity while living and learningalongside your kids is my other
book and the podcasts are on anywhere you get your podcasts
and it's also all on YouTube as well.
All right, we'll put all those links in the show notes.
(01:01:22):
Thank you so much for joining us.
It's always such a pleasure. And you guys, thank you so much
for being with us these last couple of weeks.
Thank you for just listening to the Schoolhouse Rock podcast
because you know, if you were not on the other side of this
mic, we would just be talking into the air and we would have
no purpose in doing what we do. But we know that you're out
there listening. We love hearing from you.
If you ever want to send an e-mail to us, you can do that by
(01:01:42):
sending an e-mail to podcast at schoolhouserocked.com.
And you can find everything on our website,
schoolhouserocked.com. We love you guys.
Have a great week, and we will see you back here next week.
Bye. You're listening to the Biblical
Family Network. Hey, I'm Miki and I'm Will.
And we're the Co. Host of the Culture Proof
(01:02:03):
Podcast, we want to invite you to join us every week as we
discuss what's happening in the world and then filter those
happenings through a decidedly biblical lens.
There are many questions, especially when we see what's
happening in our culture today, but the answers are found within
the Word of God, so that's wherewe want to look.
Amen. When we resist those cultural
trends that rival the truth, we remain culture proof.
(01:02:27):
I want to tell you this isn't your child and this isn't just
because your kid wants to be an animator, cartoon, comic book
writer. This is a universal 8th grade
dilemma. Why do I have to learn history,
science and math if I'm going tobe an animator?
I mean, that is a valid question.
We always take it as a challenge.
Like they're challenging me, butthey, they in a sense are.
(01:02:48):
But they're also genuinely, they're trying to make the
connections. Tell me why.
And we, as the homeschool families get to give our kids
the why. And that's what they don't
public school. It's just that do this, it has
no connection to life. You're just going to do the
worksheet and move on. And we get to make the
connections to life, because without a connection to life,
it's empty.
Getting rid of everything and going, you know, as minimalist
as possible sounds like a lovelysolution when you're tripping
over a bunch of stuff, but that's not really going to solve
the problem because a homeschoolfamily takes a lot of stuff.
Hey everyone, this is Yvette Hampton.
Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rock podcast.
(00:21):
I am so glad you have joined me this week and come back with me
next week because I have the same guest on both weeks and I'm
super excited to have her back. I'm back with Misty Winkler.
She has been on the podcast before and I loved having her on
the first time. And so I said let's let's come
back again. I want to talk about more
things. She has a lot of great things to
share. And so she is back with us this
(00:41):
week and we're going to talk about home organization, we're
going to talk about preparing our kids to launch them into
adulthood and just all the things that go with those
topics. And so I'm excited to have Misty
with me to talk about those things.
But before we get into our conversation, of course, I want
to say thank you to our sponsor,CTC Math.
If you guys are looking for great online math curriculum
(01:02):
that you do not have to teach yourself, they will do all the
teaching for you. Check out ctcmath.com.
They are amazing. Our family has loved them and
you can try them out for free. So if you're not sure if it's
going to be a good fit for you, you can check them out at
ctcmath.com and see if they are a good fit.
I think they will be, so try them out ctcmath.com.
(01:23):
Also, I want to remind you guys,you may have heard a few weeks
ago I talked about it. We are going to be at the Teach
Them Diligently convention in Branson, MO at the Branson
Branson, not Branson Branson Convention Center.
That's kind of a tongue twister.May 15th through the 17th and we
are super excited. I am not going to be speaking at
this conference. We are just going to attend the
(01:44):
conference, but we are going to spend probably most of our time
at Ginger Hubbard's booth. So just look for Ginger Hubbard
and you will probably find us there.
We would absolutely love to meetyou guys and if you would like
to join us either at this convention or any other, Teach
Them Diligently convention. They have one in Dayton, OH,
Pigeon Forge, and Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA Any
(02:06):
of their conference you can use the code Sr. for Schoolhouse
Rocked Sr. for $25 off of your registration.
And you can find out more about that conference at
teachthemdiligently.net. And we really, really hope to
see you guys there. We love getting to meet our
listeners and just getting to know you and your family.
So May 15th through 17th, Branson, MO.
(02:28):
Well, Misty, welcome back to theSchoolhouse Rock podcast.
I'm absolutely thrilled to have you back with me again.
It's been a little while. So for those who maybe don't
remember you, or maybe they justare not familiar with Misty
Winkler, introduce yourself to our audience.
Well, thank you so much for having me on again.
Yeah, I have been blogging for asuper long time, like more than
(02:50):
a decade blogging Dinosaur and have a podcast or two podcasts,
simply convivial and simplified organization and A blog and a
community about homemaking, homeschooling and doing life
cheerfully. So it's really like life
management, including life as a homeschool family.
(03:14):
Right, right. I love that.
And you're a second generation homeschooler.
Yes, both my husband and I were homeschooled.
I was homeschooled all the way through.
And then we have 5 kids. Our oldest is 21 and our
youngest is 12. So our oldest is married, has a
little baby. So I'm a grandma now.
I I levelled up and he's a realtor.
(03:41):
And then our second son is at New St.
Andrews College, He's a junior there.
And then we have three that werestill homeschooling a senior,
10th grade and 7th grade. Wow, so fun.
You have your hands full and busy.
Does your grandbaby live near you?
About a mile away. Oh.
That's the best thing that is mydream in life is to have all my
(04:04):
grandbabies and my daughters live right next door.
It is so. Fun.
I'll handle, you know, them living close by.
So. Oh man, that's exciting.
Well, I'm excited to have you back and I'm really excited
about this topic because we're going to be talking about
organization. And this is something that I
love and hate. It's one of those locate
(04:24):
relationships that I think many of us have.
Some of us are a little bit better at organization.
Some are not so good at organization.
And I think for homeschool moms,often times they want to give up
on homeschooling because they feel so unorganized or they
simply aren't unorganized. They don't know what to do They
don't they, they just don't havethat organization bone in their
(04:45):
body. And it comes very naturally for
some and others not so much. And so it can get very
overwhelming for homeschool momswho have their kiddos at home
and they're always making messes.
And that, you know, we're alwaystrailing behind them.
And then we've got all the schoolwork and we've got all the
meals that we have to make in the laundry and the dishes and
all the, I mean, there's just somuch to this homeschooling life
(05:07):
and it is a blessing, but it canalso be really, really hard and
it can be very discouraging, I know for many, many moms.
And so you have a, a newish bookout.
It's actually been out for a little while.
It's called simplified organization.
And I love the subtitle. It's learn to love what must be
done. Years and years ago, when, when
Brooklyn was little, teeny tiny,I remember going to a Bible
(05:29):
study and I was just feeling really kind of discouraged and
overwhelmed with housework. And it was really the first time
I had been home. I, I, I worked from the time I
was 14 until literally till likethe day she was born, I always
had a job outside of the home. And so when she was born, I
stayed home and I was like, I'm 31 years old.
I have never been a stay at homeanything.
(05:50):
And I don't know what to do withmyself right now.
And so I got into this very kindof complaining attitude where I
just was kind of irritated all the time because I felt like
they're all these responsibilities.
And I went to this Bible study and I remember one of the ladies
at our table, she said, you know, I've really had to change
my perspective on on housework and chores and the things that I
have, you know, that are part ofmy responsibility.
(06:13):
And she said, I look at them as blessings and look at them as,
you know, when you're having to wash dishes, praise God that
you've got dishes to wash. When you're having to do
laundry, praise God that you have laundry to wash and clothes
to wear because some people don't.
Praise God that you have food toprepare and put on your table,
because many people don't. And it really changed my
perspective on on on being a keeper of my home because I
(06:36):
realized this is not a curse. This is not a drag.
This is. And sometimes it's hard, you
know, but it's not something that we should fret about it
something that we should actually find joy in.
So I know that was a long intro,but I would love for you to kind
of start out by telling us like,why?
Why did you write this book? And how have you found joy in
(07:00):
being a keeper of your home? It's so common for all of us, I
think at some point at least, tofeel like it's just too much or
it's meaningless and tedious andpointless.
And it's so easy to start spiraling in those negative
thoughts about our home. But anything that's worthwhile
(07:24):
is hard work. But our culture for the last
several generations has pretty much said value and meaning only
comes if money comes with it. You know, if there's a paycheck
or if there's a grade or some kind of external pat on the
back, you know, mostly tied to paychecks at income.
(07:46):
And so to come home and not havethat and to not have any kind of
external grade or Gold Star on the back is really disorienting.
And even for me, I got married young.
I was 19 when I got married and I taught a couple homeschool
(08:07):
Co-op classes, but I was mostly at home even as soon as we,
well, our first year I was at school.
So our first year we were married, we were both still in
college, but then we graduated and I taught a class.
So I was like out of the home a couple hours a week.
And but our first apartment there after we were done with
school, it was just me and meal to cook and, you know, housework
(08:32):
to do. And I was also homeschooled, the
oldest of seven kids and a very typical oldest daughter in a
large family where I, I had help.
Like, I knew how to do all the things and I had helped prepare
meals before. And so I came into marriage and
motherhood with all the pride ofyour early 20s.
(08:58):
And I thought, OK, well, I know all the things that my mom
didn't do very well. And so I'm just going to get
like everything out, get everything under control, create
my systems and do everything thebest right out of the gates.
Way better than your mom did. Yes.
(09:20):
And so of course, because God isgood, I fell flat on my face
instead. Oh boy, Pride.
It goes before fall. That's right.
And so it took me many years really to diagnose that I had
even in my pride of wanting to get those systems in place so
that I could totally nail it, there was underneath that an
(09:45):
actual disrespect of the work and a thinking that it was
beneath me that, you know, it's just menial, tedious housework.
I need to do it as little as possible so that I can do more
meaningful things. And God worked on me with this
(10:08):
for a long time. And a lot of the stories are in
my book. But you know, I just came to
realize that all the work in tending a house is life giving
work, and it all matters becauselife matters and it's all
fostering life. If there was no life in the
home, then none of that work would exist.
(10:31):
But that isn't better. So the work is good work because
we're tending and keeping and promoting and growing life in
all these different ways. And so we can actually enjoy
doing the work instead of like dismissing it and diminishing
(10:53):
it. Even even the scrubbing the
toilets we can. There's something there that we
can actually enjoy, especially when we know the meaning behind
it. Yeah, talk about falling flat on
your face. What did that look like for you?
So after I figured out that I wasn't just going to be able to
(11:17):
nail all the systems and have everything organized right out
of the gates perfectly and efficiently and executed Florida
State, I started spiraling to like, well, if the goal of the
efficient system is to spend as little time as possible doing
housework, the other way to spend as little time as possible
(11:39):
not doing housework is just not doing it and not caring.
You know, some people like a clean house, but I don't care.
And some people, you know, are just naturally clean.
I'm not. So I'm going to, I'm not going
to try to be something that I'm not.
Right. You're just going to own it.
Yeah, we're just, we're just going to see how far things can
(12:03):
go. And I would do this boom and
bust cycle of, you know, we would still have someone over
or, you know, I'd have some kindof occasion to clean and I would
do a like a total day cleaning frenzy and then just like let
everything go for like weeks andweeks.
(12:26):
And it was just not pretty and it wasn't responsible.
And it it really both of those were the same principal
underneath, which was houseworks.
Not worth my time. Talk about it being life giving
because you mentioned that you know, you, you realized after
(12:48):
falling flat on your face, you came to that conclusion that
being a keeper of the home is life giving.
And, and I agree, I'm certainly not perfect at it, but I do like
my house to be tidy. It's much easier for me right
now because, you know, now we only have 114 year old at home
and she's fully capable of doingall the things herself.
(13:10):
You know, she can clean her own room, she could do her own
laundry, she can do the dishes, she can do all the things.
And so it does make it easier than when they, my girls were
little, but I, I, I enjoy, I enjoy having a nice home, but it
was much harder when I was when my kids were younger.
So what do you mean when you saythat you you came to that
conclusion that it could be and is life giving?
(13:32):
Yeah, I think it is because the work itself is there because
there's life. So because there are people who
need to live, they need to eat. So making meals is a part of
homemaking. And then because they ate,
they're living. And there are dishes and there's
a kitchen to clean. So, you know, it's totally true
(13:55):
that we can enjoy and be grateful for the luxuries and
resources that we've been given.And that's a piece of enjoying
the work as being grateful that we have these things.
But also on top of that, the work that we do is literally
giving life to the people in ourhouse by either the food, the
(14:17):
clothes are clothing them, they are sleeping in beds because
they're walking around, because they're alive.
The floors, they're walking and eating, you know, the floors are
full of crumbs. Like all the work is there
because life is happening. And so it's so the life giving
home is more about what's happening in the home and
(14:42):
facilitating that and enjoying your role in facilitating the
development and fostering of life rather than, you know, an
aesthetic achievement that you've made where everyone feels
cozy because of the decor that I've chosen and everything is
(15:04):
neat and tidy. So the atmosphere is peaceful.
That can be nice, but the atmosphere is actually peaceful
because of who you are as the mother.
Like our attitudes and our approach to our house and our
families is the atmosphere of our home.
(15:25):
And so if if the decor and styledoesn't match our attitude, like
one way or the other, the atmosphere is not good.
And one thing I like to say is that the house is a stage
because, you know, if you look up organization books, they are
full of pictures. Yeah.
You know, you look up organization tips on the
(15:47):
Internet or on social media and it's pictures.
Everything's about how it looks.And we can't make our homes that
are that are having life lived by that many people all day
long, all the time. It's not going to look like a
magazine, but it's not supposed to because it's actually a stage
(16:09):
where life is happening, drama is happening and we are
resetting the stage to facilitate the action.
But it's always the action. That's the point.
You know, the drama, the play. The play is the point.
The stage is never the point. The stage can get in the way, or
the stage can help, but a well done play on a very bare stage
(16:37):
is better than a bad play on a very elaborate clean stage.
Yeah, I know exactly what you'retalking about.
You know, I've been in people's homes before that are very, very
tidy and everything is in its perfect, proper place.
And you feel like you can't move.
Like you feel like, and especially if I've taken my kids
(16:57):
there, I feel like, oh, well, don't sit there or don't touch
that thing. Or, you know, it's almost like
you feel like you're in a museumand you can't just let down and
just be normal and human and that's not welcoming.
And and you know, the Bible talks a lot about hospitality
and you can't be hospitable whenyou're so afraid that everything
is going to get messed up. But then I think we can error on
(17:17):
the side of like you had talked about in the beginning, where
you fall flat on your face and well, I just don't care.
It doesn't bother me to live in a messy house.
And so I'm just not going to bother with it at all.
And then you bring people into your home and they're
uncomfortable on the other side of it.
They're uncomfortable because there's a mess everywhere and
there's, you know, dirty laundryall over the place and there's
(17:37):
dirty dishes. And, you know, not that there
can't be some of that, but I think we need to find a good
balance in on on both ends of that.
And so we're going to talk more about that.
But first, we're going to take abreak.
We'll be right back. Join Apologia for the Homeschool
Boot Camp, a free video series that provides practical guidance
and wisdom from experienced homeschool parents.
You'll discover how to equip your family for academic,
(17:59):
social, and spiritual success. Plus, you'll discover how to
build deeper and stronger familyrelationships.
Homeschool Boot Camp covers how to break free from the public
school mindset, daily planning, supporting students with
learning challenges, homeschooling as a working
parent, navigating the high school years, and much more.
Find this incredible free The Homeschool
resource@apologia.com/bootcamp We are back with Misty.
(18:24):
Before the break, we were talking about finding that
balance of not being too much ofA perfectionist, but also not
being so messy that you know youcan't live in either world.
I mean, you can, but it's not really comfortable.
And for the homeschool mom, it'sreally impossible for a
homeschool mom to live in the world of perfection, right?
(18:45):
For the mom, for those type Ayers, they want perfection all
the time and that can cause a lot of angst in their life
because they want their home to be perfect all the time.
And it won't be, it can't be when you've got children in the
home with you. And so how do we balance those
two things? And, and I know that part of the
way we can do that and that we need to do that is that we first
(19:05):
have to understand what our situation is.
And so kind of walk us through this.
And I know you walk through thisin the book as well, but walk us
through what it looks like to really understand what our
situation is. It's so overwhelming to be a
stay at home mom also homeschooling because there is
so much to do and there's so much coming at you all the time
(19:29):
and you are the decision maker all day long.
And so it's understandable that a natural for there to be a lot
of details and options and expectations that are making you
overwhelmed. And and then I think the world
feeds us a lot of potential solutions that don't work,
(19:54):
especially for a home school mom.
So, you know, just solving like getting rid of everything and
going, you know, as minimalist as possible sounds.
Like a lovely solution when you're tripping over a bunch of
stuff, but that's not really going to solve the problem
because a homeschool family takes a lot of stuff.
(20:15):
It just does. And so we have to manage life
and manage the stuff and just kind of hold so many things in
tension together and figure out what our particular family
needs. You know, I said before the home
is a stage and so the action matters more than the props.
(20:39):
But if the props are in a jumbleon the floor of the stage, it
actually gets in the way of the action.
Also, you know, the the action is impeded.
And so if you can clear the stage and have homes for things
and you know, kind of work that stage, it becomes a place where
the action can happen without a bunch of tripping and hazards.
(21:04):
And so that's what we we want todo.
And we want to do it with a cheerful, happy demeanor as the
atmosphere of our home. And we all know the
perfectionism of the type A who's trying to do it all
perfectly. But a part of what I was
describing in the giving up, my giving up stage is really the
Type B version of perfectionism where I'm not going to try being
(21:29):
perfect. I already know I can't be, so
I'm just not going to even get started or I'm not even going to
try. My plans not going to work, so
I'm not going to make a plan. So there's perfectionism on both
sides, and that perfectionism gets in our way so much.
And the world's messages about what your home is for and what
(21:53):
organization is feeds perfectionism and then feeds
discontent. And so when we know that our
homes are the stage for action and it's our job to just make
the home and make it foster life, then we have a mission
that we can enjoy working with. It's not just a checklist of
(22:15):
chores to do. We're we're doing something
real. And organization isn't about
having labeled containers and having your closet be picture
perfect and all these things that are easy to photograph and
measure. Organization is about being
(22:36):
prepared for your life. So it's really about being able
to mentally and emotionally handle your life.
And so a lot of organization really does start with and boil
down to our attitudes and approach to just life rather
than where does the stuff go andhow does it go there.
(22:58):
So that's a lot of what I cover in the book is how do we
organize our attitude and put our attitude in the right place
so that that everything else we can kind of work it out if
that's working. Yeah.
So let me ask you this for the mom who's she's not handling
well emotionally or mentally where she's at.
(23:20):
Where does she start? Because I think that's one of
the hardest things is just knowing even like where, you
know, you look around a house that's just a disaster, you
know, and you and, and sometimesit's easy to close doors and not
look at the disaster. You might have a few rooms that
are nice and tidy, but then you've got other rooms that, I
mean, you can't even walk through them.
(23:42):
And she just is so overwhelmed and she looks at it.
So she just closes the door and pretends like it doesn't even
exist. I have done that myself many
times. Where where does one even start
when it comes to just that? Like I, I can't, I, I just, I
can't even handle this, you know?
Yeah. So for organizing the attitude
(24:07):
portion of that, which is just how we emotionally respond when
we see that mess, two things I recommend doing. 1 is to brain
dump. And so that is just writing
things down. Like what are your thoughts
about that room that where you just closed the door about how
(24:28):
meals are going? Like whatever it is that's
bothering you, just start writing things down because we
get in little thought loops and we don't we just feel stuck.
But it's because we can't get out of that thought loop and
writing it down actually, yeah, it actually helps you stop the
loop and really see. And usually what you see is
(24:49):
unreasonable expectations. And you know, if you are
expecting or if you believe thatit's actually your job to make
the whole house picture perfect all the time, then you're under
a burden that you're not never going to be able to get out of.
(25:09):
And so you're closing door, you know, that's your coping
mechanism. Instead of saying, OK, my job is
facilitating life. And you know, what are the kids
alive? Do we get along?
Are we being educated? Then if there's a room that I
have to close the door on, well,we'll gradually be working on
that. But that's not the biggest deal
in the world. You know, if you start.
(25:31):
So you start to be able to thinkthrough things and really pray
through things and even be able to talk to your husband about
them more clearly rather than just coming from that emotional
overwrought state. And then an alignment card.
This is where you put scripture or a quote or something that is
true that you need to remember that answer is your like
(25:53):
negative account accusing thoughts so that you can replace
those thoughts with God's words with truthful perspective.
And then you know when there arethose areas that you need to
chip away at, just actually chipaway at it 5 minutes at a time
like I'm 5 minute timer. That's it.
And you begin to make progress and by ending the
(26:19):
procrastination and the perfectionism with really teeny
small steps, and you start realizing how much perfectionism
is actually getting in your way.If you say 5 minutes isn't going
to matter, it's like, well try it.
Right right one of my favorite resources that you have you
actually sent this to me and it's a bust out of burnout bingo
(26:41):
and it's so much fun and we'll we'll link to this in the show
notes it's a free print out, butit's so much fun.
It's it for those watching on video.
You can actually see the, the bingo card here, but you're,
what you've done with this bingocard, you know, it's just an 8
1/2 by 11 sheet that you print on your printer, but you've,
you've pieced it out exactly as you're saying so that it's not
(27:02):
one huge chore all at one time. You know, I mean, how many of us
can say I'm just going to clean my whole house today and the
entire house, you know, from topto bottom, every room from end
to end is perfectly clean and tidy.
That that doesn't happen. And so you have little things
and, and someone of the ones that I thought was the funniest
thing was you put remove trash from your purse.
(27:25):
This is the only one. Yeah, I'm not the only one who
has trash in her purse. You know, you shove that receipt
down and ends up at the bottom of your purse under your wallet.
And you know, you never find it again.
Then you can't find that receiptwhen you have to return
something or you need it for some reason.
But you have just little things on here.
You have clean 1 bathroom counter and toilet and you can
check that off of your, your bingo card.
And then you've got wiped down the outside of your front door.
(27:48):
I mean, like some of these are things that you don't even think
to do. You know, one of them is make a
dinner plan for the week. Another is wash all the dishes
in and around the sink. So they're little things, you
know, sweep or vacuum the livingroom.
So it doesn't mean you have to sweep or vacuum the entire
house, but just one room today, just one room.
Make that one thing your goal for the day and then eventually,
(28:10):
and she also you guys, she offers prizes.
I don't know what these amazing prizes are that she speaks of.
Maybe a new car or something, I don't know.
I like to send people stickers. Oh, is that what it is?
I love stickers too. But, and like I said, we'll link
this to the, the show notes, butI love that you're just giving
very practical ways for us as moms and writing it down is kind
(28:33):
of what you've done with the bingo card.
But taking a notebook, and I've done this myself too.
I love checklists because I think they're fun to check off.
You get that satisfaction of crossing it out.
But I've done this before when I've had a big job to do where I
will just take a notebook. You know, if I've got my school
room is the area and our house that gets the messiest by far
because I can close the door on it.
I, you know, can throw everything in there.
(28:55):
And then it gets to the point where I'm like, I can't even
walk in here. And so I've done that way.
I've taken a notepad and I'm like, OK, I need to today.
I need to just go through books and eliminate however many books
I can eliminate. You know, another day this week
doesn't have to be tomorrow. Another day this week I'm going
to go through our games or I'm going to, you know, do whatever.
And eventually you get to the end.
(29:16):
Like I can vacuum the floors because now I can see them
again. And just doing them little bits
at a time really does make an entire a big huge job.
So much smaller. So that's what you were talking
about when you were saying just do it little by little.
It doesn't have to be everythingall at once, but it's amazing.
It's kind of like with reading, you know, when we think, well,
(29:37):
we don't have time to read well,if you read 10 minutes a day in
60 days, you've read a whole hour.
That adds up very quickly. If you clean 10 minutes a day
in, you know, six days, you've cleaned a whole hour.
You couldn't clean a lot in an hour.
Hopefully you're cleaning more than 10 minutes a day because
your house probably requires it with, with kiddos around and
(29:58):
stuff. But, but it really does make it
easier when we make the list, wewrite it down, we make those
goals and then we bring our kidsinto doing those things with us.
And so talk about that for a minute because I know that as
we're raising our kids, even little ones, little kids can do
a lot. I mean, it's pretty amazing even
what a 2 year old can accomplish.
(30:19):
So how do we bring our kids intothis mix and and teach them to
be joyful keepers of the home aswell?
Yeah. One thing that helps when you've
broken a big project down is that usually means that you've
made it more specific. And that's key to bringing the
kids on board is they have to actually even know what you're
(30:41):
talking about. I remember at one point I had,
you know, we had all the toy bins and we had a playroom and
there was the Duplo bin and the railroad bin and all of the
categorization of all the toys made complete sense to me.
And I would send the kids, you know, unsupervised to go put
(31:03):
things away, go clean. And if the, if there were no
toys on the floor, they said they'd done it.
That was their definition. And then, you know, weeks later,
I'd come down and look at a bin,and every bin was just a Jumbold
mess. And at one point, I made some
(31:23):
comment to my husband, like, this bin is for railroads.
And like, I even at one point put a picture on it, like this
one's for free railroads and this one's for Duplos.
I thought, I'm making this obvious, right?
And my husband's like, no, it makes sense to you.
It doesn't make sense to other people.
Yeah, and I was. Like, oh so actually I just need
(31:45):
to like, unless I want to be theones putting all the toys in the
place that makes me happy. Right.
Maybe we should just their definition is their level right
now of if they've put the toys in a bin, that's actually good
enough. And so like letting go of, you
(32:07):
know, that organization, right? It's better for them to help
than it is to have everything categorized neatly.
And so like bringing things downto where they can do it, you
know, things like being the dishwasher and, and also just
(32:28):
being around. Then when we give them chores so
that we can give that guidance, we do, we call it ehop.
Everything has a place. And so that means since
everything has a place, it's time for everything to go back
in its place. And so we set a timer and so
(32:48):
that everyone knows it's not this never ending thing that
mom's going to keep having you do more and more for the rest of
the day. You know, that's how they feel
when you say let's clean. I was like, Oh yeah, 10 minutes.
All we're doing is putting things back where they belong.
And then you can say, is that where that belongs?
(33:09):
Is that where that? And then you also find out often
that they don't know where things belong.
And then you can fix that. But being there to supervise and
help and guide and teach, instead of expecting like that,
you can give them a list and have them basically be maid
service unsupervised where you get time back that happens like
(33:33):
when they're 15. Yeah, right.
You really got to put in your time before it's really paying,
paying off or or freeing up yourtime and mental energy.
And right as soon as it does, they go get a job and.
Then they're. Hopeful to someone else, but not
you. It's so funny.
(33:55):
It's so important to teach our kids.
You know, we talk about trainingthem up in righteousness.
And this is one of those things that we are training our kids to
do things well. We cannot expect our children to
know how to, you know, if we saygo clean the bathroom, we can't
expect them to know how to cleanthe bathroom if we have not
stood alongside of them, literally.
I mean, with my girls, I was like, OK, here's the cleaning
(34:17):
stuff. I'm going to clean the bathroom
and you're going to watch and that might take a couple of
times and then, you know, the next time say, OK, now you do it
and let them do it. And you watch while they clean
the bathroom and make sure that,and then you can go back and,
you know, let them do it on their own.
And you go back and say, OK, well, you completely missed this
sink or whatever, you know, you,you didn't lift the lid on the
(34:37):
toilet, you know, whatever it is.
But in a gentle way, just showing that correction of,
well, here's the correct way to do it.
You know, with doing dishes. I mean, that's a big thing.
How do you load a dishwasher? You know, that doesn't come
naturally to everybody. To some it might, but not to
everybody. And kids typically want to just
get stuff done, especially if there's a timer.
They're like, well, I'll just get it done before the timer
(35:00):
goes off, but they may not do itwell.
It's so important for us to train our kids to do things with
patients. It's hard to be patient with
them sometimes because we expectthem, like you said, we expect
them to have the maturity that we have, to have the work ethic
that we have, and to be able to do things the way that we do
them. And children do not typically
work that way. Some do, but most don't.
(35:21):
Yeah, or we even want them to have the work ethic that we wish
we had, we have in our imagination.
That's right. It's like, oh wait, I shortcut
my work also. Yes, I do that also.
And even once they can load the dishwasher or clean the bathroom
after that training process doesn't mean therefore from that
(35:43):
point forward they will evermoredo it the next way.
One motto I learned from an older homeschool mom was don't
expect what you don't inspect. Oh, that's a good one.
Yeah, that's excellent. Yeah, like if if I don't care
enough to check in on them, why should I expect them to care
(36:05):
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(36:47):
You have launched a couple of children into adulthood and we
have now launched I, I shared a few weeks ago with our audience
that our oldest daughter has moved in with a friend.
She's only 10 minutes down the road from us.
And Oh my goodness that I'm I'm not a crier.
I am not someone who's very emotional.
But that day, I cried and I, I, I just, I, I felt like I was
(37:12):
missing a limb, like someone wasliterally tearing A limb off of
me. There's something about being
with our kids through their entire homeschooling childhood.
We're with them all the time. And then all of a sudden she
wasn't. And we still see her several
times a week. I talked to her several times a
day. And it's exciting to see the
things that God is doing in her life, but it's so different.
(37:33):
I mean it. Nothing can prepare mama's heart
for her, her first child, and I'm assuming probably my next
will be just as painful of them leaving.
And as painful as it is, it's also exciting.
And you know, my husband and I are able to look back and say,
you know, we did the best we could.
We did what God called us to do.And we were, we were diligent.
(37:54):
We did our best to be diligent. We did our best to be obedient,
to raise her up to love and knowJesus.
And by God's grace, she is following him.
But it's still hard. And I look back to you and I'm
like, Oh, I wish I had done this.
And I wish I had done that. And I wish I had done this.
And, and I don't want to say I have regrets.
I just, there are things that I would have done differently.
(38:16):
And so, Misty, as you look at your two adults who are now out
of the home, you've got 1 married, you've got one in
college. Talk about what that transition
was like for you. And then I, I want to talk about
like, as those moms who are listening, who have little kids
telling you guys, it's going to be here very, very quickly, how
we can actually prepare our children to launch into
(38:39):
adulthood in a way that is honoring to the Lord.
Yeah, it is a big project. Project is a good.
Word And I think it's it's so tempting, especially as a
homeschooling family, to think of having your family in the
(39:00):
home as your project where you get really focused on our
relationships, which are super important and we need to be
focused on them. But to start thinking of the end
goal as being our relationships.But the relationships do change
(39:21):
and they're supposed to change and, and so we do want to be
building and nurturing them, butwith the goal of those children
being adults, not in our home. Instead of thinking of the our
goal for our home and our familybeing about all of our family
(39:43):
being home and around the dinnertable and all that.
I think family dinners are superimportant.
But the dinners are important because of, you know, the
conversations and how much teaching and relationship
connections are happening there as a tool that's helping them
(40:04):
become adults. And so nothing's being ruined
when they suddenly aren't cominghome for dinner every day.
And I think that's it. That time comes, I think, for a
lot of moms, sooner than they were expecting.
And it's and we don't even realize that we were thinking
(40:25):
of. Our little family as our project
that to keep together and so then when one starts leaving
because it it's it's a gradual process it's it's not usually
you know suddenly they're gone right right it's like they get a
driver's license and they I. Was going to say it's when they
(40:46):
get that license and they. Yep, and.
They get a job, and now you're not the only one in charge of
their schedule. Yeah, that's right.
These little baby steps and thatthe family that we are creating
in our home is a multiplying force, not a a stable unit, not
(41:13):
a static unit. That's supposed to be one thing.
It's a training ground and they're supposed to graduate out
and and the relationship does change.
And I know it's especially hard.I think when the oldest are like
12 or 13, it's easy to start feeling as a mom like OK, so we
(41:38):
really don't have that much timeleft.
So right now they should be like, this is what they are.
And that's nerve racking becausethey are not ready to handle
life at all at that age, but they often think they are.
And so much maturity and and rocky roads can happen between
(42:01):
that like 12 to 18 time frame. And I think we need to be
prepared for that so that we don't try keeping them close in
a way that's inappropriate for that stage of life.
And keeping them close for training is appropriate when
(42:22):
they're younger. And then they have to start
testing the waters independentlyand they have to actually fail
at things and do things without you.
And I think, I mean, I'm sure that it's different.
I haven't yet launched a girl. I've.
Launched 2 boys and you know, they, they don't want mom to
(42:48):
tell them what to do anymore andthat's actually a good thing
like that. They need to go through that
phase to become men and we so weneed to remember that that is
what we want. We don't actually want them to
stay children. So we need to not treat them as
(43:09):
children. We need to start treating them
as adults as soon as we can. I think after they hit the teen
years as practice for us and forthem, because we know that our
goal is actually that they become responsible adults out on
their own, starting their own family units that are distinct
(43:32):
from ours and and we can be excited to see what they do.
We've given them something and then it's not on us anymore.
What they do with it and also what they do with it right away
isn't necessarily the way it's going to play out.
Like, I think, you know, I was the oldest and got married
(43:56):
young. And one of the things both my
husband and I said when we were new parents at 21, I said, well,
you know, here are all the problems with homeschooling.
Do, do, do, do, do. And some of those we weren't
wrong, but there are, there are,there can be issues and there
(44:16):
can be. But we were very critical and
proud and overconfident. And so we got on the board to
start a school and that didn't happen.
And so at first, homeschooling was our Plan B like, OK, well,
we can if we have to. And then we got going.
(44:38):
And a few years in, it was like,oh, this is such a blessing.
And we were so ungrateful. And then so one of the things
that I like to tell my kids is you'll thank me when you're 30.
Right, right. Because their perspective is so
different at that point. Yes.
And so like just hang in there for the long haul, Mom.
(45:01):
And when you're 12 year old or 13 year old is telling you all
the things that you're doing wrong, that's maybe going to be
the lessons. What you're noticing are the
lessons you're going to be learning as an adult and.
We'll see, right? It is so funny to look back.
You know, we, we also got married young.
We got married at 20. We had just turned to 20,
(45:23):
engaged at 19. And I look at my 20 year old
self and I'm like, man, I didn'tknow anything.
I mean, I knew some stuff, you know, but I mean, 30 years
later, I'm a completely different person than I was when
I got married. And, and that's how it's
supposed to be. You know, you look at the
progression of our kids. Your, your 15 year old is
(45:43):
completely different than they were when they were five.
And your 25 year old is completely different than they
were when they were 15. I mean, that is the progression
of life. We're growing and part of that
is growing in our walk with the Lord.
We're growing in our maturity. We're growing as just human
beings, you know, you realize who people are and how people
respond to life and how people react to things and what, it's
(46:04):
just what it looks like to be a responsible human being.
You know, I, I look back and like I did some really dumb
things and really immature things, but I also did some
things that were right and made some decisions.
You know, I mean, I think about,of course, my, my two biggest
decisions, of course, they tell this to my girls all the time.
The two biggest decisions you'llever make are your decision to
(46:25):
follow Christ and the man that you choose to marry.
By God's grace, he gave me an amazing husband.
We've been able to, you know, doministry together for many years
and stuff. But you know, it, it was, it
hasn't always been easy. And as we've grown as people and
as a couple and as our family has grown, you know, we, we can
(46:46):
look back and go, OK, well, we made some some mistakes and we
have to remind ourselves to, youknow, Brooklyn, you know, she's
not making a disaster of her life by any means, but there are
some decisions that she's made that we're like, I wouldn't have
done it that way, you know, and I have to remember she's not
mine. She belongs to the Lord.
She doesn't belong to me. And just because her decision is
(47:07):
different doesn't make it wrong.It just makes it different.
But it's hard to, you know, close your mouth sometimes and
throw away that key and go. And it's like.
I will not see the fast food wrappers in your car.
You're eating a Taco Bell again for the fifth time this week.
Your paycheck. Right, right.
(47:29):
Exactly. But, and that is, I think,
especially hard for the home school mom who's been so
involved for so long. To.
Start letting that go and realize so hard, you know, Yeah,
if you think of, you know, yourself back at that age now,
you know that you didn't know that much, but also at the time
(47:52):
you were pretty sure you did. Right.
You didn't know that you didn't know.
And it's like now the tables areflipped and instead of trying to
convince your kids that they don't know as much as they think
they do, because now, you know, realize, oh, who, who in your
life at that time was telling you that that you didn't listen
(48:14):
to? And now you need to take that
place. Like, what should that person?
How could you have received something from that person?
And like, okay, they, they were right and I was wrong.
And this is about me repenting and maturing myself in a new
(48:34):
stage of life, right? Right now I say all those
annoying things that the older ladies at the grocery store
said. Yeah.
But, you know, it's so interesting because even at the
stage of life that I'm at right now, my mom, who's 77 years old,
she'll talk with me and, and in a very loving and kind way,
she'll say, you know, I rememberwhen you first got out, you
(48:55):
know, when you first moved out on your own.
And, you know, I struggled with this, this, this and this.
And, and she's helping to guide me through this new phase of
life. But now I know, OK, I can listen
to my mom and I know that what she's saying is wise, you know,
and I don't have to agree with everything that she's saying and
all the advice that she gives. But a lot of it, I'm like, oh,
(49:15):
mom, that's such good advice. I'm so glad you told me that
because you've been through it before.
And so we're still, I know for certain that I'm going to look
back in 30 years at my, you know, 50 year old self and go,
Oh yeah, I didn't know all the things I thought I knew at 50.
I know so much more now at the age of, you know, 77 or 80 years
old because I've had more life experience.
(49:36):
This is such a fun conversation.You know, it's, it's close to my
heart, of course, with, you know, having launched an, a
brand new adult into life. And it's scary and it's exciting
and it's all the things. How can we, I want to kind of go
back to what we talked about being organized and, and having
our not just our home, but our lives in order.
(49:57):
How can we prepare our kids? Like what, what steps?
And I know there are 1,000,000 steps we can take, but maybe you
can kind of narrow it down to some specific steps that we can
take with our. Kids to prepare them for
adulthood. Yeah, especially when we are
tempted by overwhelm and perfectionism, we can actually
(50:20):
use our growth process and that struggle to help our kids
because perfectionism is the temptation to say that I should
know before starting exactly howeverything is going to go and be
able to do it exactly right. So either you're going to burn
(50:44):
out trying to do it that way, oryou're going to give up
entirely. And especially when you start
having preteens and teens, if our kids can see us maturing in
that and recognizing it and talking to them about what we
(51:05):
are learning, that can help themstart to avoid those thought
patterns and expectations as well.
And sometimes it is our perfectionism that we put on our
parenting that makes us afraid for them, that makes us want to
have parented or have educated them fully and completely before
(51:28):
letting go. And for ourselves in our own
work and then for our kids as they grow in mature as well.
Failure is a part of the processand mistakes are a part of the
process. And what we all need more
practice in is not panicking when we fail and we make
(51:50):
mistakes and we sin like we knowwhat to do.
We repent, we receive forgiveness and grace, and we
get back up and try again. And our kids can see us doing
that. And they are learning that from
our modeling more than they willlearn it from our.
Words. And especially as they become
(52:14):
teens and we move from a more parental role to a coach or, you
know, older friend role, if we are learning and growing, that's
going to make us actually more more relevant, more available
(52:35):
than if they think we're going to be totally stressed out if
something goes wrong in their life, they're not going to want
to share or talk to us. But if we share that we realize
we're doing, we're messing up orwe're going to try something
new. Or, you know, if if you're just,
if you're living your own personal life of growth and
(52:56):
you're learning things and you're just doing that, not
publicly, but it publicly to your children where they know
and they can see it. That's way better than lectures
because you're modeling that life of learning and that keeps
(53:17):
you more limber in in dealing with their growth as well.
Like you're just able to have that more peer-to-peer
relationship a little bit more. Yes, yeah, for sure.
Talk about the difference between your parenting now.
So your oldest is 21 you said, and your youngest is 12.
(53:41):
How different of a parent are you now to your 12 year old and
your younger kids than you were to your older kids?
What things have, you know, because obviously you've grown
as a mom, as a person, What things have you learned along
the way that you've just gone? OK, maybe this thing doesn't
matter so much and this is more important.
(54:02):
Or, you know, vice versa. What?
How have you changed? I could think of two things in
particular. 1 is that now that Iam parenting more the younger
children than the older children, so the focus is more
on the younger children and or only on them and I was an oldest
(54:23):
child. I am learning again the things
that I was wrong about as a child and as a young adult and
how, you know, it's like, oh, younger, younger children don't
have, they're spoiled. They don't have the same rules.
And it's all unfair and they don't, it's fine because they
turned out as well anyway. They don't get the same levels
(54:47):
of responsibility. And so now it's like, OK, well,
here you go. Here's the youngest.
What are you going to do? My husband at one point told me,
you know, one of the children does have to be the youngest.
And it's like, OK, well, we haveto be intentional.
Like it is an actual younger, more attempting to let the
(55:10):
younger child off of responsibilities than the older.
Everything feels like a lot bigger deal with the older kids.
And then you realize, like, oh, I made mountains out of
molehills with my oldest, and I died on some hills that, like,
(55:33):
it's good that I won the battle,but I didn't actually need to
fight it in the first place. And so you do do things
differently, and you let up on things like 12 is often a
particularly argumentative stage.
And I would say with my oldest in particular, and then still
(55:54):
with my second, I would say I took the bait of all the
arguments. It's like, oh, you want to argue
with me? That's fine.
I'm up for it. We'll argue and I'm going to
win. And we just went and that.
And so I realized then with Young after that was over and
the next set comes around, it's like, oh, we're just not
actually even going to get into this, like.
(56:16):
Right, right. Not even going to waste.
My debate and then now is my very youngest being 12 and she
starts and it's like I I just laugh and I'm like, I'm sorry.
I yeah, go actually matter, drink water, go run and come
back later. Yeah, yeah.
(56:37):
It is so fun to have that big age gap, you know, between your
kids. And it's so interesting always
to me when there's families who have multiple kids with a big
age gap, you know, to just to see the difference in their
parenting styles from the oldestto the youngest and how much
that can change. So we have just a couple minutes
(56:58):
left. What is one last bit of advice
that you would love to offer to our audience, whether it's about
organization or, you know, raising our kids, launching them
into adulthood or both, whatever.
What would you like to leave with our audience if.
Any of these topics or issues make you feel stressed out.
(57:20):
Whether it's kids getting older and parenting issues, the state
of the house, That feeling of being stressed out, particularly
about the future and how things are going, is an indicator to
stop and take a deep breath. Brain dump.
(57:44):
Then pray over what you have brain dumped and talk about what
you have brain dumped to your husband and get on the same page
about the mission of your family, the big picture, why
you're doing what you're doing. And you have to sort out that
top level before the other things start falling into place.
(58:07):
But you know, the solutions online are usually the like
checklists and the stuff which is like a bottom up.
Like those are the very tangential things that aren't
going to ever bring you back to the point and purpose, but it's
the point and purpose of it all that centers us and makes us
able to get perspective and keepgoing and come back to what
(58:32):
matters and what's true and notice when we're off track and
know how to recenter and go the right direction again.
Yeah, it reminds me, you know, acouple months ago we did an
episode with Isaac Tolpen. It was back in January and he
talks about basically creating your family vision and and
knowing where your family is going and, and he goes into
(58:53):
pretty good detail about how to do that.
So if you guys missed that episode, go back and listen.
It's so good, but it's really just recalibrating and it's
something that we have to do constantly with our families.
You know, we're as as parents and as people.
We're not going to parent or five year olds the way we're
going to parent them when they're 15.
It's just a completely differentworld.
(59:13):
And so you have to have perspective, you have to have
goals, you need to know where you're going.
And ultimately, of course, we always need to come back to what
does God want from our family? What does he want our family
culture to look like, and how can we accomplish that?
That's the most important thing.That's far more important than
having the perfect, tidy, organized house.
(59:35):
That's more important than always having a perfect meal on
the table or our kids launching into adulthood exactly as we
want them to. The main purpose is that they
love and follow Jesus. And so even when things don't
work out exactly as we plan themto or exactly what we think,
because life happens, right, andlife is messy and life is busy
(59:55):
and life has interruptions and all sorts of things, if we're
keeping our main focus on Jesus,that's where it needs to be.
So Misty, thank you so much for being with us again this week.
It is always such a pleasure to chat with you.
Tell our audience really quicklywe've got like 2 minutes left
where they can find you again. And then what?
(01:00:15):
Because you've got a ton of resources.
We talked last week again about your book, Simplified
Organization. Learn to Love What Must Be Done.
You've got lots of other resources.
Tell us really quickly what someof those are.
Yeah, I have my website issimplyconvivial.com and I have
two podcasts. Simply Convivial is like 10
minute pep talks, just attitude pep talks get you back on track.
(01:00:38):
They're great for folding a basket of laundry.
And then simplified organizationis like 1520 minute
conversations with other moms. A lot of them are just moms from
our community sharing their insights on what they're working
on. So it's very casual, very fun to
just get that sense of like there are a lot of us out there
working on these things. You're not alone.
(01:01:00):
Keep going and and I have some simplified organization, The
Convivial Home School Gospel Encouragement for keeping your
sanity while living and learningalongside your kids is my other
book and the podcasts are on anywhere you get your podcasts
and it's also all on YouTube as well.
All right, we'll put all those links in the show notes.
(01:01:22):
Thank you so much for joining us.
It's always such a pleasure. And you guys, thank you so much
for being with us these last couple of weeks.
Thank you for just listening to the Schoolhouse Rock podcast
because you know, if you were not on the other side of this
mic, we would just be talking into the air and we would have
no purpose in doing what we do. But we know that you're out
there listening. We love hearing from you.
If you ever want to send an e-mail to us, you can do that by
(01:01:42):
sending an e-mail to podcast at schoolhouserocked.com.
And you can find everything on our website,
schoolhouserocked.com. We love you guys.
Have a great week, and we will see you back here next week.
Bye. You're listening to the Biblical
Family Network. Hey, I'm Miki and I'm Will.
And we're the Co. Host of the Culture Proof
(01:02:03):
Podcast, we want to invite you to join us every week as we
discuss what's happening in the world and then filter those
happenings through a decidedly biblical lens.
There are many questions, especially when we see what's
happening in our culture today, but the answers are found within
the Word of God, so that's wherewe want to look.
Amen. When we resist those cultural
trends that rival the truth, we remain culture proof.
(01:02:27):
I want to tell you this isn't your child and this isn't just
because your kid wants to be an animator, cartoon, comic book
writer. This is a universal 8th grade
dilemma. Why do I have to learn history,
science and math if I'm going tobe an animator?
I mean, that is a valid question.
We always take it as a challenge.
Like they're challenging me, butthey, they in a sense are.
(01:02:48):
But they're also genuinely, they're trying to make the
connections. Tell me why.
And we, as the homeschool families get to give our kids
the why. And that's what they don't
public school. It's just that do this, it has
no connection to life. You're just going to do the
worksheet and move on. And we get to make the
connections to life, because without a connection to life,
it's empty.
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