Latest / Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court & Jess / Episode 34 For the Mom in the Middle Years: Why Homeschooling Is Worth It

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Episode 34 For the Mom in the Middle Years: Why Homeschooling Is Worth It · Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court & Jess

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court and Jess, where Real Talk meets real life.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Court and Jess are two friends, fellow moms, and business partners who live in different time zones and juggle homeschooling alongside motherhood and entrepreneurship.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jess is a mom of eight and Court is a mom of seven, and together they're raising 15 kids and navigating the wild, wonderful world of homeschooling, each in completely different ways.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Every week we invite you to pull up a chair for honest conversations, practical tips, and uplifting encouragement.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: You'll hear from moms across the country who are homeschooling in a way that works best for their families.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a veteran homeschool mom just getting started or somewhere in between, this is your space to feel seen, supported, and inspired.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because no matter how different our past may look, we are all in this together.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, and welcome to Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court and Jess.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Today we are talking as veteran homeschooling moms about our adult children and how they fared through the seasons and the journey of our homeschool and where they're at today, and maybe even a few comments about what they thought about their journey.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, Courtney, do you want to start us off?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Give us a little update about so we're talking about kids we've graduated from our homeschools.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: So we've got kids who are close, um, and maybe ones um who just graduated, we don't have a lot to say, but maybe we do.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna turn it over to you first and tell us first just a little bit about who your adult kiddos are who and and did they all well, if you've been listening to us long, you know that all of her kids did start in kindergarten and go all the way through.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: But give us a little more detail.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I've graduated four kids so far, which when I say out loud makes me sound really old.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so and I we were talking with when we were visiting Hawaii, we were talking with our high school group there, and I had never put this into words before, but all of my children are very entrepreneurial.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Entrepreneurial.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I hate that word.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a word.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I had never really thought about before.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't like and like it wasn't my intent to like raise entrepreneurs or like I never went into homeschooling with like that as a as the goal, right?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: The end goal, but I ended up like that's what happened.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so my oldest daughter, she's 23, so she graduated a hot second ago, a little while ago.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it seems like forever.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: She's been married uh like almost four years, or maybe four years.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So she's been out of high school for a long time.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, anyway, so she went to tech high school.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: We did well, we homeschooled high school, and then we have a two-year tech program that our kids can participate in in Arizona um that offers like 50 different things.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's the most magical thing ever.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you have one, you or you should go find one.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's what I everybody should do this.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think it's so great.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so she knew when she was 11 that she wanted to do hair.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like she, it was her passion.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: She loved it.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: She was really good at berating, and then she learned curling and she would do all kinds of like classes, like she'd find classes online and be like, okay, I'm gonna do this.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so she went to cosmetology school.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so the tech high school that she went to, it was four hours a day for two years, so seven to eleven, seven in the morning to eleven in the afternoon, or morning till technically, I guess.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think we paid like$500 for you guys.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was a$15,000 license, is what she got for her our$500 supplies or whatever.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was it's fantastic.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, everybody needs to find this in their area.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's worth the drive.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So she did that, and then she came out with her, she passed her boards.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then so she graduated in May, she passed her boards in the fall.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: She was during COVID.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So she ended up, I know, um, so part of her junior year, um, she ended up missing, right?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so they sent home these like massive packets for the kids to do at home, like books.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was crazy.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then she had like all these hours she had to make up, and it was it was a little bit bananas.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So when she graduated high school the year later, they were still backed up taking boards from COVID because they went so long without doing boards.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So she didn't get to do her boards until like almost six months after she graduated, if not a little more.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: But she patched.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she went on to assist.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So in hair school, basically, you learn all the the official techniques and all the old stuff, but you don't learn any of like the new, like the new techniques on how to do extensions and hair color and like do the stuff that like you're actually gonna use.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you spend a year um assisting is what they call it.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you somebody who has a really big client base and like they make a lot of money.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of crazy how much people pay for hair, you guys.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Can I just say that?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I went into the wrong profession.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, anyways, and so you assist for a year to a year and a half.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is it like an apprenticeship?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of, yeah, but you get paid.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you're paid like an hourly wage to go assist.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so um she did it with she did it with a couple different people, actually.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because she had one that like specialized in blondes and like one that specialized in brown hair, so that you can kind of learn the gamut, right?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like you want coloring, yeah.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm like, what does it matter what color the hair is to cut it?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: But okay, I'm with you.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so she went basically for another year and a half of school, right, to perfect her craft.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then once she did that, she earned rights to like rent space at the salon.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have to like do your due diligence.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just nobody can just come in and just rent space, like you have to do your due diligence.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and now she has a thriving business and basically finished putting her husband through college.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like she he didn't work when they were um going through school, and now she's it's the perfect job for a mom because she just picks her two days a week.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: She works two days a week and she absolutely loves it.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's so fun, and it's her outlet.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a creative outlet, it's a social outlet.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: She's my most social child.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was it.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so now she does that, and it's fantastic, and she can, you know, ebb and flow, right?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, I want to make some more money.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's the perfect job because then you're like, Oh, I'm just gonna take some extra friends, I'm gonna add a day, or I don't really need money right now, it's fine.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, she can just take off, and you know, so it's fantastic.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's my oldest daughter.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: My second daughter chose a totally different pathway, and she just graduated nursing school.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So she's 21.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she graduated nursing school in April.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: So she did it a little different.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So she her birthday is in August.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so she like, you know, like the cutoff date is September 1st, right?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Officially, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So her birthday is like August 18th or 19th, 18th.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's the 18th.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know my kids' birthdays, guys.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, and so she um she did CNA school as part of the tech thing, right?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: So she'd kind of she did all these like career whatever things.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she originally wanted to be a baker and she's really good at it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: She took all these cake decorating classes, she like loved it, and then she catered a wedding in high school and freaking hated it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was the worst experience ever because she's too much of a perfectionist and it was too stressful.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so she was like, Oh, this is not what I want to do, which yay that she learned that when she was 16 and not 25, right?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: That you spent all this money going to do all these schools.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so then she kind of did all these, you know, career, whatever you call those things, you know, exploration classes and things.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and she decided she wanted to be a nurse.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I am like the least sciencey person ever.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've talked about this before.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like my least favorite subject.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm it's not my jam, but you need some science, right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: For um for high school.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we went and we searched and we found, and we really liked, I think it was called Dive, like D-I-V-E.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's where they did their chemistry.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: She did some online biology.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: My kids go all through high school and they never do an actual lab, like they watch them, but like they never did the hands-on labs until she got to college, and then she did all of her science classes, all her prereqs.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so she technically kind of like graduated early.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So she like when I started her, right?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like she would have had one more year her senior year, but she kind of did her senior year.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was all at the college.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: So which you could do anyways, but we just kind of graduated her before, and then she went and did all her college prereqs.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I could have waited a year, it didn't really matter, but she on paper graduated a year early.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so she did that, and then she went to she chose a private nursing school because she didn't want to wait.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: She's slightly impatient.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Shocker that she's related to me, right?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, doesn't sound familiar at all.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: But um, so she did that, and so she's graduated and she's actually taking her um NCLEX or something along those lines, like whatever the test is on Friday.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So she's in study mode.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen her in a week.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: She's staying at my daughter's house, the one that's married, they're on vacation.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so she's staying there with her dog so she can lock herself in and study all week long.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I haven't even seen her for food since Saturday.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: So she is and she is my focus, like locked in, like, gonna do it.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So eating.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: You should send somebody to make sure she is eating.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: She's my healthy okay, this is so funny.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So last year when they went on this trip, my third daughter stayed at Sydney's house.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, okay, I'll buy you food.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, she's like, you know, diet coke and gummy bears and you know, junk, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like Cheez-Its and like snacks.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Kennedy's like, Oh, I want sweet potatoes and ground beef and like like all of these like super healthy avocados, bananas, like actual like real food because Kennedy cooks and eats.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: She's my super healthy child.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So good.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: So she's surviving.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she's totally just fine.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: She's also really cheap, so she's totally not going out, she's totally making herself.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so so she's not like the entrepreneur, right?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like she just she went the path, she knew what she wanted, and I now she's looking for a job, right?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as she passes her things.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So my third daughter, who and my first three are all nine days shy of three years apart.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they're all like 17 and a half months and 18 and a half months apart.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So super, super close.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: They were kind of all raised like in a chunk.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my third daughter, she is was really into um like skin and nail, like aesthetics.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's she went to school for aesthetics.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so she learned how to do facials and like eyebrows, you know, like all those things.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she did it, she graduated with it, passed her things, and realized she hated it because she is very, very social.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And have you ever been to have a facial?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's silent.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like the dog walking, you're like maybe whispering, and just like, but it's this zen peaceful experience that Delaney's like, I'm gonna lose my ever-loving mind because she's just as social as Sydney is, and like, holy cow! But she's super, super creative, like she was really artistic.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you should see her notes, like from school, they're all color-coded and like beautiful, and like little drawings, like they look they're just beautiful.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so she decided that she had had like a little nail business on the side that she'd been kind of doing just for funsies, um, like a paid hobby, kind of basically.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so she decided she uh was gonna do nails.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so she went to Utah for a semester and got her nail certification.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so now she runs a nail business out of her house.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's so fun.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: She loves it, she sets her own hours, she gets lots of chalking, and she's super like she doesn't do just like I'm my nails are always solid because I'm kind of boring.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: But like if you see my girls' nails, they all have like all these fancy designs.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And like last year for Fourth of July, Rory had like Trump on one nail and like an eagle on another, and like fancy things that I couldn't even draw if I wanted to, let alone with nail polish.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was what she does, and her husband works from home also, too.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: So like she's downstairs and he's upstairs, so it's kind of funny.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and my fourth daughter just graduated high school.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she is she went to school for culinary um baking, but um commercial baking, so culinary commercial baking.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and she absolutely loved it, and she wants to start a business and she's kind of um she actually just started it in Instagram.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Baked by Dre or something like that, because her name's Audrey.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but her nickname is Dre.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so she has done three weddings so far.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's crazy.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: She's just done like little random things for people, but she wants to do it kind of like on the side, not as like at a brick and mortar type place, kind of just so, anyways, that's that's where we got right now.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: And how do they feel about their homeschooling experience?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is funny.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, sorry, that's what I mentioned earlier.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so half of my kids, Sydney for sure, I don't know for sure about Villane.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the kids, so my kids did that um the tech high school thing for half the day, and then they did one class at the local high school, like um a religious education class.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And 90% of the people there did not know they were homeschooled, they didn't tell anybody.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think it's really funny.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So Cindy, no one knew Cindy was homeschooled, like she didn't even want me to put it on her grad announcement.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm sorry, we are putting it like that's like the dumbest thing ever.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: But she was like, nobody knows.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then like when Delaney and Audrey, because it was like after COVID, um, they would just say they were online school, which everybody did.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was like the social norm now, like 90% of the kids are home or online school, right, is what they say.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they don't ever, I think they're friends, like they're they're like little group knows, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: But they don't like broadcast that they're homeschooled.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's funny.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that still makes me laugh.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um that they that they did that.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And Cindy still like people still meet her and and they have no idea that she was ever homeschooled.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: She was like a secret homeschooler.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: But they also like Cindy really wanted to go to school, and then that was her outlet was this it was Eva.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like our, you know, it's not our consolation, but like our compromise, right?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so my fourth daughter, no fifth daughter, yeah, Rory, the one who's going, um, she's gonna be a sophomore this year.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So she really, really wanted to go to high school or take some classes at the high school.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we've been battling it.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we have two, we have like a kid, um, like a little charter school.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not little, but it's not gigantic, right?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: That just opened up last year.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have our local high school, and our local high school has over 4,000 kids on it.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's huge.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I live in the land of a lot of people.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, I can't imagine her like going there, like into a 4,000, like that's just too much.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then the ALA, like, they have to wear a uniform.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: It just seems like a lot of work.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like struggling with it because she wanted to take like a ceramics class or a parking class, just like some random whatever.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Jessica, when we were talking, you gave me the idea that like, what if she just started eBay early?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because normally that's like a junior and senior thing.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: They have this requirement that you can go the year you turn 16 if you've like completed two English classes.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was like, Oh, maybe I should just see if she wants to do that, because then she could assist her whole senior year and it would put her like a year ahead, right?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I just ran the idea by her.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And granted, like it fills up like it in January.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, I don't even know if this is an option, but like, is this something you want to pursue?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And she we like talked about it in Sydney, my oldest the one who did this, because she wants to go to hair school too.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Rory wants to do what Sydney does, she's following her footsteps.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Sydney was like, Oh my gosh, that's the best idea.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can do this and you can do this, and anyways, and so she got in.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: We just found out yesterday.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: So she's starting at Evet in the fall, so that's super exciting because then it kind of gave it was like our compromise that like she's she's getting to go do something that's out of the house that's away from mom, right?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also not like a complete waste of time, right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's a purpose to it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I cannot pay$2,000 for a ceramics class, like it just kills me.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that's crazy.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, that's a little bit about what we're going.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love it.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I before we did this podcast, I talked to my two kiddos who are grown and gone.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we still have uh so anyway, so I talked so I talked to them.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um we have three kiddos that are grown grown and gone, um, but one has really high special needs.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: So he wouldn't be able to give me kind of the same feedback.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I did talk to my other two.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And um my oldest Lexi, uh, she is so she did a year of college right out of high school and played collegiate level soccer and did all those things, um, lived in the dorms, you know, had that whole experience.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then she went on a mission for our church for 18 months in Brazil.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then she um then she came back and went to out to BYU Provo.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where she is still.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: And she is studying archaeology and anthropology and or sorry, um, archaeology.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, it's anthropology with an emphasis on archaeology and then creation as well.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: And um she gave me some really interesting feedback when I did this call with her, which was it was interesting, and some things that were reflected in what you said as well.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um she one thing that I kind of judge uh like my and I shouldn't, I'm not saying I should, but like what one thing that gives me hope that like I did a decent job is that she is very firm, like her kids are going to be homeschooled.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: She is going to homeschool them, she wants to put use the same curriculum we used, which is really cool.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I just love that she what's that?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's so interesting.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I just love um I just love that she thinks highly enough of her education that she would want to duplicate that for her children.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that gives me lots of hope.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: But it's not true for every kid because let me get to my boys.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say, I have a comment on that when you're done talking.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, go on, go ahead.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so they talk about this at the dinner table like a lot.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and some of them are like, absolutely not, I would never homeschool.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: But then another one's like, Well, I would, and they're like, Well, actually, will you just homeschool my kids?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or mom, would you just homeschool our kids?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't want to do it, but would you do it?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, I just thought it was funny.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think I get those comments too, and I think like my son was like, Well, it's not really my decision, it's my wife's decision.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I think that that also tells me that they appreciate how much work it is.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so, anyways, um and my kids had very different, even though they did the same things, they have really different experiences.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: My two boys, um, so my one boy who's grown and gone, and then my boy who's gonna be a senior, they're very, very social, just naturally.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: They did all the activities outside of school, which Lexi did too, but then they also hung out with those kids outside of the activities.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that was a big difference between Lexi and my boys.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Lexi is just naturally more of an introvert, like that's just who she is.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, even if we had sent her to public school all the years, she still is just naturally, you know, she receives her um like her energy by going off alone and like rebalancing.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but anyways, um she says, you know, it was so funny.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm hesitant to even share everything she said, but she said that I could.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um she said at times that she felt um because she briefly went to public school for just like a year two years in middle school, and we did that for sports reasons, and I regret it.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: But, anyways, um she said that when she kind of got a taste for like what public school was, then she kind of was wondering if she kind of felt left out or um isolated at times, even though and like Lexi, we were in tons of co-ops, like you know, and and she said, but it was more just that her age group, her age cohort in the co-ops was smaller, even though there was hundreds of you know over a hundred kids there.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um but she said, looking back, um the um the socialization that she thought she had wished for at the time created shallow people who are now frustrating to interact with as adults.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: I thought that was hilarious.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um and um she just also just talked to but the other frustrating part for her, and then I'll get into the good stuff for home because I want to be really raw and transparent, that it wasn't always roses either, right?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: I have something, yeah.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: And she said the other frustrating part, and this I have this has been really hard to watch as a mom, and it's definitely not a reason to not homeschool at all, but it's just something to be really aware of, right?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: Even if you're not a homeschooler, you should be listening to this and be aware of this.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um she said that um she's felt a lot of uh like judgment from other people.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is a child who on the English section of her ACTs got uh a perfect score, or one point, I think, below a perfect score.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: She's incredibly intelligent.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: She has won multiple essay contests and writing contests in the public sphere, not in the homeschool sphere.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she is incredibly intelligent, right?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: She's getting straight A's at a very difficult university.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um and has read at a college level since she was in probably the probably the third grade.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, she's extremely intelligent.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um and she has always felt like she has to prove herself to people who don't.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: homeschool.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so she said it even led her to choose initially a a um a major that she felt like would would prove something, right?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: She was going to go to law school and do pre-law.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: But then she got into it and decided that and she did very well, but she didn't she didn't like it.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just really stressful and not really her thing.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't her passion, right?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Even though she's really good like she did mock trial and all those things in in high school and she did an amazing job.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's so obvious like I it's been really hard over the years to watch like there's specifically one family that we are acquainted with who you can just like their parents ooze judgment about homeschooling, right?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it oozes out in their children and their children actually have bullied my children because of the the opinions of their parents that their parents taught them.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I think parents need to be really aware that you know if you don't understand something you you ought not to be judging it right.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you're genuinely concerned about the education of a family of your acquaintance or maybe a family at church or you know a neighborhood or whatever, go talk to them.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, ask them questions.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: If you ask in earnest right and you just want to understand that's great.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I think we have to be really careful about how much our own judgment seeps into the conversations and attitudes of our children.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just kind of a word of warning I wanted to just share with families because I think a lot of families like this family who's just a very sweet family whose children bullied my children I don't think that that was their intention right and it was just pure ignorance right and it's been a little interesting to watch both of our children all their set of children and ours grow up and kind of see some of the differences.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: But that is one thing that she said that she um that she was frustrated with in her experience.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it sounds you know like your girls didn't even tell people they were homeschooled right and I'm sure a lot of that ties back to people can be really judgy and and it's becoming such a trendy thing, right?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: I hate that word trendy, but it is like people are really diving into homeschooling right and there's reasons that they are and so I think that the tolerance is going to improve and public opinion is already shifting and improving drastically from where we were right when we started homeschooling our kids.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: I remember once when we first announced we were homeschooling and we had um somebody who was very very dear to us who I really looked up to came and said hey I heard you're going to be homeschooling the kids and so how are you going to teach them math?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like what is that going to look like and I was so naive in the time right like we we hadn't started yet we were just announced that we were going to do it.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought that they were just being genuinely curious like just like very supportive and it wasn't until years later years later that I realized that that person was worried about how we were going to do this.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then about two years ago this person came to me and said hey I just have to tell you how impressed we are with your kids and like what you've done and I'm now encouraging my grandchildren to home or my children to homeschool my grandchildren and um I'm just so amazed at how things have turned out for you guys.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that was very validating and really cool to see but I think public opinion is going to continue to turn positive for homeschoolers and people who are home educating.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a real hurdle that you have to be I think at least aware of as parents right what were you you were going to say something too well just back to your socialization thing because I feel like that's a piece that like when your kids get to high school it's really important to have that community.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so like we kind of missed that with Sydney where we hadn't we had like a little homeschool thing but nothing big like with a bunch of kids like her age we had a few but like with my my younger set like we were much more intentional and very like we created this community so that they would have a community like they did youth activities they did temple trips they did dances they did all these things so that they were surrounded by a bunch of people that were doing the same things.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah they weren't like the odd ball out right so that's really important when you get in high school it really doesn't matter in elementary school it really doesn't even in junior high.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: But like in high school like if they don't feel part of something like there there is something missing in that in high school.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think with the younger kids why it doesn't matter as much is because you can throw them into any well even lexis are like well I don't remember my I don't remember when I was young but I think that when you're young in in that middle school and down kids are just kids where in high school it's like well what how old are you?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like are you a freshman are you a 10th grader are you 16?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you need to have some you know you have to make the effort.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: But it is hard and I think you have to recognize too though if you have a naturally introverted child like going to public school and and all these things isn't going to be it's not going to change their it's not going to rock their world and all of a sudden make them be an extrovert either um so there's definitely balance but I agree with you 100% you have to seek out those opportunities for your kids and and help them to to do that.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's why you know as we've worked through venture upward why we've been so insistent that community is so important.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's not just for the pay not just for the kids but for the parents too um she said though um that of course looking back that uh and even in the time she knew you know that she was so grateful to be um homeschooled but especially looking back um that it was the right choice and that she's going to absolutely homeschool her children or I am right same thing.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: She's like can you just do it um it was interesting I didn't ask I didn't give them any prompts I just said just tell me about your experience um she said that she thinks she her education was was more nuanced but also at the same time a very broad education she said that um it prepared her very well for college um especially with like the knowledge base she she feels like compared to her peers her peers all really need the generals right like your general education those first two years were all just repeat for her like she and she just knows it.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so she has been really surprised by that at you know a very prestigious university that she is finding that you know a lot of it is just a repeat but it's so new for some of her peers.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then one of the things she said is the most surprising to her is that a lot of her friends at college who were public schooled um a surprising percentage of them now don't want their kids to go to public school.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like they won't let them have the same experience.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Now she said that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll homeschool but they're definitely not just going to send them to public school which is I thought was really interesting.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't dive very deep into it but um so yeah that was kind of our experience with our oldest one my my son so he is currently he graduated so my sorry I should have said my oldest daughter graduated um back with Courtney's uh oldest um but my son just graduated um last year and last May uh so a little over you know well last year ago yeah over a year ago year and a half ago um and he um he talked a lot about how because for Lexi it was more like reflective right because this is where she's at she's several years out of high school and Maddox was said it was really good it was great for him he was a very self-motivated child and is a self-motivated young adult he loved the fact that he could get up at 6 a.m and get all of his work done and then have the rest of the day to work or lounge or whatever he wanted to do.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: And he was my one who consistently just got up and got his stuff done I never had to argue with him.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: So that was really nice.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: And he was grateful that he didn't have to just spend so many hours just sitting in a classroom.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: He also mentioned and Lexi has mentioned this to me before but that he just feels like we are way closer to our parents um like he's much closer to us than his peer group you know he will often be teased about when before he left for his mission that um and teased in a playful way not a bullying way but his friends would give him a hard time that his mom calls him all the time or that he talks to his mom all the time.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: And Lexi has made that comment to us as well like she has friends who she doesn't talk they talk to their moms like once a month I talk to Lexi she calls me every single day um and if I don't hear from her I text her and give her a hard time and say like you must not love me anymore.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: No I'm just kidding.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: But we just banter back and forth like that.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we talk about serious stuff sometimes it's just a check-in bent banter nobody feels obligated to right like it's just built into our relationship we just do we just talk all the time and not for long right we might talk to her for just five minutes on the phone just to check in or she's telling a funny story or something frustrating that happened.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: But she comments about how a lot of her friends um wish that they had a similar relationship with their mom and they can't imagine calling and talking to their mom about something hard that happened that day.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that kind of breaks my heart um I can't imagine her going through pain or difficulties and not feeling like she could or should call home.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: So um I thought that was interesting.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah go ahead I think it's true for siblings too yeah my kids are closer than they would have been if they had all you know I mean yeah just today so my son is um like I said on a mission and he gets to call home one day a week and he texted me and he said hey where's Chase it's his brother where's Chase he's not answering my my call and so I love that they want to talk to each other um last week when he was able to call he's like I'm so sorry mom would it be okay if I if I didn't get to talk to you as long because I Lexi and I were in the middle of a really good talk and I wanted to call her back.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: So like I and as a mom I was like yes that's okay I love that I love that my adult children because guys as kids if anybody's listening to this and thinking my kids will never be like this they were at each other's throats right just like every other sibling when they're home it did not was not peace and harmony all the time um and as they're getting older you know they are just so close and so I love it.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Will you pause my doorbell just ring I mean except for too many little children yeah yeah you go there they were gonna I think they're just probably selling something but like two they don't look like they're selling something that's why it's weird.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do you need to go?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay no they're they just got into their car all right see we're gonna start again so cut this part out um okay hold on one thing I was gonna just think of so I thought that was really great to hear that uh he recognizes that we're closer as a family and he did say as a family too not just parents so um I I love that what else can you really ask for um he said about academics that he feels like they were in his words pretty good he said the big thing that he appreciates is that um we spend a lot of time teaching our kids like we take a classical education approach and we take took a lot of time teaching our kids how to effectively like how to effectively uh relay their opinion right and even possibly persuade other people so they've done lots of persuasive essays and speeches and things like that um mock trial debates all kinds of things and so he said that he is so grateful that he and and he's so much more skilled at than others that he's interacted with um at effectively getting his appointment across instead of just arguing so I thought that was really great and he said all of that with a Christian background so we were able to give him that Christian backing as well like doing it from you know a place of having kind of Christ at the center of that so uh he also said that he would never this was so funny he would never straight homeschool and I'm like what do you mean what does that mean and what he was saying is he would never homeschool without a community I thought that was really good.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: He's like they've got to have something like classical conversations venture up or something where they get a community a quality community with it.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought that was awesome and interesting to hear even as a 19 year old kid how he recognized the importance of community.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought that was really cool.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: And we always we have always since the day one uh homeschooled with a community so I can't imagine anything different but they have met other children who have been homeschooled without a community and I think they have told me that they just they recognize a really big difference um in just kind of the way the kiddos interact and stuff and and he sees the value in just all the friends that he made the education in even the adult influences he was able to have around him and things like that.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: So um he also said that he and I kind of heard this with um I think you were talking about Audrey um no you weren't talking about Audrey which one's going to nursing school again that was Kennedy Kennedy I think it no who's studying at their sister's house that's Kennedy yeah yeah okay um he said that he one of the big things that he learned and he didn't say this but I think it's because our kids are required to be really self-motivated right like they have to have intrinsic motivation he said I I know how to study I know how to make a plan and execute it um and he knows how to use resources right because we didn't just come to his rescue either like if he was stuck we would first push him to say okay well where could you find the answer or you know how teach him how to use sources and resources well and so he's really appreciative of that.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: I would say my job as a mom is not to teach them everything.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just have to teach them how to be able to learn it.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like they have to know how to learn something like I'm not there's no way I taught you everything right but now like if you have an interest or you have a thought or a need or a want you know how to go do it like you know how to learn it.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely um and he said he absolutely does not regret being homeschooled um he did he thinks that um again that the all of the activities he was involved with and the community and just the quality of his education all of the things are um reasons why he would definitely consider homeschooling his kiddos he is not one like my daughter where he's like I'm definitely going to homeschool he he has always Maddox is going to make just the most amazing husband he has always had his wife in his in his purview like even when he was little he's like mom you can't throw away that toaster you can't throw away that pan I my wife might want it right since he was like three years old.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so um when I asked him he's like but mom I really can't answer that question because it's not really up to me it's up to my wife and so I just thought that was so cute and very true to who Maddox is um yeah so and then I talked to my other son just a few minutes uh who's gonna be a senior next year and he just um he has thought it's been a good experience as well but he doesn't have quite the insight yet to ask a lot of questions.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: I should give more information about Maddox and what he's doing though.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: So he's out on his mission as I've mentioned a couple times and then he is either military bound um he'll he may he's probably gonna go to the military first he's always been my kid who's gonna go into the military since he was little um and then he will go to college and he hopes to he may go um he he likely will go to be a police officer but he has thought about pre-med um a couple different things so I don't know where he's gonna end up um he's been accepted to uh one he's only applied to one college so far and he it's a long story but he accidentally applied and he got accepted so I'm like maybe that's a sign from God I don't know how you can accidentally apply but he did it was a very what's that what's the school oh BYUI oh yeah and um and so but his sister's in Provo so he's still gonna apply there um and he wants to apply to some military schools and some different things around so um yeah we'll see where he goes but right now he is very content living in Brazil on his mission and um oh I don't know if I mentioned too he really feels like um the language study that we did and just knowing how to study really helped him prepare to learn a language.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: So he is now fluent in Portuguese and those things made a huge difference and he has people around him who are you know obviously not who are struggling every who wouldn't struggle to learn language.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: I would yeah um but he feels very grateful that he learned how to study and has a little bit of that language background.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah that's it.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: I would say I learned way more homeschooling than I did when I was actually in school.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah I definitely redeemed my education through homeschooling my children.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah so many of these things I'm I'm thinking I I I know I didn't learn that in school but I probably did just in a way that wasn't effective or we just are learning different things but no I am I'm way smarter now that homeschooled my kids so all the moms out there thinking like I can't possibly do that.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not smart enough I don't know enough.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well you don't nobody knows enough to homeschool their kids right like if you think you have to know it all but you don't have to know it all like Courtney said you're just you're leading them to water right um you're showing them how to get there you're inspiring them to to want it right you're inspiring a love of learning you're teaching them how to learn and then you are going to learn right along with them which is the best part.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean what we're trying to teach our kids right that they know how to learn is what we're doing ourselves right if we know how to learn we can teach anything.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely I love it.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of work but we can do it but the results are so positive.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: Here we are two homeschooling moms who raise their kids in and homeschooled them in in quite different ways but in some similar ways but in quite different ways and we have kids who are very successful who appreciate the education closer to their families um considering homeschooling their own children I think those are all signs of seven down what's that seven down yeah oh between the how many more do we have to go I have three how many more do you have left I have five four five yep seven down ten to go that's ridiculous we have too many kids and then maybe some grandchildren that will be helping assisting homeschooling as well we might never be done on the endless cycle.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love it that's my favorite I love the little kids like I think that was gonna be so fun.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was just we were um I was like every time you change his type we're singing his ABCs like he'll learn them really fast like all those little like things that we did with our kids.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: So then it was like on cue every single kid around me started singing um ABCs to him at to West and it was so funny because he was just like ooh I was like he has like this little harem of people that just like entertain him and all she's like no wonder he's bored at my house he loves to come over here because you know what I mean it's just fun to watch the next generation do it.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well you're starting over from scratch doing it but I am yep starting with Kinsley yeah I get to sleep at night and you do not 17 month old although she's doing better.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh all right so fun.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: All right well that was a great conversation um if you guys have if you've graduated we'd love to hear what um what are your kids doing now how did your kids feel about it and what encouragement do you have for other moms who are on the other end of the spectrum spectrum just starting out yeah this too it will yeah it's awesome thing.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: All right have a great day everybody bye