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[Music] well welcome back to the ex homeschoolers Club I am of course your host Jacob gon and today I've got a very
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special guest for you guys Mrs Ruth Brooks is here with us you may remember her son Derry he was one of like my
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first interviews but I have known Mrs Brooks for a very long time she makes some of the world's greatest chocolate
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chip cookies and uh I'm so thankful for her to be here today Mrs Brooks welcome
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to the ex homeschoolers Club oh thank you it's good to be here and and you can
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call me Ruth okay Ruth uh there's this weird transition period I feel like where it's
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like as kids it's always Mr and misses and then they're hits this point and
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it's like I don't I don't quite know what it is and yeah so Ruth it's it's
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good to have you thanks oh my gosh we have so much to talk about uh I just I learned recently
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well I learned when Derry was on the show that you were also a homeschool kid and so I know that kind of potentially
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shaped you homeschooling your own kids and stuff but can you tell us a little bit about like your homeschool
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experience and growing up and like what home life was like and that kind of a thing yeah for sure so uh I I was in
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public school until through fourth grade and then my older sister was going in a
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junior high at that point she had just finished sixth grade and in San Diego we lived in San Diego uh junior high was
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7th and eighth grade and the the school that she would have gone to had a known drug problem and my parents were like
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were you know they've been thinking about homeschooling and so they decided this is a good time we'll pull them out
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nobody did it back then so the early days it was just weird because we didn't
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walk to school with our friends anymore and right we had to hide from the truin officer and it was just it was just
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weird and kind of people in the neighborhood our friends were like oh there's that family that does weird
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stuff but you know it wasn't I loved being around my mom mom and I had little
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siblings I had at that point I think three younger siblings maybe my mom might have been pregnant with the fourth
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um and so it was you know we got used to it and um you know it just became what we knew and we did our stuff on our own
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we my parents used a super like structured program at first where we sat at desks we wore a uniform you know they
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were you know it was just we we modeled our school after a private Christian School and used that curriculum blah
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blah blah so that was in the late 70s okay and um I was fifth grade so between Fifth and the end of high school I was
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homeschooled it's interesting because most of the people who I talk to who they go from having gone to a public or
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private school to homeschooling those first couple years tend to be that much more like structured we try to mimic
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school as much as possible possible you had to wear uniform I didn't have to
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wear uniform but I do remember my mom being like okay like we're going to get
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up at this time and we're going to like these this is the day it's chunked out
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very much like Traditional School was and then it just all kind of uh went to hell after a little bit because she
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realized this is not working but how many siblings do you have again uh I have eight I grew up with seven I grew
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up with seven siblings eventually um but the last one wasn't born till I was 16
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so I had yeah that's also kind of a families with the with a lot of kids tend to also
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be like The Homeschool families uh for sure I feel like that's the that's the
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norm so so as time went on as you got like later into high school years did you guys also do like as an older
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sibling were you also responsible for kind of helping educate and like raise the younger siblings or did your mom
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really hold a lot of that I would say more in like child care not necessarily educating them um we yeah we got into a
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really strict um par Church organization when I was in in my teens and then so we went
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from being kind of more um happier homeschooling to very strict and structured in a lot of anxiety because
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they required all this stuff and um and so I think my mom uh she did not love that uh it was
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the bill goth Advanced Training Institute America so the Shiny Happy People people right okay and um and so I
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would say that made it a little harder I mean a lot hard harder for her and um so I I wouldn't say I was educating
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the younger siblings but I had a lot of responsibility for the household stuff like cooking and um child care and and
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stuff like that which I you know I loved my younger siblings I didn't mind caring
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them around to different classes or whatever um you know was part of part of being in a big family yeah you know
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absolutely I think that's I mean I'm a family of I come from a family of four
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you know this mom dad and my sister and I but uh it was always interesting to watch The Homeschool families who were
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bigger because yeah they had much more of this like everybody has a role to play right and it's and it it it can
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look really strange from the outside but when you're in it and like um going over
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like I I used babysit for the Hester family and like being there and experiencing it you're like oh okay I
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see it like it's just we H everybody has their job that that they have to do and
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that's how that's just how everything works out at the end you know what I
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mean like we have to get everything done um and there's a billion in one of us so
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like you know everybody's got their role to play um and I think that it's it's
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kind of fun I don't know I I don't regret not having more siblings but I think it would have been an
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interesting experience for sure well just different it would have just been different so you're you're I feel like
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maybe you're more of an individual when you have fewer siblings and you're one
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of a of of a pod you have to play a part or you got to carry your weight or something isn't going to go right you
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know so it's just a different a different experience completely so when it came to Let's flush forward just a
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little bit so like you're you graduate you move on you get married you have kids now and it's time to decide what
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they're going to do for school like were you pretty set on like I'm going to be a homeschool parent as well
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because I enjoyed my time in it or were you thinking public private school like what kind of led to you deciding well I
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think there was a lot of um it was very fear-based uh the the decision so and back when my parents started
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homeschooling it was very like it was protecting from something really bad drugs or whatever it might be so it was
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so then my exper and then and then introduced were many many more fears um through that Atia program and so like
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we we had to like I I didn't feel like I had a choice I had to homeschool okay I
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had to protect them from all the evils of the world you know and so but I also loved being with him and I couldn't
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imagine put you know I didn't want him to leave at five years old to go into
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school um but it was definitely a fear-based decision for sure now the difference you brought up like when you
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were a kid and and going into homeschool and you were like we also had to hide from like the Trent officer but like by
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the time I mean Darry and I are the same age so I mean we're talking 2000s is you
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know starting the homo homeschooling was a little bit more I feel like accepted at that point um and so maybe not having
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to run from the law as much I know there was other Fierce like you said a lot of
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people had but um so I I guess I guess my question there is like not so much what the fear was
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associated with it but like do you feel like how do I want to phrase this do you
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feel like it was almost easier to homeschool your kids than what you had seen like your mom potentially have gone
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through back in the 70s of like okay there's a lot more access to just things
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to be able to do this now oh 100% I mean there were you had you had more than two
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choices for curriculum you know I mean you had so many choices and so um yeah definitely easier it was more accepted
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people think you were weird especially in where we ended up in ohigh it was super common I mean there was a huge uh
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Catholic home school group that we kind of just you know hung out with and um you know we had the the Christian group
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and the Catholic group and we all hung out you know we all did tenis together and whatever you know and similar values
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and um we didn't have quite as many kids but you know very similar values in like
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kind and uh truthfulness and all these like character qualities that we're trying to instill in our kids so it was
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definitely an easier Road how quickly did you get involved in some of the like homeschool groups because I know like my
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I I felt like I was it wasn't until I interviewed my mom that I realized like
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I thought we had like a couple years in there where it was just like we're on
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our own uh turns out no she was like pretty plugged into like group Solutions and Achieve very early on um was it kind
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of the same with you maybe those specific groups but well I okay so the group that was before group Solutions
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was Kos and it was a culum that they Ed super handson their little by line was man says sit still God says wiggle and
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so they were very much about kids getting to experience learning in all these different ways and so we joined that
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when uh Derry was first grade Cali was Kindergarten okay and so that was all like a bunch of people that were also
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ended up over in in group Solutions um were also in konos but you know like the Fran's were in konos and
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um the Goldens and like there were just a bunch of people Susie E's family they
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were in there um you know so it was it and it was every Friday for like four hours or something
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super fun it was it was really really kicked back um Joanie Livermore ran and it was just a great intro and had
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some really nice people in it and I feel like it was much more laidback group Solutions there was a lot for me a lot
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of anxiety in group Solutions like a lot of you know first time obedience and Mr
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and M always and I just felt like konos was much more like my jam it was mellow kind of more hippie you got the hippie
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Vibe um so group Solutions stress me out big time yeah you know I will I will say
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coming to your house as a kid your house always felt like just the chill the chill house like it like I don't know I
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don't know what it was you walked through the front door and it was just like a breath of fresh air sometimes
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like I I'm a firstborn kid my mom is a a firstborn kid like they or not a first
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she's a twin but she she's the first of their generation but we more High Strung
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people I guess much more of that structured group Solutions is like like right up our Jam because it's just the
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structure right but yeah coming to your house it was like oh okay like kick my shoes off like you said we GRE ohigh
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ohigh was hippie dippy like it you know was just like much more breath of fresh air um and your kids exemplified that
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too I mean I can't name you the number of times there was like dude just chill
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like it's okay coming from a first board yeah I was like I don't know how
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Derry is so chill um and he still is today um but no that's it's interesting
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to see kind of the evolution of where like people ended up and then I remember hearing a lot um about konos but I was
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not a part of it um but that I love what you said about like man says sit still God says like wiggle and like kind of
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that that freedom because I think a big part of homeschooling that is just a positive for a lot of us was the fact
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that like there's so much flexibility and what you can do and what's working
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and what's not and like each child's individual education it can be a pro and
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a con right um for sure but um I know like I did really well with my parents did I think did an okay job at
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realizing like okay his strengths are here now let's tailor his education to
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that um and um I feel like you guys did kind of a similar thing at least leaning
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into your kids of like they're into do this like let's give them the tools they
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need to like pursue those things um so okay when it came to like curriculum because and like things of that nature
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your your kids are vastly different um and just like their personalities and their learning styles and everything
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like der had made this comment when he was on about like you guys doing like a science altogether the four of you but
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just people were at different age ranges and that was like slightly different than like my experience but like I don't
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know can you talk a little bit about like how you chose some of the curriculum or how you structured certain
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things inside of like your homeschool of like okay we're kind of all doing this
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together but we do have to create I mean there's there's an age Gap here there's
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a learning a difference here um yeah I don't know share a little bit about that
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it was mostly by necessity because I had I had two kids close together my first two were 18 months apart so it was easy
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with those two to kind of like you had to do math separately but a lot of other things you could do together um but you
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know around year four of homeschooling I realized like something wasn't working
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with Derry and it he turned out you know turned out he was dyslexic and so that influenced quite a bit of how we did
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school so a lot of things became auditory I would read stuff out loud I'd read the text out loud we'd answer
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questions together um and and so a lot of the choices and coming from that kind of more hippie um like those books that
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were written like better late than early that were written in the 70s and there was one book um the Angel and the marble
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and it's a quote from um is it Le oh well anyway one of the great Masters one
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of the great artists and he would he said he would see a chunk of marble and he would say say I saw the angel in the
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marble and I I freed it basically and he would you know bring out this beautiful
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piece of art and so that was kind of what I was going for like who are they and then when you add a little learning
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difficulty like dyslexia where you can't read your own text well then I had to be more involved and
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I I loved reading to my kids and so yeah but then some of the choices that I made
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were going to be based on can we do this together can we do this handson and and
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so it turned out that cie also has dyslexia but she was diagnosed more with disc calcula and it was like turning
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numbers around and so math was difficult for her so anyway I ended up choosing I mean
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different things every year I didn't use one thing consistently throughout it was
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like an if I found something that worked better I would get that you know and when was in fourth grade and he started
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going to a tutor um Suzanne galison amazing woman um then you know we started doing this curriculum that they
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used this Barton system which was super expensive but it helped them learn all the rules of the English language which
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truly texting did more eventually texting were underlines it in red I think that did more for Derry to give
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him proficiency than any learning to read curriculum you know and then my dad who who was an educator he would say
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don't worry about it the Greeks and Romans never taught their boys until they went through puberty like wait
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until he's 14 and the Brain starts growing again and so you know I had these influences that were telling me
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just to relax yeah and and that you know it helped because I was freaking out when my fourth grader couldn't read I
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was freaking out and we had you know all these people for as as hippie dippy as ohigh is The Homeschool Group was not
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like that The Homeschool Group was very much like teach them so they can get into a good University so the that's the
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The Homeschool influence I had around me was very it was much more that way in ohigh than it was in Ventura no that's
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interesting because I mean I definitely my parents from a very young age were kind of they instilled in me this like
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okay like here's kind of what life is going to look like right you're going to
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be a kid you're be at home with Mom and Dad and we're going to you know we're
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going to do all these things and you're going to go to school and you're going
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to all these things and then you're going to get turn 18 and you're going to
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graduate from high school and then you get to make a decision you get to either go to college or university or you're
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going to be a trade or you're going to get a job or you know whatever in the
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down line maybe you'll get married and maybe you'll have kids and maybe you'll
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do XYZ right and so they were kind of setting me up for that but yes I do remember some ohigh
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families also being very uh you're this is the path and you follow the path and
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the path is good you know um and the path does not work for everybody um I like um I know when I had Derry on he
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was just like we were talking about he had just he just graduated from college with a degree and so very different
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paths and that's okay it's like everybody's we all have our own path to
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walk right yeah and that's that's probably one of the hardest things is letting your kid make their own decision
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when you feel like well this is the path you should be on but but not trying to overly emphasize that I hear from my
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kids that I pressured them a lot to go to college and to get a degree like I heard that after the fact I didn't feel
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like I was doing that but but I wasn't it wasn't uh an option for me in my hom
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School journey is with the the with that group that we were with you did not go to college Christian college or or
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regular University and so I was like why would you not if you have the opportunity why would you not get a
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degree I couldn't understand that and um so I I mean I did my best to not pressure them but I have heard that I
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did pressure them so sorry kid I think it it's it's interesting now because we were talking about this a
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little bit um when you and I chatted a few weeks ago and even in my conversations with der it's like it's so
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interesting now because Darry and I were a decade out of high school um and like
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to look back and go okay like my parents did this and maybe I view it now as negatively but there's also this like
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level of like you also kind of have to be like my parent was also kind of just doing the best they possibly could right
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or what they thought was right right and while you don't feel like you were pressuring your kids okay but now it's
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great that they can communicate that to you and say okay hey this felt like this
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right and then hopefully as a parent you can also be receptive to the fact that's
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it's like okay this was like this and help encourage other parents or make changes in your own life um to kind of
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like alter that right and and it to be different um I don't know that's what I
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do with my parents as well like we have all these difficult conversations now about like well I don't like that we
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did this as kids you know I don't like that you pushed me to do this it's like
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but now we can I don't know work on it together and still have a relationship
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you know well one one thing your mom said which so resonated with me is just that you know she hadn't brought a super
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emotionally healthy version of herself to Parenting because we come and and that's the same with me like I did not
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have a lot of good tools and So you you're flying by the seat of your pants and you're doing some of in
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reaction to how you were raised you're like well I'm not going to do that and
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so you swing the other way right and but then you bring all this unconscious stuff like you you don't realize you're
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doing it but you're just you so want your kid to be okay that you you know but yeah you do your best with the
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tools you have and and prepping for this and and chatting with you like um I haven't watched Shiny Happy People but I
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I did a lot of I was I was reading a lot of things about that particular Institute and I know my mom had some
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involvement and something similar to that and and things like that and so as a 28-year-old guy now it's like
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I'm learning the things that my parents and my parents friends and my friends
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parents they went through these things right and they are unpacking so yeah there's there's generational trauma in
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there there's all these different things and I think now we're at a point
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hopefully in the world where we're at least starting to talk a lot more about
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these things and be open about them and that's um that's the difference I see
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with certain parents over other parents is the parents who are willing to be like okay I'm I'm learning I'm unpacking
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I'm healing right they tend to have still very good or at least some relationship with their kid um as
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opposed to the parents who are just stuck in the like no I did I did everything right and followed the rule
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book and whatever it's like their kids are leaving and they don't want anything
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to do with them anymore um and it's like are you surprised um to be real to be
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honest um so anyway so kudos to you and and Keith because I feel like you have relationship with your kids three of
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them live at home with you still um I know that's not for long but three of them are at home and it sounds like you
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guys get along decently well still well we I mean we've definitely had our times
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yeah definitely and and where you you just have to be like I'm sorry like I didn't realize and and I honestly like
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it's really hard and I'm I'm sure my kids could tell you that I get defensive
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and I'm like like I I didn't know that I was doing that like I'm sorry you know
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before I'm like okay you guys I'm sorry I'm actually sorry I definitely like it
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it rises up in me like I was doing my best you know yeah but you know you just have to say sorry and and go from there
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you know like you said try to talk about it again it's just I think it's being
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open and then for kids too like myself it's like I held a lot of things maybe
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over my parents sometimes that I was like once I got to a point of realizing that I was like well my parents were
00:24:14
doing the best they could and the best they knew how to and that's why I encourage people learn about what your
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parents went through learn about what you know your friends parents went through and why it maybe it helps you
00:24:25
kind of piece together the picture of like well why are they the way they are right and when you start to understand
00:24:30
that you go okay I I get it right a light bulb clicks on and it's like okay I I get it now and I understand why why
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my parent you know understanding why your parent chose to homeschool you understanding why your parent wanted you
00:24:41
to grow up in church understanding why your parent wanted to do XYZ you know it's like sure I get it now I understand
00:24:47
it I can accept it and then it's a healing Journey for all of us so yeah it's cathartic I mean even like
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listening to your other podcast you know parents of course I'm going to um understand more but the the other
00:25:04
students that you've interviewed it's it's it's very it's cathartic for sure
00:25:09
well thank you that's that's the hope the show started in a very like oh
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I just want to like you know fluffy catch up with people and then it's become a lot a lot deeper than that so
00:25:21
um which has been good I i' I'm hoping people find healing or something out of
00:25:26
this but 100% so so it sounds like around your fourth year of homeschooling was really where you kind of found it
00:25:34
sounds like your groove and like okay I kind of got this now but was there ever was there ever a point where you
00:25:41
actually were like okay I think I got this like I think I know what I'm doing
00:25:44
I feel even though things were changing like you said curriculums were changing and whatever but was there ever a point
00:25:50
where you were like okay I think I think I'm good I would say no okay I I never
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felt super confident I I mean I I would I would be so puzzled by families that would pick one thing like one curriculum
00:26:07
type and stick with it all the way through I had a cousin who did that there were several homeschool moms that
00:26:13
were like oh yeah we've stayed with such and such a curriculum we get the box of
00:26:17
books every year and all the things and I was like I can't imagine that I just
00:26:23
can't imagine not changing it up a lot because as as my kids needs change to
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change it up or we didn't like that particular thing so let's try something
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else so I and maybe that's a little bit about my personality I don't know I
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think I like to be able to count on something I I love a certain amount of structure but other like other structure
00:26:49
I hate I just chafe under it so my my youngest has told me recently that she thinks I have ADHD so I would have never
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thought that but I wasn't the best student um I did like like Hands-On learning and so I did kind of do that
00:27:07
more with my kids so I don't know I never felt confident we changed up all I
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mean hey I don't think my mom felt confident at any point even though I would say oh we found our groove around
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this point but I don't yeah I think there's that I think there's that
00:27:20
constant fear especially as a parent that it's like what if I'm really screwing this up like what if there's
00:27:25
just you know I'm setting them up for failure which is the exact opposite of
00:27:31
what you want to do right when it comes to you brought up like the kind of like Hands-On learning thing what uh is there
00:27:40
anything that sticks out in your brain where you're like okay I know this was I
00:27:43
mean you also to wear a homes school kids so maybe it wasn't so like out of the box thinking but like is there
00:27:48
anything that comes to your brain when you go okay like we did this and this was very like non-traditional school
00:27:54
style anything oh I would say reading out out loud to my kids all of them together okay and so that that also
00:28:02
plays into that kind of uh curriculum that we used a few things that were it was very literature-based and so you
00:28:09
would literally sit on the couch and all the kids would come and listen to um you
00:28:15
know a book on on science and it would be somebody's story and how this scientists
00:28:23
discovered you know something and we would read it together so my younger kids you know they might not even be in
00:28:29
grade school yet but they would sit and listen and um you know so yeah I would say that's not super traditional but it
00:28:39
is a homeschool thing my mom did and and so you're absorbing a lot and the little
00:28:45
kids maybe learn at a higher level and they just get part of it they might not get all of it but my two younger ones I
00:28:53
felt like they did they absorbed a ton um but it would be interesting now to quiz them on like what do you remember
00:29:01
from this because it might be totally different than what I thought they were getting you know so you said you would
00:29:06
read books that were maybe like maybe fiction or like a biography more of a story about somebody like in the science
00:29:14
realm right uh like Madame cury or something like that right where it was more of a story that would lead into
00:29:21
okay now we understand yes this aspect of whatever yeah but but some of the books were it
00:29:28
was part of the science curriculum that we were using and so it would talk about
00:29:34
like so and so did this scientific experiment and then this is what happened so but it wo the story their
00:29:41
life story into it so it BEC in my opinion it was more interesting just this is the scientific experiment that
00:29:48
came out of it absolutely I mean I like that I think it's so much better to learn through sometimes the lens of like
00:29:56
trying to see the world through the person uh as opposed to reading a textbook can just be very boring
00:30:03
daunting dry um yeah when my family we did a similar thing we would read all together and read like I remember
00:30:10
reading we were learn about lwis and Clark and we read a whole book that was kind of through the lens of sakaia and
00:30:16
and kind of experiencing that whole thing and yeah maybe the book wasn't 100% accurate but it was pretty close
00:30:22
you know and then we could kind of weave out you know and and carve out some of the stuff that maybe wasn't as accurate
00:30:28
WR and it just tied in with the textbook a lot nicer sometimes to be like okay I
00:30:32
I can picture this now um and I think that's sometimes the hardest thing about
00:30:37
learning is we have a learning system in our country right now that's very like
00:30:44
regurgitative right where it's just like you you learn it you just vomit it back
00:30:49
out and then you don't really ever have to deal with it again and and but when
00:30:53
you can tie things into something that people actually like care about well all of a sudden it's like going to stick a
00:30:58
lot more with people than just kind of this like regurgitative mess right and sure oh
00:31:05
yeah um yeah but that was but it's interesting because while that's important when I got to college I
00:31:14
realized that I had to learn how to just like regurgitate information very quickly because it was vastly different
00:31:20
because I was like I can't give a crap about any of this stuff anymore because
00:31:24
it was everything was so much faster um where I was like I just have to be able to like memorize it for 24 hours put put
00:31:31
it down on paper get an A on the test and move on like yeah and part of life is like that like we eventually they
00:31:38
were taking classes at Ventura College and so you just had to eek it out and you did get timed on stuff and I I very
00:31:47
much stayed away from that because I thought it produced so much anxiety like the time test but eventually they did
00:31:53
have to do some of that I did want to ask you about that too because your kids were some of I know it wasn't uncommon
00:32:00
for The Homeschool kids to go take classes at VC but within I don't even I don't even say within the hes School
00:32:08
group it was UN or in the ohigh valley it was uncommon but I I didn't do that
00:32:12
but what at what point did you kind of make that decision of like okay hey they're going to go take this class at
00:32:17
VC or like what led to to that I think necessity because I couldn't teach them
00:32:25
the like upper level anything okay and and then it was the dual enroll thing and that they could go to VC for free
00:32:33
and then get those high school credits so so with Dair it was we started later because I was still homeschooling all
00:32:41
the younger ones and it just was impr practical to drive him there but so I think he was about 16 or something when
00:32:48
he started taking classes and so like he could get art he could get um I think he
00:32:55
took a an English class I I don't remember all the things he took but but with my youngest I mean Mia was taking
00:33:02
uh cie was get I think cie had already graduated and was taking her GES so she was taking a math class and Mia took it
00:33:12
with her so MIA was way younger I think she was ninth grade and and it was so amazing because they had a great teacher
00:33:21
and I think they both I mean they could correct me here but I think they both went from feeling not super smart in
00:33:27
math to feeling like oh I love math because this teacher was so amazing and so they they took uh one summer it was
00:33:35
like a an accelerated uh class with two two classes in one over the summer um so
00:33:43
it it was mostly because I didn't feel at all qualified to teach those things
00:33:47
and why not get it free uh than going to like a private tutor and paying so much
00:33:53
money you know I mean group Solutions and Achieve had kind of built some of that like classroom set for a lot of us
00:33:58
but going I mean my first time ever entering a college class I was like I was overwhelmed I was like there's so
00:34:05
many people in here and like but it t i very quickly picked up the like okay this is how this functions but to have
00:34:12
done that in ninth grade I think would have I think it would have set me up even more
00:34:17
for success I guess um so that's good that's I don't know I I was I I don't
00:34:24
know I was just always interested why people chose to do that over uh you know because some people just stayed at home
00:34:30
like I did I just I was at home the whole time yeah but your mom your mom also had a college degree this is true
00:34:37
and so yeah and I think I always felt a little bit of that like impostor syndrome maybe like what am I doing I I
00:34:46
I'm very much a selftaught person and I think that's a the beauty of homeschooling like you
00:34:53
have to learn on your own because I mean in our family my mom had all these other
00:34:56
kids so we had to be self-taught to a certain extent and that that helps you in life quite a bit if you're a
00:35:04
self-starter and you go pursue things you're interested in um yeah so I just I
00:35:11
feel like I I had a little bit of that uh where I just didn't feel confident
00:35:17
like I don't I don't remember that math I I was okay at algebra but it' been so
00:35:21
many years that I was like let them do it and then they get the dual and roll thing and that was part of the maybe
00:35:29
where my kids felt pressured like go get started in college you can get these credits for free and then you're already
00:35:35
on your way to a degree so that could have been where some of the pressure was um I mean I think Mia feels
00:35:44
like I I just think it was good that she was with cie because I think it would have been super overwhelming for to
00:35:50
throw her into a math class by herself at 14 so Callie was a big buffer there because she'd been taking classes you
00:35:59
know for for as much as we had The Homeschool Group and we had friends and like we were not the unsocialized
00:36:04
homeschoolers that most people hear about there is still that like there's a real anxiety around
00:36:12
sometimes like entering into a classroom for the first time or being put in a situation where you're like okay I have
00:36:16
to kind of like be normal quote unquote I mean also ninth grade going to a college level
00:36:23
class probably a little bit overwhelming Community College is nice in that you get such a wide range of like anybody
00:36:31
and everybody is there there's high school kids to there's full-fledged adults in their 40s and 50s who are you
00:36:37
know finally fulfilling their dream of getting a degree so it's like um get a
00:36:42
little bit more of a gamut there but yeah but I don't know that's that's
00:36:48
interesting and Cali and Mia you guys are welcome to come on the show um I'm
00:36:51
going to throw that out here now if you felt like listening to your mom's interview but please come on the show
00:36:56
because um you can set your mom's uh story straight that's right I might not
00:37:02
listen to it but no I would have to I too curious that's been one of the cool
00:37:08
things about doing this show is getting to now not only talk to the kids who grew up with this but also now the
00:37:17
parents and getting to hear their side of things because I could sit here and complain
00:37:22
all day about my mom didn't do this or my mom did this poorly or whatever right
00:37:26
um but being able to hear a parent perspective on well I chose to do this because of X I push my kid to do this
00:37:33
because of Y um I think that's important and so thank you first of all for coming
00:37:39
on because it's not easy to get on camera and be willing to put yourself out there
00:37:47
um with that is there something that is there a piece of advice you would give a
00:37:52
parent who is maybe early in their homeschool career or thinking about homeschooling their kid that you're like
00:37:57
like if I had just known maybe this one thing it would have it would have changed things or it was or maybe it was
00:38:03
a piece of advice you had been given that you were just like okay this this made things a lot easier well I mean
00:38:10
honestly I think the more the healthier you are emotionally as a as a parent the
00:38:18
better you're going to do with your kids and that's I mean that's so loaded it's
00:38:22
so hard when you're raising little kids to like make time for therapy or make
00:38:28
time to uh process like hard stuff in your life but but I honestly feel like if we're not if we if we don't know how
00:38:37
to attune to them we're we're not going to do a good job and so I kind of you know I did try to be in therapy
00:38:47
back then but it was it was just a hard time to do it both like takes time it takes money it's expensive you don't
00:38:56
even I mean for me I didn't even know myself then I feel like I've gotten to
00:39:00
know myself much better after like 40 um but I would just say follow your gut follow your gut don't read all the books
00:39:11
that say you have to do this or that unless unless it like lines up with how you already feel in your gut because
00:39:19
it's I just feel like when I gave into peer pressure from other homeschool parents because there's a ton of it um I
00:39:27
made poorer decisions and when I when I like really um kind of focus on what felt right it went better and what felt
00:39:39
right to me was like being with my kids like sitting on the couch and and reading and spending the time and
00:39:50
um I know that's super like Hoy toyy but I I just feel like the more I would just say pay attention to
00:40:00
your kids pay attention to their their emotions and let them have big emotions I feel like I did not do a good job of
00:40:10
that I was always trying like it's okay it's okay rather than just like you're
00:40:14
upset it's okay to be upset you have these big feelings it's okay so I would
00:40:19
say don't be I I don't know it it's GNA so differ with each person but if I could go back
00:40:29
and be like forget the curriculum today my kid just needs to Vibe with me right now and you know so hippie it out dude
00:40:41
that would be my advice I love I love that advice that's that's great I think you said some
00:40:48
really powerful things there of just like being it I think the reason a lot of people
00:40:54
want to homeschool their kids well there's I think now there's really two
00:40:57
reasons but one of the main ones that I hear from people is they're like I I
00:41:01
just want to have a good relationship with my kids and whether that I think just being able to spend time with your
00:41:07
kids is important and and it's valuable and I think a lot of kids will look back
00:41:11
on that and go okay mom and dad cared about me and they cared about you know my emotions and my feelings and and it's
00:41:18
never too late that's the other thing it's never too late I mean my dad and I
00:41:21
can still hang out to this day um and it's not always been that way um so no that's super powerful the other thing
00:41:30
I wanted to ask you was about kind of the transition out of being a homeschool parent and
00:41:35
now all of your kids are graduated they're they're full-fledged adults like
00:41:41
to go from okay I'm not only I'm Mom I'm teacher I'm a wife I'm all these things
00:41:48
to okay like teaching is done now like what how was that transition for you like was there a morning period was
00:41:58
there uh like I'm unsure what to do now like I don't was it a was it a difficult
00:42:03
transition or do you feel like you had kind of like I don't know accepted it
00:42:08
building building up as as time went on well I think it it was pretty uh gradual
00:42:15
I uh when Mia so I just had Mia left and she was taking all of her classes at ventur college she was probably 16 at
00:42:24
the time and I started volunteering in at the church where I work now and and and so I would drop her off at
00:42:33
Ventura College and I'd go volunteer in the office doing administrative stuff
00:42:38
and then pick her up and we'd go home and so I was I was volunteering probably
00:42:42
three hours at a time a couple days a week and then that turned into a job I was offered like a 20-hour week job and
00:42:51
so it just it kind of gave me enough to do that I wasn't as aware of the season
00:42:56
was ending but then when it did end I think like there's definitely been this grieving of
00:43:04
like I'm done I my kids are raised and and then you start for me like I I think
00:43:11
of all the things I wish I'd done differently and which is a you know a spiral there um and so so anyway it was
00:43:20
gradual because I was volunteering and then it turned into a job and and so it was great and then you know they they
00:43:26
didn't need me at home and so I was at work half the time and and then it turned into a full-time job but um but
00:43:33
it was it was I kind of felt like God was nice to me and being like here's something for you to do so you're not
00:43:40
going to be a weepy like mom sitting at home in a puddle you know no I really just like I said I wanted to ask because
00:43:47
I think that I watched my Mom struggle with the transition out and if you want to hear
00:43:55
more about it go listen to the episode I did with my mom cuz it it's I it was
00:44:00
interesting I didn't think about I I hadn't thought about I went through
00:44:03
transitions right I moved to college and I was doing all these things but yeah her job essentially was going away so
00:44:09
it's nice that you kind of like like well we kind of just transitioned it just kind of this this pan you know
00:44:14
slowly panned out and this new thing kind of came in and it gave me some purpose and and that's important I think
00:44:22
because so many I've said this on the show before I think a lot of homeschool parents did
00:44:28
this the end goal was like get the kid to the end of high school and like then my job is done but nobody was prepping
00:44:35
for what was coming after so both the kids sometimes struggled because they were like I don't know where to go after
00:44:40
this and then I think the parents sometimes struggled because they were like well now I don't know where to go
00:44:44
after this um because that was it that was the end goal um and maybe it's easier for dads Because dads tend to
00:44:52
have a job that they're still working um but for moms I think finding that thing
00:44:58
that you have a passion for and being able to transition that and and still have kind
00:45:03
of this like purpose and meaning uh is important so that's not to say it's not
00:45:08
bumpy like yeah for sure bumpy like navigating an adult relationship with your kid and being knowing how to do it
00:45:16
because we we did and and honestly I think it's easier in a way if your kid goes
00:45:22
away um and then like Darry he was gone at 20 and and he got to work through a lot of his angst on his own and
00:45:33
sometimes that's a lot easier than your kid is in your house working through
00:45:36
their angst with you yeah and then your button heads a lot or whatever you know so yeah um and and it's also nice that
00:45:44
it happens one at a time like they turn 18 one at a time and you know so you grieve you grieve at different times and
00:45:53
it's you know so but I I love each of my kids and I think they're amazing humans
00:46:00
and I just you know there's so much I wish I could have I could go back and change with the knowledge and the tools
00:46:06
I have now not that I'm killing it now they will tell you I'm not but but I
00:46:12
feel like I'm like I'm becoming you know a healthier person little by little and so anyway hopefully
00:46:21
our adult relationships can can continue to grow and and be good you know it's so
00:46:27
crazy to me that I when I started the show I never I didn't expect parents to resonate with
00:46:34
it as much I was like this is really for the kids it's really for the 20year
00:46:40
olds and you know and some of the early 30 year olds um but I was like that's
00:46:45
that's who it's for and then I immediately started getting messages from parents yourself included who were
00:46:50
just like I'm also changing I'm learning I'm like growing and it's like oh okay
00:46:58
and it took me a minute because I was like I I'd already seen that in my parents but I didn't
00:47:03
really I don't know you sometimes think about other people's parents as just
00:47:07
like that's just who they are that's just you know they're they're you know
00:47:11
Ruth Brooks will always be Ruth Brooks in my eyes and not that you change like drastically in like person personality
00:47:17
or anything like that but it's so interesting to now hear from parents that it's like they are also evolving
00:47:24
you know they're also changing they're later stages of the life than I am and I
00:47:29
they can still help me they can still be there for me um in different ways so um
00:47:36
so thank you again for being vulnerable and and sharing your story with with us today I really appreciate it you too you
00:47:44
too you set the stage Jacob just with with the way you've been super vulnerable that's it's just it's an
00:47:51
amazing thing so I appreciate all you've shared thank you so much I will ask you this are there any
00:48:00
homeschool stories that we did not touch on that you're like oh my gosh this is
00:48:03
whether it's a cringey moment or just a like super happy moment or anything like
00:48:08
that um we're not going to talk about my red pants because that's that's been
00:48:12
beat to death on this but um here's your opportunity to embarrass your kids if
00:48:16
you want to um but I will say this while while you think about that the the Brooks house for me was always a very
00:48:23
safe place uh I played Airsoft there a lot community group with everybody there at their house it was wonderful it was
00:48:30
wonderful experiences always um and I don't really have any negatives about it
00:48:35
and I'm sure the house was not always rainbows and unicorns but um but I say
00:48:41
that to say that one of the the great things about being in a homeschool Community was families like the Brooks
00:48:48
family um like other families in kids who have been on the show they had safe places for us to hang out and to to to
00:48:56
grow as people and and it was amazing so thank you also for that oh for sure I'm
00:49:02
glad you felt that way I mean that's always that's always what I was going
00:49:06
for but so I would say like one of the best feelings for me was like you all you boys out there playing
00:49:16
Airsoft and then I remember this one time I think the guys were playing Airsoft and cie had a couple little
00:49:23
girlfriends over and they were kaying in the creek do you remember that I want to say I
00:49:30
remember that I remember kayaking in your creek and I yeah and I remember the girls would hang out sometimes yeah I
00:49:36
just don't know like if those happened at the same time but it for me as a mom
00:49:41
it was like no better feeling than to have all my kids around having fun and then their friends here you know at the
00:49:49
house too it was just such a a like fulfilled feeling I loved it but it just I thinking back I was like did they
00:49:58
kayak while the boys are playing Airsoft because s a little bit dangerous but I think it did happen once it's very
00:50:05
possible yeah and just said this SC the scene too the Brooks house is built almost on top of a river so there's a
00:50:13
river and brush and I know it looks very different now but it was like a jungle in their backyard so when we talk about
00:50:20
playing in the backyard it was like I mean we would joke it was like Vietnam like we crawling through brdes bushes
00:50:27
and all kinds of stuff but it was like some of the most fun was had in your backyard um I know for myself and for a
00:50:34
bunch of a bunch of homeschool kids so yeah there were be kids that showed up that I KN had no idea who they were but
00:50:42
they would heard about I was like oh that kid must be from like CB Valley or something like I would I'd only see them
00:50:50
at the airsoft battle yeah oh my gosh well Ruth thank you once again um before I close any last words anything
00:50:59
else I mean You' shared so much already but um well I would I would like to say
00:51:05
that if if my other kids come on they can say whatever they want about me and I will just suck it up and be like yes
00:51:13
this is your truth I didn't mean to screw you up but this is your truth no but but seriously I would hope that they
00:51:20
could come on and know that I will be fine with whatever they say because I was a I was I did not have it together
00:51:29
and anyway you should hear Mia mimic me okay Mia you gotta come on the show we're we're gonna we're gonna put you to
00:51:37
the test um yeah this and and that goes for any homeschoolers out there if you guys want to be on the show if you want
00:51:44
your parent to be on the show like reach out to me I mean I don't bite I promise
00:51:48
um there's two really great ways to do that you can either DM me on Instagram
00:51:52
that's exhs Club um or you can email me at exex [email protected] and just say hey
00:51:59
what's up I want to come on the show or if you don't want to come on the show
00:52:01
but you still want to share a story i' would love to hear that as well um aside
00:52:06
from that I also there's a survey down below I forgot to mention at the top of
00:52:09
the show survey at the top of the show it's a link it's got a couple questions
00:52:13
just about things we can do on the show better for you where we can build a community all those great things this
00:52:19
has been the exom schoolers club and uh yeah until next time I'll see you all
00:52:23
right peace [Music] [Music] [Music]