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What is good my exhies? It's your boy Jacob Gooden. We're back for another
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episode of the exhomeschoolers club and today I'm so stoked because my new ex-homie friend Lydia. Lydia is joining
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us. Hey Lydia, good >> to see you. >> Um it has been a little bit of a process
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to make this happen and that I'm not going to put it on you because it has been a mix of both of us. Both of our
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schedules have just been somewhat crazy of like getting on calls. You have a kid. I had a grandparent die. There was
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travel. There was sickness. There was all these things. So, it it's been a while to get this to happen, but we're
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finally making it happen. And we're going to share your homeschool story today. And I'm so excited.
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>> Thank you for having me. I'm really glad to be here. >> Well, let's um let's get right into it.
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Like, let's break it down. What was your homeschool experience like? How long
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were you homeschooled? Let's talk about siblings. where maybe you grew up homeschooled, like give us kind of the
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the overview of everything. >> Oh, for sure. So, what I like to tell people is that I was homeschooled K
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through 12. I'm the oldest of seven kids. And I really am describing my experience as being fun, light, and
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quiverful adjacent in the sense that my family was not like the Duggar family, right? We weren't wearing skirts. We
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weren't as extreme. We weren't involved in like ATI. Um, but we were still on
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the spectrum of families that were pursuing those ideals. And so we had the 15 passenger van, we had chickens, we
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had a garden, we were canning food, I was sewing modest skirts and dresses as one does. And um so we were very much in
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that sort of vision forum, aspirational, you know, homeschool, homestead lifestyle.
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>> I feel like I can semi-relate there. There's aspects of that that my mom
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really wanted. Like she always wanted chickens. She only had two kids. We did not need a 15 passenger van. We did not
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have a lot of land, but she like even to this day, she's like, "I want chickens."
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She's a huge like she gardens and stuff. We always had a garden and things like
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that, but she was always envious of my friends who had bigger plots of land and they had chickens and goats and all that
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kind of stuff. And so eventually I figured out we we figured out that I was like, "Mom, you're really good at the
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gardening stuff, so let's just trade produce with the people who have chickens and goats and we get and we'll
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be friends with them and we can go over and like enjoy that." Um, but yeah, and
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then you brought up the sewing thing, too. Oh my gosh. Like my sister and her friends like they would sew their own
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bathing suits and their own clothes and stuff like that and and kind of in that weird vein of like kind of dugger-ish
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but like not totally. It was it was very strange. Like I don't know >> in her pipeline, right?
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>> Yeah. Like where did that come from? I don't I don't know. Do you like
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>> was your mom encouraging that type of like behavior or what was the thing that
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you think was like stimulating that type of like almost there but like not quite
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there? So my mom actually majored in home economics. So that was her college education. And to my mom's credit, she
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can do pretty much anything that she sets her mind to. So like she made yogurt, she was making, you know, she
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was canning everything. She can fix things. She's an excellent quilter and she knits and she crochets. So like she
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already has those skills and capabilities. And then of course being within homesteading homeschool spaces,
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it values women having these kind of like feminine or what they would call feminine talents. And so I have a very
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distinct memory of being at the homeschool convention, of course, and I was sitting in the back and I was
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crossstitching something while I was listening to Anna, Sophia, and Elizabeth Botkin talk about stay-at-home
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daughters. So, kind of a nice little snapshot of my homeschool experience there.
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>> For sure. No. Did you Did you say what state you kind of grew up in? Cuz that's
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something I've been kind of exploring with people now, too, is like where did
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you grow up? because I think that also helps impact a little bit of like our homeschool experiences.
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>> Oh, no, for sure. So, my home state is Virginia. I actually live in Texas now,
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but my family is about 2 hours south of Patrick Henry College and the headquarters for HSLDA, which is the
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homeschool legal defense association. And um I think that Virginia is one of the states that has the fewest
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homeschool regulations. I mean, in large part due to the impact of HSLDA. Um, so
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there was a large homeschool community in my in my area. Um, also if anyone's
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familiar with Joel Salatin, I don't want to completely dox myself, but um, that's
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kind of, you know, I grew up in the Shannondoa Valley, so a lot of homeschool influence and a lot of like
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people who are trying to separate from the mainstream crowd and sort of live this pseudoagrarian
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semiself-sufficient lifestyle, I guess. Yeah, it is kind of this weird like thing that I've realized
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with homeschoolers is like it's it's like kind of this like granola mom lifestyle that now like to some degree
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like gets associated I think more with like the left a little bit but like it's
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like this weird pipeline of like growing up I viewed that as like very conservative and very like right-wing.
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It was just like smaller government or like even more libertarian is like very small government like we don't want them
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involved in our education. those types of those were the things I was seeing and that's it sounds like what you're
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describing uh your experience being like >> our family was very crunchy but not in
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like a treehugging liberal way but in like >> a far far right way and I I feel like
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I've heard someone say that the farther right you go the closer you get to being
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part of the left so >> it's a circle it's a giant circle at some point you flip over
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>> you're gone >> so let's talk a little bit about and you might not know the answer to this, but
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like is there do you know the reasons that your parents decided to homeschool you and your siblings or or is that
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still a mystery? And then like when it comes to the actual schooling itself, like were you following curriculum? Was
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your mom making it up as she went along? Like what did that look like? >> Sure. So in my parents early marriage,
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they were attending a Sovereign Grace church, which um used to be called People of Destiny International. And
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basically it's the church denomination or church planting network that Joshua
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Harris was part of. So he's the guy who wrote Ike is Dane and Goodbye. And so
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even from my earliest childhood memories, I remember that there were lots of large families in the church
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that we were part of. So there was a family that had 10 kids. I think there were several families that had at least
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five kids. And um the couple that was mentoring my mom and dad were homeschoolers. And so I think that for
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my parents, they like the church dynamic was already um really leaning into homeschooling even in like the mid '9s.
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And so I think that's really what influenced my parents. They saw all these families around them homeschooling
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and they were kind of like drawn to that. And I think the other things that they've mentioned through the years um I
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know that they wanted us to have a biblical worldview. And I think especially my dad like was reading
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material about how public schools are focused on Marxism and feminism and secular humanism. And so they wanted us
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to have a Christian education. Um and I I mean I think they also appreciated the
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freedom of homeschooling. Um some of the you know it's it's just a more relaxed
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lifestyle and those were really the things that drew them. But you know we haven't had really pointed discussions
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about like why did you choose homeschooling? Right? Those are sort of the things that have flown out of
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conversation organically or the things that I've heard them say through the years. And I think that as you know the
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as they were involved in the homeschooling community over time, I think that um they really started to
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sort of adapt some of the like talking points for better for like from the top of the homeschool pyramid about how you
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know, oh, Republicans are going to have more children and we're going to educate
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all of these children to be Republican voters and we're going to take back America for Christ, right? Right.
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>> Um, but really I mean I would say the major reasons that you hear conservative
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homeschool parents talk about homeschooling like those were my parents motivations as well.
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>> Yeah, there is kind of that like let's build an army. Um, and in in a lot of
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ways and like I remember even uh you brought up Josh Harris like I I'm more a
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product of the 2000s and the 2010s and so the his younger brothers Alex and Brett were more of the influence in the
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do hard things movement. I remember going to those conferences and seeing, you know, at 16 you should be sailing
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across the world. I remember being like, I'm a pathetic 16-year-old. I'm doing
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nothing um >> for for God, you know, and it's like, yeah, I'm just actually existing as a
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16-year-old and being normal. Um but those kind of messages of like, you know, we are a movement and we like we
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stick together and we stand by each other and like some of those things are not necessarily bad talking points. like
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there is obviously power and community and things like that, but but some but the the motivations at the core of a lot
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of those things were a little bit scary now to look at. And so, >> well, and you know, you talk about Alex
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and Brett Harris and I think that they were in such a unique position because, you know, Josh Harris had already
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experienced this like national success being in the national limelight. And I mean, Greg Harris, their dad, is one of
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the forerunners of homeschooling, you know, large on a national scale. And so, I think they were speaking to
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homeschoolers who were very isolated, whose parents probably did not have as much authority and leverage. And so they
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were sort of like in this really unique spot to talk about how teenagers are supposed to be doing all these massive
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things, but they already had this path laid out for them, right? They already had this model of what that should look
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like. And I think did one or both of them go to Harvard ultimately. >> That's a great question. I know at least
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one of them did. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Because one of them is a is a
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lawyer, I believe, and um yeah, popped up recently in uh the Shiny Happy People documentary uh at some point. So yeah,
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it's a little uh a little shock there. Uh >> yeah, I got a little jump scare like
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whoa. >> Yeah. Um I'm curious a little bit about like an actual school day at your house
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because like I know from from my experience like my mom did a really I think she did a decent job at like
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finding curriculums that worked for us, but she also had a very >> she had a good idea of wanting us to be
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well-rounded. There was always this drive of like my kids need to be able to do whatever they want when they turn 18.
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So if they want to go to college, if they want to go to trade school, if they want to just like get married and have
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kids, like whatever they want to do, they need to be ready to do that. >> Yeah.
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>> And so I think she did a decent job of of really making sure we were wellrounded in that way. Now I've talked
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to other homeschoolers who their parents maybe didn't have that, right? They you
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know their their curriculum was more, hey, you're going to be a stay at home
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mother or for the boys is you're going to go out and you got to get a job and
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those type or trade school or whatever. And so I'm curious like how was curriculum in your house and how was
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like was there a structure or was it very like loosey goosey? >> That's great. That's a great question.
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So I'm really grateful for my homeschool education because I've heard more and
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more stories from c from people who are saying my mom didn't structure my education at all. I had no idea what
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grade I was in. My parents didn't care that my brother was dyslexic and couldn't read. My mom really did put a
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lot of effort into making sure that we were studying things at a at an age appropriate grade level and we also took
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standardized tests every year so she could always track and see okay like here's the standardized test for
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Virginia here's where my kids are are measuring up and so I'm really I'm
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really grateful for that because again it's not across you know that's not
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something that happens for homeschoolers across the board and also in Virginia homeschoolers can be religiously exempt
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so they don't even have to file with the state they don't even have to say hey
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I'm going to homeschool my kids And my mom always filed every year saying, "Hey, I'm going to be homeschooling my
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kids." And she would also submit like a packet of paperwork um to the local
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school superintendent. Um which again I'm so grateful for. And then when I finished high school um I took the preat
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and the SAT and um so you know, so I was always on course to go to college. Um I
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also took a lot of advanced classes. So I was taking community college classes. I was doing the dual enrollment classes
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and I also took um AP tests. like I was trying to klep out of different subjects. Um, and so in that sense, I'm
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really grateful. I think that stereotypically, like a lot of other homeschoolers, my math education was
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like the biggest educational gap in my experience overall. Um, so like I said, I'm the oldest of seven and by the time
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that my parents got to my two youngest siblings, they sort of had it figured out a little more. So my two youngest
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siblings are actually um they did very well in math. Youngest sibling is an engineer, you know, so they're they're
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doing great. I would say though that um I think the one of the failures of my homeschool education is that even though
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I was doing well educationally, I was reading all of this content from stay-at-home daughters and I was
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reading, you know, all of the content from places like Vision Forum. And so I really didn't value education and I
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didn't value higher education. And so I feel like the value of my homeschooling
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years kind of ended at the point that I graduated. Um and I did go to college. I
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went to Grove City College. I majored in um entrepreneurship. So I do have a college degree, but I like the time that
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I was in college, it was not being directed towards something. It was just sort of like I'm getting an education so
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that I can be, you know, a good wife and mother. And um I would say that was a major probably the the major failing of
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my homeschool experience. >> I hate this term, but like you know, people talk about like especially
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especially women going to college to like find a man. Like it's it's to get
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married and have kids. It's like, yeah, okay, there's the degree part of it, but
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it doesn't really matter what I major in because like I'm here to find a guy and
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to get married and have kids. Like, was that kind of >> Yeah. Yes. Two thumbs. Yes. Um, so when
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I was in college, I was planning to work with um uh non-government organ or what's the word? NOS's non-government
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organizations. Nonprofit. I'm sorry, my brain is a little slow. Um, I was planning to work with nonprofits that
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fight poverty in international spaces. And so, um, I was very much planning to be a missionary. I was going to go
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overseas, right? I wasn't thinking, oh, I need to support myself financially,
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like what's the best career path that I can do to like actually pay my own bills. Um, and really in the back of my
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mind, I was waiting for someone to ask me out. I was waiting to find the man that I was going to marry who was going
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to kind of cover all of the bills financially and like provide for our household while I immediately started
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having children. and uh well didn't happen so oh well I guess >> yeah sometimes the best laid plans go
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right out the window and it's like >> yeah and you're like oh crap what am I
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supposed to do now >> yeah that was literally the story of of my 20s like the entire decade of my 20s
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>> but I'm sure we'll get to that later >> yeah I want to I want to get into that
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for sure um I'm I'm curious a little bit about two things one can you talk a
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little bit about what vision forum is for for people who don't know um because
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like even for me like I I still view it very much as like a catalog of like boy toys and girl toys and I know that it's
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not that. It also was curriculum and things like that but like that's what I
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remember as a kid but can I think you were a little bit more involved with Vision Forum stuff than I was. So what
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is Vision Forum for those who don't know? >> Sure. So Vision Forum was founded I
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think in the late 90s and basically it was one of those like it was a ministry but also it was a business. So, it was
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this glossy catalog that you would get in the mail and the founder, Doug Phillips, would arrange his children in
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these beautiful, historically accurate costumes. And the catalog was basically a model for family life. It was this
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aspiration for mothers and fathers to pick up the mantle of godly womanhood and biblical manhood. And they sort of
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branched off, they branched people off into these very defined gender roles. And so if you were a woman, you would
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get these beautiful classic flowery books of poetry extolling the values of nurturing femininity and you know, oh
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the classic val, you know, the classic value of beauty and women. And then if you were a man, you would get these um
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stories of historic valor and you know, manly characters that you could aspire to like Teddy Roosevelt. And then of
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course the Boys and Girls toys were sort of a trickle down of that effect. And another interesting layer is that um
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vision form was explicitly um dominionist and it had this um Christian reconstructionist value and this idea
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that Christian homeschool families were going to take America back for Christ. And so a lot of the material was very
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historic um historically focused on you know figures like the pilgrims um who came across in the Mayflower and it was
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focused on you know George Washington and Stonewall Jackson and um you know Robert E.
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right civil war values and this idea that you know Christian homeschool families they're going to have eight
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children that are going to present you know biblical masculinity and bib biblical femininity and oh you know this
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just kind of like picturesque world and because of Doug Phillip's aesthetic vision it was beautiful it was I mean
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the catalog was beautiful the products were beautiful um but it was just kind of this like
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gassy like Yeah. >> I don't know if that makes sense. >> No, it does. It does because like I'm
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thinking about like, you know, a lot of the things that I got from that catalog very like war centric type things for
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boys and like I I was I loved like Revolutionary War history, Civil War history. Like I did a whole I did a
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whole year of my high school just studying wars. Um and I know that some of the Vision Forum like books and stuff
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played a role. Um it was not exclusively that like we did go down other avenues.
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So you know there is also kind of that whitewashing effect of some of those books unfortunately. Um and you got to
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go see searching elsewhere for some more uh reality based um historical uh fiction and just biographies and things
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like that. But um but yeah, definitely like this big push for sure of like yeah, this is what boys are into and
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like they like war and they like these strong male figures and things like that. And so it's it's just funny
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because like I also like really enjoyed some of the books that like my sister had too, you know, like um and that were
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>> series. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Stuff like that where it's just like I I don't know like
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I just enjoyed stories I think in general. So it was like >> Jonathan Park.
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>> Um. Yes. Yeah. Things like that. And so it's like I I I don't know. It's it's
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such a weird thing to think of everything as being so divided because also my family like my my parents just
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didn't really I don't think intentionally push it ever to be like that. And so like we listen like my
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sister listened to the stuff I listened to and and read books that I read and things like that. um you know, it still
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was there definitely some of that like messaging of like boys will be boys and girls will be girls and that kind of a
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thing. But yeah, um where was I going to go with this? Um >> do you have anything to add to that
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before I shift us? >> Um I think an important qualification is that there were families around us who
00:19:04
like were very bought into vision forum. One of my friends in particular, she and
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her dad would go to the daddy daughter retreat tea weekend extravaganza and my parents were never that bought in. Um,
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but we still had a lot of the vision for materials. And I think one of the ways that homeschool culture often fails is
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that parents will bring in material that they don't filter through or that they
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don't discuss with their kids and then the child. So like I projected the most
00:19:32
intense conservative values onto my parents without actually talking about those values with them. So when I was
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reading stuff from Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Bodkin, I was projecting that onto my father. And especially some of
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the weird, I'm going to say semi incestuous stuff that was coming from people like Doug Phillips where they're
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talking about how, you know, daughters need to um basically platform their father as a sort of like pseudo husband
00:19:57
figure. Like that is stuff that I was ingesting and believing and kind of accepting, but I wasn't talking about it
00:20:04
with my parents, but they were the ones who bought me the materials. If that makes sense.
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>> 100%. That makes sense. Cuz there there are so many books in my life that my
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par, you know, I was just going through something and my parents were like, "Oh,
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here's a book that somebody recommended or that we saw that is for you."
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>> They never read the book. They don't know >> who, you know, who wrote it. Like, it's
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funny. Everyone always talks about I Kiss Dating Goodbye being this big book that like influenced their dating
00:20:31
culture. Like for me that book was not as significant as one of his later books that was about um lust. And I'm blanking
00:20:38
on the name of it. >> Oh. Um not even a hint. >> Uh had like the blue cover with like a
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little drop of water. >> Maybe that one. I'm trying to remember, but um it it had two different names. I
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I did when I did my I dating goodbye series, I had gone through all of his books and like this book had come out
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twice. It was a very short run, but that book had such a significant impact on how I viewed like lust and love and and
00:21:05
purity culture in general. And it really now talking about it with my parents, they're like, "You believed what?" You
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know, and I'm like, "You didn't read this book before you gave it to me."
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Right? And so, um, >> here's some material. >> Exactly. And so like to your point, I
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think as a parent, I'm sure there's so much you have to like filter through on a
00:21:27
daily basis just in general that like you tack on like having eight kids. You tack on then also educating them in the
00:21:35
home. You tack on having the responsibilities of like dinner's got to be on the table and and chores have to
00:21:40
be done and all these different things. It is is going to be impossible to filter through everything,
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but you do have a a responsibility to like be able to have those conversations with your kids around like, you know,
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young Lydia should have been should have felt comfortable to go to her parents and say, "Hey, like I'm reading this
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book. This is what it's saying." You know, and then be like, "Whoa, whoa,
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whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on here?" >> Yeah. I'm um I wanted to ask before we
00:22:08
shift into kind of some of the later years, but like you talked about homeschool community being somewhat big
00:22:14
and being influential in your parents starting to homeschool. And so one of the big things with homeschooling is
00:22:20
always this like isolation and like antisocialization type of thing, but you're talking about growing up in a
00:22:25
church where homeschool kids were it seems like a dime a dozen. Um and so like did you have community? Did you
00:22:33
guys do co-ops? Did you have um some type of outlet where it was like, okay, we're outside of the house now. We h we
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have friends like outside of my siblings kind of a thing. >> That's a great question. I have friends.
00:22:46
Um so, um when I was 12, we joined a homeschool co-op and up to that point, we had been part of a local homeschool
00:22:52
group, which was basically like an affiliate, an association of homeschool families in the area. And I wish I knew
00:22:59
I, you know, I was going through my email recently and I was trying to find like old emails and trying to find some
00:23:04
kind of roster because I don't remember how many families it was. I want to say
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maybe 40 or 50 families in the area that were part of this homeschool group and they would plan, you know, like there
00:23:16
would be like a skate day where, you know, every every year there would be like the yearly, you know, we're all
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going to go to the skate rink, we're all going to roll, you know, roller skate
00:23:24
together. Um, they would also plan field trips. there would be a yearly talent show. Um but like it wasn't necessarily
00:23:30
like structured educationally um you know like a co-op. So then when I was 12 we joined a co-op and um that was great.
00:23:38
I was thrilled. Um I was in seventh grade and so I was like oh my gosh this is going to feel like going to school. I
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also remember that I bought a backpack for the first time which I was like oh my god this is incredible. I have a
00:23:49
backpack. Um, and so, you know, it would it would meet once a week and again, I mean, better than nothing. Um, but I
00:23:57
think that our family really, um, like my parents really saw co-op and church as our social events. So, if we
00:24:08
got to see our friends at co-op, that was they were like, "Oh, you've had time
00:24:11
with your peers." Um, and then me and my siblings also took music lessons, which
00:24:15
was something that my parents prioritized. So, we would usually we would leave the house for we would leave
00:24:19
the house for music lessons and then we would leave the house to go to co-op and
00:24:23
co-op would be like an all day thing and then, you know, Sunday we would go to church. Um, and so I think because there
00:24:30
were so many of us, they really didn't have the capacity to help us facilitate
00:24:33
like one-on-one friendships. And also just the number of people that we actually had access to was pretty low.
00:24:39
And so it's difficult because I know that there are homeschoolers who literally are just completely isolated.
00:24:44
like they're at home, they're not going to the library, they go to church,
00:24:47
they're not part of co-ops. And so like we were not as isolated as some of the
00:24:52
like horror stories that I've heard. Um but most of our peer time was really
00:24:57
only in these kind of structured group activities. And I know people will say like, well, what do you think public
00:25:02
education is? Like public education is like a structured, you know, a structured peer activity. Um but like
00:25:09
because there were so many of us, they really couldn't um you know, like there
00:25:13
weren't friend dates. There weren't playg groups, there weren't, you know,
00:25:16
especially when I was younger. I remember um you know being in elementary school and really at that point we
00:25:22
weren't part of a co-op and so any um time that I had with friends like I had
00:25:27
to initiate. It wasn't something that my parents were sort of helping to manage
00:25:30
if that makes sense. >> I don't know. I'm kind of getting lost in my in my thoughts here. Does that
00:25:34
does that answer your question? >> That totally does because I think there
00:25:37
there's like the way I kind of see it is like there is the homeschool isolation,
00:25:42
right? of like you your family genuinely locks themselves away in a cabin in the
00:25:46
woods type of situation and you go to town, you know, it's like Little House
00:25:50
on the Prairie, you go to town once a month to go to Costco. >> Yeah, exactly.
00:25:54
>> Um, and then I feel like there's kind of the situation like you're talking about
00:25:57
where it's like we are involved in with other families in these situations. And
00:26:02
so our kids do know how to socialize and they have friends, quote unquote friends, but there's not necessarily,
00:26:08
like you were saying, the one-on-one like >> my best friend is coming over and we're
00:26:12
having a sleepover or they're coming for dinner or I'm going to their house and
00:26:15
those types of things. >> And then there is I think a little bit and and public school can be like that
00:26:21
too. Um, but and then I think there are the deeper friendships of like the parents then facilitating like, hey, our
00:26:27
kids should have a playd date and they should be one-on-one. And that's how you
00:26:30
build like the best friend, you know, where you build your close-knit group. And so it's like,
00:26:36
>> you know, I I see all three of those playing out in the homeschool world. And
00:26:40
it's just kind of different per person. And so even in like the situation like
00:26:43
you had, it's like I still view that as like an isolating experience to some.
00:26:47
And um because you maybe don't have those friends that like I still have my friends that I'm like we've been best
00:26:54
friends since >> I don't know we were like 12 kind of a thing, you know, and like we still talk
00:26:58
to this day. Um but I have parents who maybe helped facilitate some of those things that actually made that happen,
00:27:05
right? And encouraged like >> you know if I didn't see my buddy Ben at
00:27:09
least once a week >> one-on-one like that was like that was a bad week, you know, um kind of a thing.
00:27:15
And so there is kind of >> I think that there was just a disconnect between like what my parents thought was
00:27:22
socialization and what we really needed as socialization. I remember one specific conversation where I think I
00:27:29
was in high school, my brother was also in high school and my brother was saying, "Hey mom, you know, such and
00:27:35
such person is having a birthday party. I really want to go. I haven't seen him
00:27:38
for a long time." And my mom said, "You just saw him at co-op." And you know, so
00:27:44
there's kind of this it's like, oh, if you had facetime with a person, then
00:27:49
that is quality socialization time or that's quality hang time. And you know,
00:27:53
I think that my parents like they were just being pulled in so many different directions that they just, you know,
00:27:58
like they didn't have the capacity to be like, "Okay, I'm going to drive you
00:28:01
here. I'm going to drive you here." Um because I remember a big a big factor in
00:28:05
whether or not we got to see people and hang out with them was that we had to arrange our own rides because we were
00:28:09
like 45 minutes away from most of the people that we were friends with and they were too. So like some of our
00:28:14
friends we were literally an hour driving distance from them and you know like the the the actual practical
00:28:21
details of like is your mom going to pick them up? Am I going to pick them up? Like everything had to be
00:28:25
coordinated in a way that was like you know feasible for my parents. They just they couldn't handle it.
00:28:33
>> Yeah. I mean, I think about like, you know, like I said, I'm I'm one of two.
00:28:38
So, like my parents had a much easier time, I think, being able to be like, "Oh, yeah, like Jacob can go do this or,
00:28:44
you know, my sister Madison, she can go do this thing, you know, and it's easy.
00:28:48
We can drive them to that or whatever." And then there was >> I remember with certain families cuz I
00:28:53
had friends who were, you know, one of 12 kids, one of like you, seven kids, you know, and things like that. There
00:28:58
was a lot of work that even for me I was like this shouldn't be this this hard to
00:29:03
like figure out with you and they're like no you don't understand like we
00:29:05
have to coordinate a ride I don't have a license like or or even if they do have
00:29:09
a license like there's only so many cars at the house like we have to you know
00:29:13
work all this out and I'm like oh my gosh like your life must be a living nightmare because once I got once I
00:29:18
turned 16 I had a car I had access to a car and like in you know and we were a homeschooled family so that meant my mom
00:29:25
didn't go everywhere all the time so even if like my car was one of the cars
00:29:29
was down like there was usually some way to get somewhere. We also lived biking distance to some people, you know,
00:29:35
things like that. So, I mean it there's a lot of factors that go into it, but
00:29:39
>> I definitely I I think I see I I've seen some of what you're talking about play
00:29:44
out and some of my friends. Um, the other question I had kind of about like the big family thing and and this is
00:29:51
something I've seen play out >> with other people but not everybody is
00:29:56
the idea that as the older siblings that the older siblings take roles and responsibility of raising the younger
00:30:02
siblings >> and was your family at all like that or did you guys play a role in being maybe
00:30:09
teacher or like mom dad in any situations? >> Yes. Yes. very much so. Um, so I would say that I
00:30:20
naturally tended to be more nurturing. I naturally like my personality tended to
00:30:24
be more motherly. And so with my siblings, like it was very easy for me to fall into this role of like caretaker
00:30:30
and sort of like second mother and this nurturing person. And then when I got into high school and I was reading stuff
00:30:37
from vision forum and it was encouraging this idea that like oh as a daughter you
00:30:42
know your role is to support your parents' vision and to support the home. And it sort of became this ideological
00:30:49
framework for the way that I'd already been functioning in my family. And you
00:30:54
know, again, I think that oldest daughters tend to have um more responsible personalities or more
00:30:59
responsible um like they tend to have this personality that's sort of this like um mature for their age, you know,
00:31:06
advanced in years. And so I think that I probably would have filled that role even if I didn't have six younger
00:31:13
siblings. Like if id only had two siblings, I probably still would have been sort of like a motherly nurturing
00:31:18
pos, you know, person. Um, but being within the space of quiverful ideology and being the oldest of seven really
00:31:27
really just kind of like amplified that position for me and it's something that
00:31:30
I got really positive feedback for. Like people would ask my mom, this is so uncomfortable for me to think about now.
00:31:38
Um, but people would ask my mom like, "Oh my goodness, like Lydia is so obedient and she's so helpful. Like what
00:31:43
did you do as a parent to make her that way?" and um you know so it's kind of
00:31:50
like this I'm I can't think of the right phrase or the right word but it was sort
00:31:53
of this like um positive like self-fulfilling um situation I guess like it just kind
00:32:00
of I get positive feedback for something that I'm already naturally inclined to
00:32:04
do and then of course you know I'm reading books >> that encourage me to be you know in this
00:32:10
role um so yeah I mean that was it was very true of my experience um >> it feeds itself and then you you just
00:32:17
continue to do the same thing because you're like, "Oh, I'm getting positive
00:32:20
feedback, so >> I'll lean in heavier to that." I think naturally as as oldest kids, like we
00:32:26
have that like protective of younger siblings type scenario. Like I even see it within like just my family in
00:32:33
general. I'm also like the oldest grandson. Like I like with my cousins like there is this weird role of
00:32:38
responsibility I think we sometimes put on ourselves of like >> I'm the leader of this group. And so to
00:32:43
your point, then you feed that with the other side of it of like, oh well, we also need you to do all of these, you
00:32:49
know, motherly activities. This is when you should be practicing those things. Like,
00:32:54
>> you know, I also had people tell me like, oh, you're such an obedient kid.
00:32:57
And I'm like, I mean, I guess like I don't know. Like I thought I was a bad
00:33:02
kid half the time, >> you know? But I knew all of the things that I was like the rules I was breaking
00:33:07
and getting away with. Um, but like you know to everyone else it's like you look
00:33:12
like the perfect little angel, right? And they're wanting their kids to be the
00:33:15
same and it's like >> years of therapy later. You're like was that actually good for me?
00:33:21
>> Yeah. Exactly. So, I want to shift a little bit into like let's talk about
00:33:25
college and adulthood and like coming out of >> that scenario because I think launching
00:33:31
into the real world is like is a culture shock for a lot of homesooled kids and especially like something that I've seen
00:33:39
repeatedly happen for people is a little bit of like a getting stuck in the college years of like not fully knowing
00:33:47
how to step outside of the homeschool world. And so it's like one leg one leg
00:33:51
one leg in one leg out kind of a situation and sometimes that like bubble pops later for them. And so I'm curious
00:33:58
just like your experience of like you said you went to college so like was that a culture shock? Like how was how
00:34:03
was that experience for you? >> So just right off the bat I'm grateful
00:34:07
that I went to school because I mean I was reading again I was reading material that did not value higher education for
00:34:13
women. And so I, you know, I think if my parents had wanted me to be a stay-at-home daughter and not go to
00:34:19
college and continue living at home, I would have been open to that idea. And so I'm really grateful. I went to Grove
00:34:25
City College, which is a small conservative liberal arts school north of Pittsburgh. And what's really funny
00:34:31
to me is that I experienced so much culture shock even though I was going to an extremely conservative Christian
00:34:37
school. And uh, you know, so that just says a lot about my experience within homeschooling. um you know because I had
00:34:44
never been surrounded by my peers before. I had never been surrounded by this many people who were my same age
00:34:49
and I had no idea how to relate to them. Um I mean I didn't have an iPod. It you
00:34:53
know I started school in 2009. Um I did a gap year between when I graduated high
00:34:58
school and then when I started school um because I did like a a short ministry internship of course. Uh but yeah I mean
00:35:05
I didn't have an iPod. Um I really did not know how to relate to my peers. I
00:35:09
didn't know how to build friendships with women my own age. much less talk to
00:35:13
guys my own age. Um I couldn't relate to any of their cultural touch points. The
00:35:18
clothes that I was wearing were um pretty out ofd like they were extremely modest. And so it was I mean it was it
00:35:27
was difficult. It was very difficult. Um I I mean I really shudder to think about
00:35:31
what would have happened if I had gone to like a big state school uh with with kids who were admittedly
00:35:38
more you know like worldly and secular. Um, I think if I'd gone to a secular
00:35:43
school, it probably would have helped accelerate my homeschool deconstruction. So, in some ways, I wish that I had gone
00:35:49
to, you know, more of a like a standard like secular school. Um, but it really, I mean, I think academically I was
00:35:57
prepared. Um, unfortunately, my math education became a huge a huge issue. And um I mean that would be another
00:36:05
story for another time. But overall, I mean I did well academically, but socially it just it was a huge like it
00:36:12
was like I don't know how to do this. I don't know. This is all new to me. Um
00:36:16
but I really really wanted like I desperately wanted to know how to connect with people to learn how to fit
00:36:22
in. I almost felt like I was a fish in a fishbowl and the fishbowl is like in the
00:36:27
ocean but the barrier there's like this clear barrier and I was like I know there's a barrier but I don't know how
00:36:33
to break through it and I want to feel normal and I want to relate to people but there's just I mean there were so
00:36:38
many things at that point that at that point I did not know that I had homeschool trauma like I couldn't name
00:36:44
that it was trauma. I didn't know the the aspects of the trauma. Um and so just I mean it was it was really
00:36:51
difficult. Yeah, like I like you, I also I went to conservative Christian college
00:36:56
and so like it was kind of this like stepping stone I feel like into the real world to some degree because there was
00:37:03
culture shock there. Um I was running into people and being like you believe what you watch what like your parents
00:37:10
let you watch Harry Potter like that's crazy. Um, yeah, stuff like that, like,
00:37:15
you know, they they let you listen to this type of music, like, you know, just insane stuff that is like not even it's
00:37:21
not bad. It's just it is what it is. And so I I had a buddy on the show and we
00:37:26
were talking about how it was very much like we took the youth group culture that we had grown up in and just put
00:37:33
that in college and that's what we stepped into. And so it was a little bit looser cuz we didn't have the parental
00:37:38
guidance aspect of it. And then we got into the real world and we were like that's when the bubble really burst for
00:37:44
us. And so >> I'm totally relating to you talking about being that fish in the fishbowl in
00:37:50
in the pond and having to figure out like there's an opening right above you.
00:37:53
You just have to swim up like but not really knowing how to do that. Right. And so I'm curious because like
00:38:00
something I've heard a lot of people talk about is like they you know it's
00:38:03
almost like um uh you have to watch what everyone else is doing and then just start to like mimic, right? And you
00:38:10
start to like so so I'm curious like for you was there anything that you were
00:38:14
like okay I'm like I'm seeing all these people do this or I'm hearing this. I
00:38:18
got to like go educate myself on this like thing and like okay that okay now I've taken that step now. Okay, now I
00:38:25
got to go educate myself on this thing. Was there stuff like that in college that you were like, "Okay, now I'm I'm
00:38:29
starting to get my grasp on things." >> So, that was not my experience in
00:38:33
college. Um, unfortunately, I think I still had a lot of um internal commitments to living a set aart
00:38:41
lifestyle and, you know, pursuing godliness. And so, I really I mean, I really didn't change at all in college
00:38:47
just because I didn't feel permission to and I also didn't know how to. And the
00:38:52
group of friends that I was part of in college was just as conservative as I was and in many ways even more
00:38:57
conservative. Um, and so I I really didn't start to break away from some of the like I'm going to say I'm going to
00:39:04
describe it as um I felt like I had a homeschool mom on my shoulder. Like you know how people have like the angel and
00:39:11
the devil. Like all through my 20s, I felt like I had this homeschool mom on my shoulder who was judging me and
00:39:16
judging my decisions and like judging the fact that I even wanted to like be more secular or even present as more
00:39:22
worldly. So, I really didn't start to change until my late 20s um if I'm being
00:39:26
honest. But I think that college was the space where I began to realize that, oh,
00:39:30
you know what? All of these kids that went to public school, they love God. They are not terrible people.
00:39:36
Um, oh my goodness, like this person is a better student than I am and they went
00:39:40
to public school. It really, you know, it really I would say that college was a space where I began to challenge the
00:39:46
notion of my specialness as a homeschooler. Um, that I was God's gift to the world because I'd been
00:39:52
homeschooled. It was sort of like the beginning, I guess. Um, but college was really not this place where I became a
00:39:59
completely different person. I mean, it's sort of it there was like the tiniest little crack.
00:40:04
Uh, but it wasn't this huge transformation, unfortunately. Now I'm out. Yeah.
00:40:33
Yes. Yeah. So, the moment for me was um sitting on the floor of a basement apartment. Um I was 25 and I had just
00:40:51
moved out of my parents house. And um so the nutshell version of my early 20s is
00:40:57
that I had planned to be a missionary. I was going to move overseas and serve the
00:41:00
Lord. I was raising support to be a missionary. And I was living with my parents and my siblings. And um I really
00:41:07
hadn't started to separate. And thankfully I had a good friend at church who also had been homeschooled, also
00:41:13
oldest of of I think eight children. And she saw how much I was struggling. And she said, "Lydia, if you want to move
00:41:18
out of your parents house, you can come and live with me." And so she really
00:41:21
threw me a lifeline and gave me space to start to physically separate from my family and also to emotionally separate
00:41:28
from my family. Um because in many ways I was very codependent on my parents. And I was very wrapped up in this oldest
00:41:34
daughter role, right? This obedient, cheerful oldest daughter who's waiting for a husband. And so, you know, I was
00:41:41
in I was 25 and I was just realizing I have no idea what I'm doing with my life
00:41:46
apart from um you know, trying to make the make a difference for God and waiting for a husband and pursuing this
00:41:53
conservative vision of what a biblical woman is supposed to look like. And that's really when I started to start to
00:41:58
think through like, oh my goodness, I need to find a career path. I need to figure out how to financially provide
00:42:04
for myself. I need to think about like why am I wearing what am I what I'm wearing? um why am I relating to the
00:42:10
world? Um you know like why am I viewing secular things with suspicion? And um that's really when I began to question
00:42:17
just like why why is my internal construct still formed by people like Doug Phillips or Michael and Debbie
00:42:24
Pearl? Do I need to to kind of filter all of my decisions through this lens of, you know, John Piper and RC Sproul
00:42:33
and all of these people that have been platformed is like, oh, this is the biblical path that you are supposed to
00:42:38
follow. Um, and I will say I'm still a Christian. Um, but I'm kind of shocked
00:42:44
by that because I went through a long deconstruction phase of just really wrestling with like all of the pieces
00:42:52
that had shaped my life up to that point and really struggling with like what's
00:42:56
going to be left after I go through this process of sort of sorting through my internal beliefs and my internal um
00:43:03
systems. Yes. Good. Mhm. Yeah. Leave me. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Oh yeah. >> Yeah.
00:44:57
Yeah, does that >> Oh, yeah. So, my therapist actually um when I was 30, I realized I was dealing
00:45:21
with some things that I couldn't fix myself. And I found a really wonderful therapist who is very knowledgeable
00:45:27
about funy culture and homeschooling culture and the dynamics of, you know, being in a large family as an oldest
00:45:33
daughter. And so she really began to help me unpack some of those things. And at one point she encouraged me to start
00:45:39
a Tik Tok. And I was like, "The Chinese dancing app?" And she's like, "Yeah."
00:45:45
And um so honestly without her encouragement, I probably would have never started a Tik Tok. Um, and I
00:45:53
started it not with the intention of I really had no intention of doing anything with it. I just kind of was
00:45:59
randomly posting, but as I started to be more vulnerable and share stories about
00:46:03
homeschooling and about purity culture and about, you know, saving your first kids for marriage and, you know, growing
00:46:09
up with five gallon buckets of wheat berries. um other people started to comment and it you know over time it
00:46:16
kind of grew into this space where I went oh my god there are so many people who've had the same funy homeschool
00:46:23
experience and of course you know we have a second Trump administration and so this is cracking up all of these new
00:46:29
issues around Christian nationalism and people like Doug Wilson now have a national platform and so there are so
00:46:36
many people who were talking about what it means to be homeschooled or what their experience was with homeschooling
00:46:41
there are, you know, new homeschool moms who are, you know, choosing to homeschool because they think that their
00:46:47
kids are going to save America for Christ. And um it's just been really fascinating to me and kind of shocking
00:46:55
because again, I always thought that my homeschool experience was something that
00:47:00
I would have to heal from as an individual. Um because, you know, no one has this experience. It was just me. And
00:47:06
lo and behold, it actually was not just me. It's actually like probably like
00:47:10
tens of thousands of people um across the US and even from different generations, right? It's like I'm a
00:47:16
millennial, but like there are all also people who are Gen Z who have had the same experience and um it's I mean I'm
00:47:23
just so grateful because I think that Tik Tok has helped me heal as an individual and then also being able to
00:47:28
share my story and help other people articulate and validate their experiences. It feels like it um you
00:47:36
know, obviously I wish that I hadn't experienced the homeschool trauma, but being able to help other people in their
00:47:41
process seems to sort of like validate it a little bit. I don't I don't know if
00:47:46
that makes sense. >> No, I you know what's funny? I I uh the day of recording this, yesterday was day
00:47:52
of the homeschool child. I don't know if you knew that this was the holiday or
00:47:55
not. I found out this in March. Um but uh I was fortunate enough I have a conversation with Stephan Merryill Block
00:48:02
who just wrote the book Homeschooled >> and um for and we we did a a talk for
00:48:07
the Coalition of Responsible Home Education and I shout them out all the time on the show.
00:48:12
>> Great organization. Go follow them. They're >> I always say they're the antithesis of
00:48:16
HSLDA. They're like the opposite. Um but um you know they don't love that I say
00:48:21
that but Right. but they they also help shape legislation that will help homeschool kids. Anyway, we were having
00:48:28
this conversation and we were talking about the fact that like one of the things that sharing our stories gets to
00:48:34
do is one, it can heal our traumas because like you were saying, we're not alone. There are tens of thousands of us
00:48:42
out there >> from the 70s to today who are starting to talk more openly about the things
00:48:48
that we went through, the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. And so, but what that does is it gives a voice to the
00:48:55
fact that like something probably needs to change. And the fact that so many people are speaking up about it, that's
00:49:01
a good thing because that's how change is going to happen, right? You have to
00:49:05
blow the whistle on it to some degree and say this is what's working. This is
00:49:09
what's not working and we need to shape things to be better so that the future
00:49:14
generations of homesooled kids don't have to go through the bad stuff that we
00:49:18
went through. They can, but they can experience the fun stuff. They can experience the good because mixed in
00:49:22
with all of that craziness, there are those funny moments of like doing theater in somebody's backyard or like
00:49:28
goofing off with your sibling, right? And like, you know, driving mom crazy to some degree. Like, there is like there
00:49:35
is fun moments mixed in with all of that chaos. So, I applaud you for like telling your story because it's not an
00:49:41
easy thing to do and it it opens you up to a lot of criticism, but it also opens
00:49:46
you up to a lot of like support and a lot of like, hey, that's also me. You are seeing like, you know,
00:49:51
>> you're amazing. >> Yeah, exactly. So, what is your Tik Tok account? Where can people where should
00:49:57
people go to follow you? >> Sure. So, my handle is 90s homeschooler. So, it's just the number 90s
00:50:04
homeschooler. And um yeah, that's my handle, so you can find me online. I'm
00:50:09
trying to build more of a platform. I'm trying to branch out more. I do have an
00:50:12
Instagram account, but it actually doesn't have any content on it yet. Um but yes, I'm I'm on Tik Tok.
00:50:18
>> Okay, cool. Well, go follow Lydia on Tik Tok. Um and if you don't have Tik Tok,
00:50:22
enjoy her episode here, and it will be updated as as she launches new things and gets more stuff on other platforms.
00:50:28
So, we'll make sure that the the show notes update to see that. I want to before we go, something that I talk
00:50:35
a lot. Sometimes I something I ask a lot on the show is like someone's coming to
00:50:39
you now and they're saying I'm thinking about homeschooling my kid or I know you
00:50:43
have a kid like I'm sure that's also maybe a question here and maybe it's not
00:50:46
a question maybe it's a question you've already answered. Um but like what are
00:50:50
your thoughts on like the current landscape of homeschooling? Would you do it? Would you recommend it for people?
00:50:56
>> How do you feel about it? What are you saying to people? >> That's a great question. So I'm not
00:51:01
totally opposed to homeschooling. I think that the decision to homeschool has to be made by each individual
00:51:05
family. I would say the biggest dangers to homeschooling are Christian nationalism, purity culture, patriarchy,
00:51:12
and quiverful ideology. And so, if you're able to homeschool and you're able to sort of be aware of those
00:51:18
influences within homeschool spaces, then you are probably 10 steps ahead of like where my parents were or maybe
00:51:24
where your parents were. Um, and really, I mean, the individual homeschool experience comes down to, um, what
00:51:30
resources you have in your community, like what homeschool resources you have. Do you have access to museums? Are there
00:51:36
libraries? Are there secular homeschooling groups? And and frankly, a lot of it is also just um the financial
00:51:42
resources that your family has because I think that families that are maybe in a
00:51:46
lower income space um they're they're going to probably struggle more with
00:51:50
homeschooling because one of the biggest strengths of homeschooling is freedom. It's like you have time freedom. You
00:51:55
have the opportunity to travel. You have the opportunity to maybe explore. Um you
00:51:59
have access to, you know, maybe take music lessons or take rock climbing lessons. But if you can't financially
00:52:05
afford those things, then your kids are going to be at home most of the time or you're only going to be limited to
00:52:11
activities that are free. I Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I think it's one of
00:52:15
those things that can be done well and it can be did right. Um it just, you know, but it is it's about intention.
00:52:21
It's about Yeah. resources. There's there's a lot of factors. Homeschooling
00:52:24
is very much a privileged thing. And so, you know, I didn't realize that until
00:52:29
Yeah, I didn't realize that until I was like in high school and I was like, wait, so you're telling me a family of
00:52:34
four lived on a single income in California and homeschooled their kid. Like that's homeschooled two kids.
00:52:40
That's like crazy with a stay-at-home mom. That's like that's a lot of money.
00:52:43
You know, dad must have been doing okay. And it's like where were the sacrifices,
00:52:47
you know, things like that. So, um, >> is there anything else before I let you
00:52:52
go? Anything else that we haven't touched on that you feel we should? Has anything sparked in your memory? A funny
00:52:58
home school memory? Any other just homeschool stuff that we haven't touched on that you're like, "Okay, we got to
00:53:03
quickly touch on these things." I would say that overall my biggest takeaway
00:53:08
from homeschooling is that if you have already grown up feeling weird and excluded and you come into adulthood, um
00:53:16
it ultimately becomes a strength for you because if you've already if you've
00:53:20
already felt weird like you can no longer feel weird if that makes sense. And so at that point it becomes a
00:53:25
strength and you're kind of free to like do whatever you want to do. And so that's kind of honestly my biggest
00:53:30
takeaway is that you've already grown up outside maybe feeling a little weird,
00:53:35
feeling quirky. So just go for your dreams. Go for the things that you want to pursue because you've already felt
00:53:40
the worst of the worst and you know that it can't be worse than that. >> Yeah, 100% agree. I think that is like
00:53:46
embracing the weird 100%. Let the freak flag fly as my mom always says. >> For sure. For sure.
00:53:52
>> Well, Lydia, thank you so much for coming on. Um, this has been a wonderful
00:53:56
conversation and I hope >> so much fun. So much fun. >> Good. I think that's the best part about
00:54:00
having these conversations is like one we get to like it's building community.
00:54:04
It's building and telling stories and relating um on things that we experienced so we don't feel alone,
00:54:10
right? And um and so anyway, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. I really appreciate it. And uh to the
00:54:17
audience, I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation. If you did, leave a like, leave a subscribe, send it to a friend,
00:54:23
leave a comment. Let us know if you have additional questions for Lydia. Let me know. Um, drop them in the comments
00:54:27
below. Uh, maybe we'll have her back on do another do a part two down the line.
00:54:32
It'd be really fun. Maybe >> we could go maybe a little bit more in-depth on something um as well. And uh
00:54:39
remember to uh subscribe to the newsletter, do all of the internet things that you know how to do. There's
00:54:43
links for all kinds of stuff down below. Go check it out. Um again, share it with
00:54:47
a friend. And until I see you next time, peace.