00:00:00
What is good my exhies? It's your boy
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Jacob Gooden. We are back another week.
00:00:03
Another exhomeschooler club. That's
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right. The best exhomeschooler podcast
00:00:08
this side of the internet. Uh I'm in a
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good mood. Can you tell? Um I'm singing.
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I don't sing for very many people. But
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why am I in such a good mood? My friend
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RB is in the studio today. Okay, it's a
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Zoom call. I'll give you that. But you
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know what I mean. I'm having my friend
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RB on the show today. We're going to
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talk about his homeschool experience.
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We're going to talk about growing up in
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two different states, being homeschooled
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in both. We're going to talk about
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curriculum. We're going to talk about
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the the role that religion played in his
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homeschool experience. We're going to
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talk about the aftergeears and the after
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effects of homeschooling. Uh and we're
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going to touch on like friendship and
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specifically male friendship, but adult
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friendship in general. Um and the
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difficulty that that is. So before I
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turn it over to past me, I got a favor
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to ask. Okay? That is if you enjoy the
00:00:51
show, whether it's today's episode,
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whether it's a previous episode, do me a
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favor. Share it with a friend. Shoot him
00:00:56
a text, shoot him an email, uh, whatever
00:00:59
you got to do. Maybe you see him in
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person this week. Tell him about the
00:01:02
show. Say, "Hey, I've been watching this
00:01:03
podcast. I've been listening to this
00:01:04
podcast. Would love if you checked it
00:01:06
out." Okay. Thank you in advance from
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me. I'm going to stop rambling. Let's
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turn it over to Pass
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[Music]
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Me. Well, RB, we're here. Uh, it is our
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second time meeting. Um, but I'm so
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stoked to share your story with my
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audience and for them to meet you and
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hear what you've got to say. I don't
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want to give too much fluff at the
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beginning. I want to just kind of get
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right into it of like what is your
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story? Can you give us a little bit set
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the stage so to speak of your homeschool
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experience? Were you homeschooled all
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the way through? Siblings. Uh, I know
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when we chatted previously, you moved
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around a little bit and things shifted
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because of the moves and things like
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that. So, so lay lay a little foundation
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and then we'll go from there.
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I love it. I love it. And thanks for
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having me on the show. This is this has
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been fantastic. And it's been cool
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to listen and uh in some ways connect to
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other people. I know there's one show
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like I now follow her on Instagram and
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and that's that's fantastic to to meet
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other people and really to hear other
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people's experiences because one thing I
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will say about my experiences and it's
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true for everyone. It it's unique. Um, I
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would not wish my experience on anyone
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else, but I'll also know that my
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experience of homeschooling is not
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exclusive or or is not um indicative of
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everyone's, which is which is one of the
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reasons why I'm so excited to have this
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conversation. Yeah. So, I was born in uh
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Pennsylvania and primarily lived in a
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little town near Pittsburgh,
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Pennsylvania called West Newton.
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and we were the first uh homeschooling
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family in our county uh and definitely
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within our school district. Um
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and when I was 13, my family moved from
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Pennsylvania to
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Kansas and I continued being
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homeschooled and was homeschooled
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through to when I went to college. and
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then
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um about 7 years ago moved down here as
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an adult, but moved down to Texas. So
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that's where I live now. And so yeah, so
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being homeschooled in two different
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states is is something we could
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definitely chat about. Um and and I
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would say that the experiences were
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different uh each place, but I'm the
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oldest of
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uh five and born early 80s. So, uh,
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the earliest memory I have as a kid is
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seeing the,
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um, space shuttle explode, you know, on
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TV. That was like a very like that was a
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huge deal for us because first of all,
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we really didn't watch TV. I think our
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total time of having cable as a kid was
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like six months. And and that was like a
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big deal. like here we are this tiny
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homeschooling family like my my sisters
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at the time were you know they I don't
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even think they had started school and I
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was just learning to read but it was
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like oh my god we get to watch TV and uh
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and I remember my mom like right after
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it happened turned it off I don't know
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what happened after that I was what four
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at the time but I was like that that was
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like my um one of my intros to the
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outside world was like Oh, we're going
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to watch this really cool. And there's a
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school teacher on the space shuttle and
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it blew up and uh we'll we'll we'll
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we'll we'll move on with our lives now.
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Yeah. Oh, man. That's that I don't know.
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Your your explaining of that is is
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taking me back to I'm a I'm a kid of the
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uh I was born in 96 and so 911 when 911
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happened I vividly remember that day
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watching the news and seeing it happen.
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And I know it's it's very different
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circumstances obviously, but I remember
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as a kid and then it's like the TV turns
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off and it's like okay, we just go on
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with our day apparently. Um, so I know
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that feeling that you're talking about
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that like something really tragic just
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happened and now we just have to be
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normal again. Like how how does that
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Right. And that kids is why we don't
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interact with the outside world. Yeah.
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Yeah. So talk talk to me a little bit
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about the early Pennsylvania like you
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you said you're like first kind of like
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homeschool family in that area like what
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did that look like? Because I know that
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when like I said I'm I'm a kid of the
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late 90s so 2000s was more of my era of
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homeschooling a lot more solidified at
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that point. There was a lot more I group
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in California so the rules are different
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but like there's a lot more like
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guidelines of like you have to register
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your school or maybe you have to take
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your kids in for this. So, like was
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there anything like that growing up
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or what or were you just figuring it
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out? Yeah, I mean there was a lot of
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figuring it
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out. And I would say when we when we
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were doing when we were homeschooling in
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Pennsylvania, it was very much, I think,
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a replication of what my mom remembered
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her public school experience being, but
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at home. So, we had desks in the kitchen
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space that were basically like old
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school
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um you know desks that had the flip up
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top. We kept all our books in them and
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we would start school at a certain time
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and we had our different subjects that
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we would do. I think we started school
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at like 8 and we would say the pledge of
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allegiance and pray and then um school
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was over at like 3:00 or 3:30. you've
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got like 30 minutes for recess to go
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outside and run around like crazy
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people. Um, but it was I remember one of
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the
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first
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experiences interacting with a public
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school
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was at the time you had to present a
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portfolio to the uh principal of the
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school that you would have been going
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to. So, I I think it was it wasn't every
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year, but I I remember going to our
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local elementary school and sitting
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there and him having like a binder of
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all of my work from the last year and
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him just, you know, like going through
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it. Um, and even at that time, I
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remember him saying like, you know, this
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looks good. you know, it seems like
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you're pretty smart. And um I got that a
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lot as a kid. I as the it's one of one
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of the one of the things I'm sure we'll
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get into, but as as the oldest, a lot of
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the as the oldest and as a boy, a lot of
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the resources that my family had went
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towards me and my education at the
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expense of my sisters, which is one one
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of the one of the things that I would um
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that I regret about about my
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homeschooling experience. But so in
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Pennsylvania, very very like you got to
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check in with the school so often. Um I
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think we had to take a standardized
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test. I remember I remember taking one
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at one point. It's very fuzzy memory.
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Then when we got to Kansas, it was
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literally the wild west. Um there was
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basically no oversight. You did have to
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register a school name and our school
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name was Providential Academy of the
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Great Plains because my dad wanted to be
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a cowboy so bad. Um or a pioneer and a
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pioneer and a blacksmith.
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Anyhow, so this long ass name. Um but
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basically they were like you need to do
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school this many days of the year and
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you need to register. outside of that,
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you're on your own. Okay. Um, so, so
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different experience. Um, so like I
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said, I was 13 when we moved to
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Kansas.
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My the schooling changed a little bit,
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mainly because we were number one, we
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were in smaller houses. Um, and we in
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Pennsylvania, we had a a larger house
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with enough space for us to have desks.
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When we got to Kansas, we mainly stayed
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in in uh rented smaller houses
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and so there wasn't room for desks. So
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we would generally work either like in
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the living room on the couch or at the
00:09:45
kitchen at the kitchen table but kind of
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still the concept
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of you started school at a certain time
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you ended school at a certain
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time and um and then I would say when I
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was about 15 16 the subject matters the
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the subjects were beyond my mom's
00:10:03
education
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so I started doing like video courses
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and kind of taking some more control
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over my schedule. Um, as long as I
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documented what I did, like she I would
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get up sometimes at like 5 or 6 in the
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morning and start school then just it
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was easier in a small confined space
00:10:24
where you know we ended up um we were a
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family we had three kids for a while and
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then um there's 15 years between my
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brother and I. So when he came along and
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then and then my youngest sister came
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along, now there's small children in the
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house and we're trying to study. So
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Right. Um so yeah, the the experience
00:10:45
changed some. Um but the yeah, the the
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legislation was wildly different between
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the two states. Yeah, it sounds like it.
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I think too I think a lot of I'm also
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the oldest uh of my homeschool world and
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it just me and my sister, so much
00:11:00
smaller environment, but yeah, I mean we
00:11:02
did we didn't have desks. We did school
00:11:04
at at the dinner table and we did have
00:11:06
we did end up getting desks in our
00:11:08
bedrooms, but but we didn't have like a
00:11:10
school room or anything like that. But I
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I totally relate when you talk about
00:11:13
like getting older and then kind of
00:11:15
starting to take charge of your own
00:11:16
education and build out your own um kind
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of plan and like I was more of a night
00:11:22
person. So I would, you know, my
00:11:24
everyone would be asleep and I'd be
00:11:25
working late into the night, but then
00:11:27
I'd stay in bed till like noon, you
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know. Um, which I don't think my mom
00:11:31
loved, but I I think she just got to a
00:11:32
point where she's like, I can't really
00:11:33
fight him on it at this point. Like,
00:11:35
he's just that's his that's the way he's
00:11:37
doing it and everything's getting done.
00:11:39
But I relate to that a little bit. And
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we did have an a little period of time
00:11:42
when I was in high school of we had a
00:11:45
couple other kids coming to our house.
00:11:46
we were we were looking to adopt, but um
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it threw a wrench in everything because
00:11:50
they were younger and it was just, you
00:11:52
know, like you said, it was just all of
00:11:54
a sudden it was crowded and it was like
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I I now need I need a better system to
00:11:59
get this done, right? So just like
00:12:00
finding those times to to to do it on
00:12:04
your own um was difficult. But um I know
00:12:08
you had mentioned I think this was in
00:12:09
our previous conversation that a Becca
00:12:11
tended to be like a pretty consistent
00:12:13
thing throughout your experience which
00:12:15
like a lot of a lot of homeschool
00:12:17
families that's very common. I don't
00:12:19
think it's the worst curriculum in the
00:12:20
world. It gets you kind of where you
00:12:22
need to go sometimes. Uh but it doesn't
00:12:25
work for everybody. But it's very much
00:12:26
like you were talking about that
00:12:27
traditional school experience cuz it's
00:12:30
designed for a classroom. So I do I do
00:12:34
wonder cuz I never I don't want to say I
00:12:36
never took video classes but that
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transition from going like mom is
00:12:39
teaching to like okay now I just watch a
00:12:41
video and do it. Was that a good thing
00:12:43
for you or was that like this is really
00:12:45
tough? It it was a good thing for me
00:12:48
because like I said like it was when I
00:12:51
got into like algebra, algebra 2 and
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geometry and things that my mom was not
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um skilled at and the opportunity to
00:13:02
learn from people who that was their
00:13:04
bread and
00:13:05
butter really kind of my first like
00:13:08
actual teacher experience
00:13:11
um was was very positive for me and it
00:13:14
was also it was also interesting because
00:13:17
it was uh it was a new company. I think
00:13:20
it was called Greatest Teachers of
00:13:22
America or Superstar Teachers of
00:13:24
America, but they were public school
00:13:27
teachers. And they would go in and film,
00:13:31
they wouldn't film the classroom, but
00:13:32
they'd film lectures that they
00:13:35
gave. And I actually ended up
00:13:37
corresponding briefly with the chemistry
00:13:40
teacher because
00:13:44
he he he had the driest sense of humor I
00:13:48
think I'd ever seen. And I felt a
00:13:51
connection with him. And then when I did
00:13:54
the
00:13:56
workbook, almost all of the answers were
00:13:59
wrong in the answer key. Okay. And so I
00:14:03
did all of the problems multiple times
00:14:06
and then actually
00:14:07
mailed like this is what I think the
00:14:10
actual answers are to this guy I' never
00:14:13
met didn't know me and they ended up
00:14:16
email they ended up mailing it back and
00:14:19
saying oh wow yeah all of our answers
00:14:22
were incorrect thank you for thank you
00:14:26
for correcting
00:14:27
us here's a free video course you get to
00:14:31
pick anything else you want to take? And
00:14:36
um and then I heard from the I think I
00:14:38
got a letter from the actual like
00:14:41
science teacher and he the most
00:14:43
important thing to him was that I
00:14:46
understood he's not the one who wrote
00:14:48
the answer
00:14:50
key. He was like not me, not my fault.
00:14:53
That was not that was not me.
00:14:56
Yeah, we some intern did that. Yeah.
00:14:58
Right. That was actually a cool
00:15:00
experience though because thinking back
00:15:03
I I had like their whole curriculum to
00:15:05
choose from and I chose this like how to
00:15:08
learn um and it was a shorter course but
00:15:12
I remember something from that course
00:15:15
stuck with me has stuck with me my whole
00:15:17
life and that was that the act of
00:15:19
learning is connecting old stuff to new
00:15:21
stuff. And so when you're trying to
00:15:23
remember something or you're trying to
00:15:25
understand a concept, if you can relate
00:15:27
it in some way to a concept you already
00:15:31
know, and that's basically systems,
00:15:33
right, thinking. Um, and but I I
00:15:36
remember that as being like that's a
00:15:38
that's a nugget that I got out of this
00:15:40
weird experience where I I corrected my
00:15:43
science teachers answer key. Yeah. Look
00:15:48
at you RB out here being like better.
00:15:50
Yeah. like more it you're proof that
00:15:54
homeschoolers are smarter than other
00:15:55
people.
00:15:59
I disagree with that. Um I disagree with
00:16:02
that vehemently. Um but it's it's
00:16:05
interesting because that ties into this
00:16:07
concept that that you and I have have
00:16:10
chatted about where I feel like in some
00:16:13
ways in my experience I am an accidental
00:16:15
success of homeschooling and of my
00:16:18
environment. Um, and that, yeah,
00:16:23
whenever you're ready to dig into that,
00:16:24
that that's kind of a I did want to kind
00:16:26
of dig into that because you made the
00:16:28
comment before about you feel like a lot
00:16:31
of the resources your family had were
00:16:32
poured into you as a student, but your
00:16:34
sisters were were lacking. And so, if
00:16:38
you wouldn't mind just like unpack that
00:16:39
a little bit and then what Yeah. why
00:16:41
that how that then ties into being like
00:16:44
an accidental success in your
00:16:45
environment. Yeah.
00:16:49
So, I'm I'm gonna Fair warning if you're
00:16:53
watching this podcast, this will get
00:16:54
religious.
00:16:56
Um, because one of the unique things,
00:16:59
and it's not unique to me, but one of
00:17:02
the things that shaped my homeschooling
00:17:04
experience was obviously the reasons why
00:17:07
my parents chose to homeschool and then
00:17:09
the environment which I did grow up in
00:17:12
being homeschooled. And so the reason
00:17:16
that my parents homeschooled was
00:17:18
primarily fear-based. They were
00:17:21
genuinely I believe this. They were
00:17:23
genuinely trying to do the right thing.
00:17:25
They were trying to do the best thing
00:17:27
for their
00:17:28
kids. But that meant that their previous
00:17:31
trauma dictated their the decisions that
00:17:34
they made, which were that's the outside
00:17:38
world. We're going to create a safe
00:17:40
space for you to grow up in and we're
00:17:43
going to educate you as best as you can
00:17:45
and that will give you a better a better
00:17:48
chance in life. Mhm. Um, so along with
00:17:52
that because it
00:17:54
our I I like to say I grew up in a cult
00:17:57
because that's the easiest way to to
00:18:00
explain it in the simplest way, but
00:18:02
independent fundamentalist Baptist,
00:18:04
reformed Baptist, that was our our
00:18:08
primary I think we were we went to a
00:18:10
Presbyterian church for a while, but
00:18:12
then we had a my dad had a argument with
00:18:14
the elders about whether baptism was
00:18:17
immersion or sprinkling. And then we
00:18:19
left that church. And
00:18:22
um but the part of what we were
00:18:25
indoctrinated into in Pennsylvania, but
00:18:29
almost more so in Kansas, was the was uh
00:18:33
patriarchy. So the concept that the man
00:18:36
is the head of the family, the man is
00:18:38
the bread winner. The man basically runs
00:18:41
everything, the wife is to submit. And
00:18:44
so if you look at
00:18:47
education of children from that context
00:18:50
of the man's going to make the money,
00:18:52
the woman's going to cook and clean and
00:18:54
be at home and have
00:18:56
babies, then your the the results of the
00:19:00
education are going to be drastically
00:19:02
different based on the gender of of the
00:19:05
student. And so in my
00:19:07
case, I had I had more opportunities
00:19:10
than my sisters did in okay, you let's
00:19:14
let you play baseball. Like I played
00:19:16
baseball for 2 years from 9 to 10,
00:19:18
right? They were never given that
00:19:20
opportunity, right? Um they were
00:19:22
basically taught, you know, all the math
00:19:24
you need to know is how to is fractions
00:19:27
so that you can convert recipes and be
00:19:30
able to balance a checkbook. And
00:19:34
so when I say that I am I am an
00:19:38
accidental success like I am successful
00:19:41
in my career
00:19:43
professionally but that came I feel like
00:19:46
at a cost of um I'm the one who who went
00:19:51
to college. My parents didn't pay for
00:19:53
college but I I lived at home. They
00:19:55
obviously helped in all the ways that
00:19:57
they could to get me through that
00:19:59
experience. I landed a good job. So at,
00:20:02
you know, at 23, I'm an engineer working
00:20:05
at Cessna and my sisters are, you know,
00:20:08
at home cooking and cleaning and with no
00:20:12
higher education whatsoever. So, um, I
00:20:15
it's it's one of those things that when
00:20:17
I tell people I'm homeschooled and they
00:20:19
see the success in my
00:20:21
life, I don't I don't want that
00:20:25
correlation. I don't want that
00:20:27
correlation of I am successful because I
00:20:30
was homeschooled or I was, you know, I'm
00:20:33
smarter because I was homeschooled. And
00:20:35
that was one of the justifications that
00:20:37
my parents would use was they would
00:20:40
point to someone and they would say so
00:20:42
and so was homeschooled and look what
00:20:44
they did with their life. And once I got
00:20:47
old enough to realize like that person
00:20:51
was that gymnast was homeschooled
00:20:54
because they're a professional gymnast
00:20:57
and they literally had a tutor living in
00:21:00
their house homeschooled like that is
00:21:02
not the same, right? But to make a an
00:21:05
equality statement statement that you
00:21:09
know because you were homeschooled
00:21:10
that's going to equal this is something
00:21:13
that when I have when I get into this
00:21:16
depth of conversation about
00:21:18
homeschooling I I try to make a clear
00:21:22
delineation that there is not I do not
00:21:25
see necessarily a correlation between
00:21:28
someone who was homeschooled and someone
00:21:29
who is successful later in life. No, I I
00:21:32
I agree with you. I think I also had a
00:21:35
little bit of that. Not that I didn't
00:21:37
view I viewed as other people could also
00:21:40
be successful, but I I the stats and
00:21:43
things that I was being given was kind
00:21:45
of like homeschoolers can accomplish XYZ
00:21:48
faster, quicker, they're better at it,
00:21:50
you know. Um there was a point where
00:21:53
like I was going to do college while I
00:21:54
was in high school and so I was going to
00:21:56
graduate high school and college roughly
00:21:57
at the same time. And you know, things
00:22:00
played out. You know, I I do think that
00:22:03
like my home education helped me in
00:22:05
college. I did college in three years,
00:22:07
which was like, but I I busted ass to do
00:22:11
it, right? Like I worked really hard.
00:22:12
Now, that's not exclusively a homeschool
00:22:14
thing. I just know that the tools that I
00:22:16
was given, especially in those high
00:22:19
school years, we talked about the
00:22:20
independent study. That helped me
00:22:21
significantly to be able to do that
00:22:23
because I could just I could just hone
00:22:25
in and be like, I got to do this XYZ.
00:22:27
I'm okay with working in the summers.
00:22:29
Like, it's all good. You know, I was
00:22:31
okay with that because of my previous
00:22:33
experience, but that doesn't Yeah, it
00:22:35
didn't equal I'm actually just smarter
00:22:36
than everybody. I'm still the dumb
00:22:39
sometimes the dumbest guy in the room.
00:22:41
Um, but
00:22:44
you know, it just kind of like you said,
00:22:46
it shapes you to who you are, but it it
00:22:48
also I agree with you in that like I I
00:22:52
saw some of that in my home school world
00:22:54
as well, where like sometimes the guys
00:22:56
were treated in a different
00:22:59
standard and way than than the girls
00:23:01
were and and that was kind of an
00:23:03
interesting thing. It also, like you
00:23:05
said, religion ties into it. There's
00:23:06
purity culture aspect. there's all this
00:23:08
other stuff that plays into, you know,
00:23:11
well, you're, you know, the girls are
00:23:13
going to be barefoot and pregnant for,
00:23:15
you know, all of their 20s. Um, kind of
00:23:18
a deal, which is is a little bit of a
00:23:22
it's kind of a dangerous game to play, I
00:23:24
think, sometimes. Um, yeah. And, you
00:23:27
know, it's unfortunate because I see
00:23:28
that in in my friends from growing up. I
00:23:30
see some of them who have struggled
00:23:32
because of that lack of education. So
00:23:36
yeah, you know, how is that? And and to
00:23:39
be clear, like my my sisters are doing
00:23:41
very well for themselves. I don't mean
00:23:43
to paint paint paint a picture um that
00:23:46
isn't that isn't true. It's just I wish
00:23:48
that they had the same opportunities,
00:23:51
right, that I had had that that there
00:23:53
had been equality. Um, I think there's I
00:23:57
growing up in a in a larger family and
00:24:01
uh around uh lots of large families,
00:24:05
they there's an undeniable advantage and
00:24:08
disadvantage to being the oldest. You
00:24:11
you you tend to just naturally get more
00:24:13
opportunities. You also are the
00:24:15
experiment child for a lot of things.
00:24:18
like your parents learned on you and
00:24:21
then and then took those learnings and
00:24:23
applied them to to your siblings. So, um
00:24:27
yeah, and it's also been interesting.
00:24:28
Like I said, my brother's 15 years
00:24:30
younger than I am and my sister's
00:24:31
younger than
00:24:33
that. They grew up without so much of
00:24:37
the religious aspect, but more of the
00:24:39
homeschooling aspect. And I was chatting
00:24:41
with my brother and he
00:24:43
was openly musing about like when I have
00:24:46
kids maybe I'll homeschool. And I just
00:24:49
was like what? Why? Like and and that
00:24:54
was just like this light bulb of our
00:24:56
experiences were drastically different
00:24:58
even in the same family just being
00:25:00
separated by 15 years. I was going to
00:25:02
ask kind of yeah how those other
00:25:05
siblings like look today I guess is kind
00:25:08
of the question there. But like yeah,
00:25:10
what
00:25:12
has what has their life shaped out to
00:25:14
be? And obviously I you
00:25:17
know you might not know every facet of
00:25:20
everything, you know, of of their own
00:25:22
this is what they think of
00:25:23
homeschooling, but like how have you
00:25:25
seen their life be different and like
00:25:28
how they've had to overcome some of the
00:25:29
obstacles that maybe you didn't have? Of
00:25:32
course, their story is their story. So I
00:25:35
I will share a a little bit of just my
00:25:39
perspective and it's just been more of
00:25:42
like I said the the opportunities that
00:25:44
were presented. So I'll give you an
00:25:46
example. When I was when I was a kid in
00:25:48
Pennsylvania, I remember at one of the
00:25:52
god
00:25:53
awful pun, no pun intended, church
00:25:56
services. Um we we would go and meet and
00:26:00
with two other families in the second
00:26:02
story of an Eagles building. Okay. And
00:26:05
on Sundays and we would have a Sunday
00:26:07
school and break for lunch and then we
00:26:09
would have a second service. And so we
00:26:11
were there from like 9:00 a.m. until 2
00:26:14
or 3. Um but I remember in the break
00:26:18
once one of my mom's friends looking at
00:26:21
me and saying, you know, Richard, you're
00:26:24
really smart. you need to be an
00:26:27
engineer.
00:26:28
And I like I remember that vividly and I
00:26:33
I became an engineer and then I'm I'm I
00:26:36
would not call myself an engineer
00:26:37
anymore. Um but that that's just an
00:26:41
example of like very clear expectations
00:26:44
being set for this is your IQ level.
00:26:47
This is what we expect out of you. This
00:26:48
is this is the direction. And as a
00:26:52
kid, you hear those messages enough like
00:26:55
you're smart, you're capable, you're
00:26:57
going to do great things. Like my dad
00:26:59
would tell me like you're going to sit
00:27:00
down with the president someday and have
00:27:02
dinner with
00:27:05
him. They didn't get that same message,
00:27:08
right? And and so from the very
00:27:10
beginning it was it was like Richard is
00:27:14
on this path and y'all are kind of going
00:27:18
to be supportive characters in someone
00:27:19
else's story. Um and so what I see with
00:27:24
my sisters is that struggle as they got
00:27:28
into adulthood, got
00:27:30
married. It's like no, I'm not just a
00:27:34
supportive character. I am my own
00:27:36
person. I get to I get to um one of my
00:27:40
sisters is a writer. I get like I get to
00:27:43
do this, right? I'm not I'm not just
00:27:45
here to be a mom and a wife and take
00:27:47
care of the house and but it's also
00:27:49
challenging because the the financial
00:27:53
aspect of without a college degree, you
00:27:56
can't there's just some thing some doors
00:27:58
that are not as easily open to you,
00:28:01
right? Um, so, so that that's kind of
00:28:03
what I see. My younger brother, he went
00:28:05
he went the trade school route. Um, and
00:28:08
he just got married last year. Um, and
00:28:11
he's he's doing he's doing he's doing
00:28:14
well. So, yeah, I all of I'm really good
00:28:18
friends with all my siblings and they're
00:28:20
all they're all doing well. Um, it's
00:28:23
just I I notice like I said from from
00:28:28
even from the earliest
00:28:31
memories being in a very
00:28:35
uh sequestered environment, a very
00:28:38
controlled environment, one that was
00:28:40
heavily influenced by uh
00:28:45
religion that was very fundamentalist in
00:28:47
nature. um just kind of put us on these
00:28:50
paths and it's been easier for me
00:28:54
because the path I was put on was a path
00:28:57
to success whereas the path they were
00:29:00
put on was a path to to subservience in
00:29:03
some cases. Yeah. I Yeah. I
00:29:07
recently I joked in kind of a more
00:29:10
serious way, but that I was like I I
00:29:12
have it the easiest out of everybody.
00:29:15
It's like I'm a straight white guy. I
00:29:17
live in Tennessee. Like to your point, I
00:29:20
always had that messaging from everybody
00:29:23
in in that you're going to do great
00:29:25
things, you're super talented, you know,
00:29:28
you're all of these things. And I won't
00:29:30
say that my sister didn't get messages
00:29:32
like that. She's also very skilled in
00:29:34
what she does. Um and and super talented
00:29:37
and and has a great life. But it it's
00:29:41
interesting
00:29:42
how the expectations that are put on you
00:29:45
and then like you maybe you leave the
00:29:47
picture and then the expectations change
00:29:49
for your sibling and how they react to
00:29:51
it and they're like I don't want to
00:29:52
follow in the footsteps of so well of
00:29:53
course not you know or I don't want to
00:29:55
do this well like you know seeing them
00:29:56
push against that and
00:29:58
become their own person is is it's
00:30:01
really it can be strange but it's also
00:30:04
really like a beautiful thing right
00:30:05
where you're like okay I it's amazing to
00:30:07
see you now become become this like
00:30:10
full-fledged version of yourself and
00:30:11
really lean into the things that you're
00:30:13
passionate about and that you care
00:30:14
about, you know? And I so I appreciate
00:30:16
your message of just also being like
00:30:18
parents, you need to tell like all your
00:30:20
kids like you're strong and capable and
00:30:22
smart and like you can do anything you
00:30:24
set your mind to, right? There's no
00:30:26
reason like that you can't not, you
00:30:28
know, everybody can go have dinner with
00:30:30
the president. Um, you know, or whatever
00:30:33
whatever they want to do, you know? Um,
00:30:35
right. That's Yeah. So I think I I want
00:30:40
to kind of shift a little bit of like
00:30:43
into post homeschool world, right? So
00:30:46
like what how did that shift look? You
00:30:49
know, you're getting out in the real
00:30:50
world. You you kind of mentioned like
00:30:52
you lived at home while you went to
00:30:53
college and and did that, but you know,
00:30:56
was that was there a point where that
00:30:59
homeschool bubble maybe started to pop
00:31:01
for you and you kind of were like,
00:31:03
"Okay, now I'm in the real world.
00:31:07
Yeah, it
00:31:10
was
00:31:12
so I graduated when I was 17 and I
00:31:18
remember one one of the one of the
00:31:21
positive things was but again it was
00:31:24
only for the guys so it's it's just this
00:31:26
weird thing but we had a a church
00:31:28
service where all the guy all the men in
00:31:30
the church stood up and said like here's
00:31:33
what I do for a living here's where I
00:31:35
went to college here's just how here's
00:31:37
kind of my success level.
00:31:39
And based off of that conversation, my
00:31:43
parents and I and mainly them were like,
00:31:47
"Okay, we think it's a good idea for you
00:31:49
to have a blue collar skill and a white
00:31:51
collar skill. Like, you are going to
00:31:52
college. That's not really a
00:31:54
question, but let's get you a blue
00:31:57
collar skill first." So, at 17, I took
00:32:00
the GED so that it eliminated all of the
00:32:03
transcript mess. of you you have to now
00:32:07
record all your grades and because we
00:32:10
didn't really have that. Uh so I took
00:32:13
the GED and then I started uh aircraft
00:32:16
mechanics school. So, I went
00:32:19
to I went from this like 17-year-old kid
00:32:22
who really wasn't allowed to talk to
00:32:25
girls and very socially awkward to being
00:32:28
in a room of
00:32:30
30 like mid20 to mid30s mechanics who
00:32:36
were also working like working real jobs
00:32:39
but also getting their aircraft
00:32:41
mechanics licensed. And it was it was a
00:32:44
huge culture shock. I mean, I was
00:32:47
hearing jokes I had never heard before.
00:32:48
I was hearing words I had never heard
00:32:50
before. I mean, I showed up in khakis
00:32:53
and a button-down shirt that was
00:32:54
buttoned all the way up to the top. I
00:32:57
still remember like after after some of
00:33:00
us got to know each other better. One of
00:33:02
the guys like re literally reaching
00:33:04
across the table and unsnapping my shirt
00:33:06
and being like, "Stop buttoning your top
00:33:08
button." We all need people like that in
00:33:10
our lives. I had people like that when I
00:33:11
got to college, too. We're like we're
00:33:13
like, "Yo, you sab me down." were like,
00:33:15
"Yo, you got to chill the [ __ ] out,
00:33:17
man." Like,
00:33:21
oh my god. And you know, I was invited
00:33:25
to house parties for the first time. I
00:33:27
never went to any, but it was it was
00:33:29
just just a very, like I said, culture
00:33:33
shock experience. And yet it was weirdly
00:33:36
bounded because it was part of the it
00:33:39
was in Witchaw, Kansas, and the the
00:33:41
community college I was going to was
00:33:42
part of the Witchaw public school
00:33:44
system. So like no cell phones in class.
00:33:48
I didn't have a cell phone, but no cell
00:33:50
phones in class. And the Federal
00:33:53
Aviation Administration requirements
00:33:57
were very timebased. So, we had to show
00:33:59
up at like 7:30 or 8 in the morning and
00:34:02
stay until 2, even if we had our work
00:34:04
done. Lots of pranks being played,
00:34:07
people falling asleep on desk. Like,
00:34:08
these guys are working second and third
00:34:10
shift, right? Um, but that's where some
00:34:13
of my personality also started to come
00:34:16
out of like, that guy's falling asleep.
00:34:18
Let's tie his shoelaces to the table so
00:34:20
he wakes up. So, there was there was
00:34:22
lots of that going on. And then
00:34:26
partially
00:34:27
through that
00:34:30
experience, I needed a I needed a job. I
00:34:33
had been working mainly mowing lawns and
00:34:36
that's and that and Pelgrants were what
00:34:38
paid for most of my college. So I went
00:34:42
to work at a little avionics
00:34:44
shop and uh then 911 happened and
00:34:48
general aviation like my entire career
00:34:51
trajectory.
00:34:53
Yeah. like took a nose dive. So, I'd
00:34:55
only worked there for two months. I
00:34:58
started interviewing other PA places,
00:35:00
ended up getting a job at Cracker
00:35:02
Barrel and that was a culture shock in
00:35:06
the other direction because here I was
00:35:09
going to school which with 30 guys like
00:35:13
bluecollar
00:35:15
guys and now I'm in an environment that
00:35:18
is primarily bluecollar women which is a
00:35:21
way different place to be and um and so
00:35:25
like at 18 I remember standing in the
00:35:27
vestibule and one of the gals who was
00:35:28
training me, my parents had come in to
00:35:31
dinner and I was like, "There's my
00:35:32
parents over there." And she's like,
00:35:34
"Oh, okay. I'm going to go tell them we
00:35:36
had sex in the parking lot." And then
00:35:38
walked away and I was freaking out. I
00:35:42
was like, "Oh my god, you can't you
00:35:45
can't do that." And she saw like when
00:35:48
she came my face was must have just been
00:35:51
ashing cuz she was like, "Oh, I honey, I
00:35:54
would not do that to you." Like
00:35:57
So, but I loved both of those
00:36:00
experiences because that's what really
00:36:03
got me out of my shell. Like I was I was
00:36:06
one of the leaders I would say in my
00:36:09
peer group in in the church because the
00:36:13
church was was basically our only um
00:36:16
social
00:36:18
group. Then going outside of that and
00:36:21
just being hit with those two aspects of
00:36:25
humanity was fantastic and I would not
00:36:28
have changed that in any way. I think it
00:36:31
would have been shocking and possibly
00:36:34
damaging to someone who wasn't already
00:36:37
outgoing. Um, but I I loved it. It's so
00:36:41
interesting the the like the experiences
00:36:43
that then like you get out of it and
00:36:46
like I went to a small Christian college
00:36:48
right out of high school and so I kind
00:36:50
of took that like like you I was very
00:36:53
much like I was I was I don't want to
00:36:55
say I was like a leader but like I was
00:36:57
like big fish in a little pond in the
00:36:58
homeschool world and then I became like
00:37:00
a medium fish in this slightly larger
00:37:03
pond but that was also still very like
00:37:06
Christian and and I was like okay cool
00:37:09
and And it it wasn't until I got really
00:37:11
out of that even that I was like, "Okay,
00:37:13
now I'm working a job. I'm surrounded by
00:37:15
people who have varying different
00:37:17
beliefs. It was like I worked this great
00:37:18
I worked in a coffee shop. I managed a
00:37:20
coffee shop. And it was great because
00:37:21
everybody we all believed different
00:37:23
things. And so we would work and we
00:37:24
would we would you know on Sunday I had
00:37:27
to work the Sunday shift. And so I
00:37:29
didn't get to go to church, but I would
00:37:30
like afterwards we'd go out to lunch and
00:37:33
we would just all ask questions about
00:37:35
our upbringing and religion and like all
00:37:37
these things. So, we got to start to
00:37:39
kind of like unpack all of our
00:37:41
worldviews
00:37:42
together. And it was it was very fun.
00:37:46
And I think it was really I it was the
00:37:48
right timing for me cuz I was
00:37:51
questioning my own religion. But it was
00:37:53
like it was the right timing because I
00:37:54
was like there is so much more out here
00:37:57
than I would have ever known. And it
00:37:59
made me unafraid to ask dumb questions
00:38:01
because we had this environment where it
00:38:03
was like I know I'm an idiot when it
00:38:05
comes to all this stuff. I can I'm now
00:38:07
in a safe environment where I can ask it
00:38:09
and it's okay and you guys are not you
00:38:12
might laugh at me or whatever, but like
00:38:13
it's it's it's it was a safe place to do
00:38:17
it, you know, instead of like I don't
00:38:19
know. I I think there's a level you
00:38:22
talked about the fear-based aspect of of
00:38:24
your homeschooling experience. And I
00:38:26
don't necessarily think that my parents
00:38:27
was really fear-based, but there is that
00:38:30
fear in the homeschool world of the
00:38:33
outside. And so there is that As a kid,
00:38:37
I just remember being scared of like
00:38:39
asking anybody what is what made them
00:38:42
different, right? If they from outside
00:38:43
that bubble, I didn't want to talk to
00:38:44
them because they were scary. They were
00:38:46
dangerous. It's it Yeah, it's
00:38:48
terrifying. It Yeah, it truly is. So,
00:38:52
okay. So, you you're going to college,
00:38:54
you're working Cracker Barrel, you're
00:38:56
you're getting outside the bubble.
00:39:00
Yeah. Yeah. So, I ended up graduating
00:39:03
and then went on to Witchaw State
00:39:06
University. So, kind of the same as you,
00:39:08
like one of the one of the advantages
00:39:10
that I think homeschooling g did give to
00:39:13
me was was it it was sink or swim,
00:39:17
especially with when I got to subjects
00:39:19
that were outside of my parents' comfort
00:39:22
zone, right? I remember even in
00:39:24
Pennsylvania explaining to my dad like,
00:39:25
"My math is getting hard." And I was
00:39:27
probably like 11 or 12. Right? I'm like,
00:39:30
I'm starting to learn about imaginary
00:39:31
numbers. And at this time, it's
00:39:33
literally reading the Abeca book and
00:39:35
trying to understand math, right? And he
00:39:39
was
00:39:40
like, "Oh, you're like beyond where I
00:39:43
ever got in school. I don't even
00:39:45
understand what imaginary numbers are."
00:39:47
And I was like, "Oh my god."
00:39:49
Um, but yeah, so I I got to
00:39:53
college, real college, still living at
00:39:56
home.
00:39:57
um worked two to three jobs pretty much
00:40:00
the entire way, did summer school, and
00:40:04
one of the goals of higher education was
00:40:08
obviously to get a job. But that ties
00:40:11
back into the purity culture and like
00:40:14
you can't have sex until you get
00:40:16
married. You can't get married until you
00:40:19
are ready to lead a family. You're not
00:40:21
ready to lead a family until you have a
00:40:22
highpaying job. And ideally, you have a
00:40:25
house that's paid for as well. I didn't
00:40:27
hit that goal, but I hit the other
00:40:30
goals. And so it was it was very much
00:40:33
this like I
00:40:35
am I'm not living in the moment which
00:40:38
has been a huge struggle for me as I've
00:40:43
kind of come out of that religion and
00:40:45
come out of that those experiences of I
00:40:48
spent so much of my life trying to get
00:40:51
to a point where life could start and
00:40:54
then once life started I was like [ __ ]
00:40:58
what what is the point like what do we
00:41:01
do now? Like I've got a house, got a
00:41:04
wife, I can finally have sex,
00:41:07
now what? Mhm. And and so it I look back
00:41:11
on my college and I while I'm I'm
00:41:14
grateful for the experiences that I did
00:41:16
have things I hear other people talk
00:41:19
about college like
00:41:21
um my wife
00:41:23
um who I'm divorced and remarried. She
00:41:27
had a much more normal normal experience
00:41:30
but like she has friends from college
00:41:34
that she dormed with that she's still
00:41:36
friends with today. We went and stayed
00:41:37
with them a few months ago with one of
00:41:39
them and I don't have that concept of
00:41:42
like I had a study group and we went out
00:41:44
to the bars and you know because I was
00:41:48
um I'd get up usually between 3:00 and 4
00:41:52
in the morning and work and
00:41:56
study. I would study for two to three
00:41:59
hours. I would go to class and then I
00:42:00
would go work one of my jobs and then I
00:42:02
would go find a place to do homework.
00:42:04
And my senior year, I like to joke like
00:42:07
I probably slept 2 hours a day because
00:42:09
it was just every time I walked past my
00:42:11
bed and looked at it, I would just kind
00:42:13
of fall into it and sleep for a couple
00:42:14
hours and then get up and do the next
00:42:16
thing. But I think that the
00:42:17
homeschooling experience of I had to be
00:42:22
a selfarter and I had to run my own
00:42:25
schedule or I wasn't going to hit these
00:42:28
milestones that I had set for myself. um
00:42:31
really helped me through that
00:42:33
experience. It's just like wish I had
00:42:36
had the friend experience too. Two
00:42:39
things, the friend experience and also I
00:42:41
didn't get a B until I was in my senior
00:42:44
year and I remember the relief of
00:42:49
getting that B and realizing and it was
00:42:52
like literally out of my control. My my
00:42:56
professor was like a brilliant jerk and
00:42:59
I scored higher than every other
00:43:01
graduate student in the class and he
00:43:04
still gave me a B because my schedule or
00:43:06
my it was based on two exams. My second
00:43:10
exam score was lower than my first exam
00:43:12
score and he's like you have not
00:43:13
demonstrated learning in this class.
00:43:16
Like it was outside of my control. For
00:43:18
the first time I was I would could not
00:43:20
get an A. Yeah. And
00:43:24
I was like, "Oh my, I wish I had done
00:43:26
this
00:43:27
sooner." And then I got like three B's
00:43:30
my last semester, so I was like, "What's
00:43:32
the point? I'm still going to graduate
00:43:33
with a high GPA." Yeah. Um
00:43:36
but yeah, I I I have a couple of people
00:43:39
who I'm still a little bit connected to
00:43:41
um from that from that college
00:43:43
experience, but for the most part, it's
00:43:45
just it was just like
00:43:47
a checkbox to the goal I was trying to
00:43:50
get to. Well, that also plays back to
00:43:52
and and we hadn't really talked on this,
00:43:54
but like friendships growing up of like
00:43:57
inside of the homeschool world. I know
00:44:00
for me I I have a lot of friends still
00:44:03
from when I was a homeschooler. I had
00:44:05
friends from college like I but my mom
00:44:09
strategically put us in co-ops and
00:44:11
community and things like that because
00:44:12
she knew that that was like she knew
00:44:15
that that was the the the danger zone or
00:44:17
one of the weird things about
00:44:18
homeschooling. She's like, "Everyone
00:44:19
says antisocial. That's the thing." And
00:44:21
so I think she had this fear that I
00:44:24
don't want my kid to be antisocial, so
00:44:25
I'm going to push. I don't want to say
00:44:27
too far, but she she really pushed the
00:44:29
like have friends, go to houses, go like
00:44:32
we had, you know, other parents teacher
00:44:34
or other kids. Uh parents were our
00:44:36
teachers as well. So there was like very
00:44:38
much
00:44:40
there there was community and we did
00:44:42
things outside of just school together
00:44:43
as well. We dances, sports together, and
00:44:46
all that kind of stuff. But wait, you
00:44:49
did dances? Yeah. Yeah. So, we had uh
00:44:53
swing. I love that for you. Yeah. No, it
00:44:55
was so much fun. When I was 12 years
00:44:57
old, my mom stuck me in a swing dance
00:44:59
class. And so, I learned swing dance and
00:45:01
ballroom, which again, very homeschool
00:45:04
coded weirdness, right? But like, but it
00:45:06
was so much fun. And did that all
00:45:08
through high school. Did that some of
00:45:09
college as well. Like I was the guy if
00:45:12
you talk to my friends from growing up
00:45:14
that I was the guy who really eventually
00:45:17
took over and led the charge of that
00:45:19
whole thing. Taught for a couple years
00:45:22
that it was a lot of fun. It was really
00:45:24
cool and and we had a community that was
00:45:26
willing to like put on school dances. So
00:45:29
we kind of had some of these normal
00:45:32
things. Um we did school dances. We
00:45:35
partnered with a a Christian school and
00:45:38
did prom. We had yearbook like we had a
00:45:41
lot of the kind of traditional school
00:45:43
things field trips all that kind of
00:45:45
stuff nice existed and so it so it's
00:45:49
it's different when we talk to some when
00:45:52
I talked to somebody who was public
00:45:53
schoolled but at the same time there's
00:45:55
very much a similarity between like well
00:45:57
yeah we also did that it just looked a
00:45:59
little different you know but it was but
00:46:00
it was the same you know and so but for
00:46:04
you growing up especially in
00:46:06
Pennsylvania where you're the first
00:46:07
homeschool
00:46:09
family. Are you friends with anybody?
00:46:11
Are you friends with kids in the
00:46:12
neighborhood? Like what? Like like or is
00:46:15
it just like a very stereotypical home
00:46:18
school where it's like, "Oh, my sister
00:46:20
is my best friend, you know, and then
00:46:23
like in high school like yeah, we did
00:46:24
prom, but it was in the basement and I
00:46:26
went with my mom, you know, like
00:46:30
oh my god." So, it's it's really it's
00:46:34
interesting because my experience in
00:46:37
Pennsylvania was quite a bit different.
00:46:39
And of course, it would be because I was
00:46:40
older when we moved to Kansas, but in
00:46:43
Pennsylvania that fear was so
00:46:46
visceral like the teriy officer is going
00:46:49
to come, the social workers.
00:46:52
Like my mom literally had we had this
00:46:55
old piano next to our front door in our
00:46:57
house. And there were two things sitting
00:46:59
on there and one was a tape recorder and
00:47:01
the other was a gun because we were
00:47:03
going to record what the conversation
00:47:06
and if they tried to take us she was
00:47:08
going to shoot them. And like saying
00:47:10
that out loud like that's so [ __ ]
00:47:12
bizarre. Like what is this? Um but it
00:47:16
was it was just we were scared of
00:47:18
everything. I can remember, of course,
00:47:20
Halloween was not okay in any way,
00:47:23
shape, or form. And so, kids from the
00:47:25
neighborhood would come by and trick-or-
00:47:26
treat, and I remember hiding under the
00:47:28
kitchen table because they were dressed
00:47:30
up like devils or goblins or what. And
00:47:32
they probably weren't, but that's what
00:47:33
we were told. Like, this is an evil
00:47:36
holiday. Like, this is the day that evil
00:47:38
runs rampant in the land. And so, we're
00:47:42
like going to hunker down and protect
00:47:44
ourselves. Um, and in Pennsylvania there
00:47:48
were mainly um, three families that I
00:47:51
can remember that we interacted with.
00:47:53
Um, there there were a couple of other
00:47:56
families that were kind of on the
00:47:57
fringe,
00:48:00
but we
00:48:01
were we were one of two families who
00:48:04
pretty much only homeschooled in our
00:48:07
friend group. The others did kind of a
00:48:09
mixture of public school and
00:48:12
homeschooling. Okay. And um as far as
00:48:16
friends in Pennsylvania, there was one
00:48:19
guy who was a year older than I was, but
00:48:22
he was the closest boy and then there
00:48:24
was my sisters and a few girls who were
00:48:27
my age. So, especially early on, I hung
00:48:30
out with the girls. Um because like you
00:48:34
wouldn't think that like today we think
00:48:35
of a year age difference as like that's
00:48:38
not a big deal, but developmentally when
00:48:39
you're like six and seven or seven and
00:48:41
eight, that's huge. Yeah. Um so, so and
00:48:47
that interestingly
00:48:50
enough has played into even today where
00:48:55
I struggle to make friends particularly
00:48:58
with guys. And I'm much more comfortable
00:49:02
talking to women much more I I make
00:49:05
friends much easier with with women. And
00:49:09
it's something that I've actually worked
00:49:10
on in therapy as to how do I relate to
00:49:13
other men? How do I um how do
00:49:16
I make friends with guys?
00:49:20
And when when we got to Pennsylvania or
00:49:24
when we got to Kansas, that changed
00:49:26
quite a bit because we were going
00:49:29
to a cult, but just um the pool was a
00:49:33
lot bigger and there were more like 15
00:49:36
to 20 families there. And so there were
00:49:39
boys who were my age, very close in age.
00:49:43
And
00:49:45
um and so I made a lot of a lot of
00:49:49
friends. Um still didn't we really
00:49:52
didn't do sleepovers. We didn't there
00:49:54
was we did some field trips
00:49:57
together. Um my ex's family was she's
00:50:01
the oldest of um 10 kids and mostly
00:50:05
girls.
00:50:07
And I um had been infatuated with her
00:50:11
since I was I had been 14. Um and so I
00:50:16
would like my entire so like my goal of
00:50:20
I need to get a job. I need to finish
00:50:22
college was like very much you know
00:50:24
aimed at this very specific person. Um
00:50:28
but that family was a bit
00:50:30
more liberal as liberal as you could be
00:50:33
in in this very fundamentalist. So like
00:50:36
they did they watched movies, they did
00:50:38
dance classes, like they were in
00:50:40
symphony. Um so in because I was
00:50:45
constantly trying to be a part of their
00:50:47
world that did get me exposed in my
00:50:50
later years to things like I did take
00:50:53
like some some line dancing classes with
00:50:55
them. Um they did these things uh they
00:50:59
called them era nights where you could
00:51:00
dress up like a historical figure and
00:51:03
and show up and give a speech.
00:51:06
Um, and uh, so we we did some we did
00:51:08
some fun things like that. Um, I think
00:51:14
the apologies if I get emotional. Um,
00:51:18
but what changed was when I got married
00:51:22
and I I wasn't allowed to leave the
00:51:24
church until I got married. And and by
00:51:27
leave the church, I mean leave that
00:51:28
specific group of people. Okay. And as
00:51:31
soon as I got married, I did. And that
00:51:33
pretty much
00:51:35
ended my friendships with everyone in
00:51:38
that group. Um, like all of my grandmen,
00:51:42
my best man, like I I can count on one
00:51:45
hand the times I've talked to them
00:51:47
because after I left and based on some
00:51:51
of the choices I've made, they've made
00:51:53
it very clear to me that, you know,
00:51:57
they they don't want to be part of my
00:51:59
life, right? Um, and the interactions
00:52:03
that I did have with them, I think it
00:52:05
was I think it was mutual in some ways
00:52:07
because the interactions I started
00:52:08
having with them were basically them
00:52:10
saying like, "Hey, let's go to lunch."
00:52:11
And then they would tell me like, "We
00:52:12
think you're sinning in this way and you
00:52:15
need to shape up." And I'm like, I I'm
00:52:18
not going to like Yeah. No, it's your
00:52:21
life to it's your life to live. You get
00:52:23
to make your decisions. Yeah. Right. So,
00:52:26
it's been interesting moving from that.
00:52:28
So that was in Kansas. And then when we
00:52:30
did get into a really good small group
00:52:33
of of what we called young marrieds in
00:52:35
the church that we started going to.
00:52:38
Um but then over time I started
00:52:42
questioning religion, questioning
00:52:44
Christianity more and more. And then uh
00:52:48
that kind of ended that round of
00:52:50
friendships as well. And then most of
00:52:53
that all was severed when I moved down
00:52:55
here to Texas. And I've started so I've
00:52:58
been here for about seven years and of
00:53:00
course a year and a half after we got
00:53:02
here um we were real close with a couple
00:53:05
down here. They were our friends so we
00:53:07
moved down and he died of COVID and then
00:53:12
I lost my job during COVID and then this
00:53:15
remote working world. So it's like it's
00:53:18
really been within the last year to
00:53:20
where I've started getting out into the
00:53:22
community. Um, I did some very focused
00:53:26
um, trauma healing and therapy and that
00:53:30
has opened me up to like now we have a
00:53:33
friend group. We play bingo with them.
00:53:34
We play trivia with them. we we hang out
00:53:37
with them and that has been such an
00:53:40
amazing experience to because I've I've
00:53:43
always been one who who chases other
00:53:46
people. And I think that going all the
00:53:49
way back to like the guy I wanted to be
00:53:51
my best friend was older than me and had
00:53:54
interests that were more advanced than
00:53:55
mine. And so I was always chasing him
00:53:58
and this concept of like real friends
00:54:02
are it's mutual, right? like there's not
00:54:06
one person who's doing everything and
00:54:08
trying to get everyone together. Like it
00:54:10
just happens has been so fantastic and
00:54:15
so healing for me. I can't I can't even
00:54:17
describe it. Everything you're saying
00:54:19
has resonating with me significantly. I
00:54:21
mean, you talked about co and the work
00:54:22
from home. I I literally quit I worked
00:54:25
in a restaurant. I quit my job. Was like
00:54:28
so stoked. I'm I'm going to I I do
00:54:30
podcast editing. So, I was like, I'm
00:54:31
going to be like the greatest podcast
00:54:33
editor in the Nashville area. I'm going
00:54:35
to go to the cool little coffee shops.
00:54:36
I'm going to be that dude who like sits
00:54:38
and works on his laptop and has big
00:54:39
headphones and like looks super cool.
00:54:41
Like, I had this whole plan. I knew the
00:54:44
groups I was going to get connected with
00:54:45
and like how I was going to network and
00:54:47
all this stuff. And then co just really
00:54:49
came down and stopped all of that. And
00:54:51
for two years, it was very much just
00:54:53
stuck inside going stir crazy. Yeah. you
00:54:57
know, I like I I have my wife, but like
00:55:00
it was just, you know, you start you get
00:55:01
to a point where sometimes you just want
00:55:03
to bite the head off of the only person
00:55:04
you get to see, you know, it's like it
00:55:06
was it was insane. And that is honestly
00:55:10
where this show stemmed from because I
00:55:11
literally was so depressed and so just
00:55:14
like irritable and awful. And I was
00:55:16
like, I have no friends. Nobody's called
00:55:18
me. Nobody's texted me. And I'm thankful
00:55:22
for my wife because she she goes, "Well,
00:55:24
I think you should just just you talk
00:55:26
about these people, just text them and
00:55:29
say hi and see what happens." And that's
00:55:30
where this show came from because I
00:55:32
texted my high school buddies and I just
00:55:35
said, "Hey, like I'm I'm hurting. I need
00:55:37
something, you know? I just I just want
00:55:39
to talk. Like that's all." And it really
00:55:41
started these conversations of like
00:55:43
let's talk about we're coming up on a
00:55:46
year. I mean, we've passed that now, but
00:55:48
at the time we were coming up on 10
00:55:49
years of being out of the homeschool
00:55:51
world. How have we changed? What has
00:55:53
shifted for us? Where are we now? What
00:55:55
do we believe? What's different? And um
00:55:58
and it started this show and then from
00:56:00
there it sprung into okay now like I
00:56:03
have to I have my virtual community of
00:56:05
reconnecting with these people and I
00:56:06
have those skills again. Now I got to go
00:56:08
find that community that exists here and
00:56:10
I can be in person with them. And so,
00:56:13
yeah, I think
00:56:15
it's in that regard, I think it's a
00:56:17
tough time to be alive and be a guy
00:56:19
because guys don't know how to be
00:56:22
friends. We just don't and we're kind of
00:56:25
we're having to learn. Um, and like you
00:56:28
said, it can't always just be a give
00:56:30
give. It's got to be a little bit of a
00:56:31
give and take kind of a situation. So, I
00:56:33
appreciate you saying that because I
00:56:35
think male friendship in general,
00:56:37
friendship in general is very important,
00:56:39
especially as adults, but it's it's
00:56:42
something that I think a lot of
00:56:43
homeschool kids, we we get out of it.
00:56:45
Like you said, there's this drive to
00:56:47
like go go go and get to a specific
00:56:50
point and we hit that and then we just
00:56:52
don't know what to do anymore. It's
00:56:53
like, right, it's time to create that
00:56:55
new set of goals, people. it's time to
00:56:57
kind of set that new expectation of what
00:56:59
do you want out of life and who do you
00:57:01
want it if to be a part of it and those
00:57:02
types of things and so yeah like I said
00:57:05
I really resonate with what you're
00:57:06
saying there because it's just yeah
00:57:08
thank you so much for sharing Jacob and
00:57:10
that
00:57:12
like I hope that you're able to take
00:57:15
deep breaths and you're able to to know
00:57:18
that where you are today you're okay and
00:57:21
you're good and that there's
00:57:27
not if all you accomplished was what you
00:57:30
have to this point and connecting the
00:57:32
people that you have and forming the
00:57:33
relationships like that would be enough.
00:57:35
I Yeah, I I agree with you. I I piss
00:57:39
people off when I say this, but I
00:57:42
especially like my wife and my parents,
00:57:43
but I'm like if I died today, I'm good.
00:57:46
I did it. Like I have to live my life
00:57:48
that way because there's no like of
00:57:50
course there's other things I would love
00:57:52
to accomplish, right? Who doesn't have
00:57:53
that in their life? But at the same
00:57:55
time, you got to, like you said, you got
00:57:58
to be okay with I did I did what I did.
00:58:01
I'm happy with what I got, you know? So,
00:58:04
if I can, you know, we're not promised
00:58:06
tomorrow. Like, right, we're not
00:58:08
promised the rest of today.
00:58:12
But but it's so much easier, I think, to
00:58:16
live life in that mindset and be kind of
00:58:20
a little bit happier and a little bit
00:58:21
more content with what you've got than
00:58:24
it is to just be like, "Well, no, I I
00:58:27
got to get to that next thing. Got to be
00:58:28
working to that next thing." You know,
00:58:30
it just it gets tiring. It burns you
00:58:32
out. It's not fun anymore, you know? And
00:58:34
life, we get one life. We got to make it
00:58:36
fun, right? It's got to be fun. It's got
00:58:39
to be fun. We've got it. Yeah. I'm so
00:58:42
much so in that. Oh my god.
00:58:47
It's fascinating to hear your experience
00:58:51
too
00:58:52
because the the what you said about men
00:58:55
in relationships
00:58:57
and how challenging it can
00:59:01
be to feel like my success has been from
00:59:06
sitting behind a computer and just
00:59:08
banging away at my job and learning and
00:59:11
getting better and better and
00:59:14
and starting to starting to be like, why
00:59:18
why am I so exhausted at the end of the
00:59:20
day? All I've done is sit in front of a
00:59:22
computer. And it's funny, I went and
00:59:24
hung out with a friend of mine and I I
00:59:26
was working, he was working, but his job
00:59:28
was vastly different than mine. And
00:59:31
after a couple hours, he was
00:59:34
like, "You work harder than anyone I've
00:59:37
ever any remote worker than I've ever
00:59:40
seen." And I was like, "What are you
00:59:41
talking about?" He's like, "When you're
00:59:43
in a meeting, you're on." Because I'm
00:59:45
I'm like literally on Zoom calls almost
00:59:47
all day long. And I was like, "Yeah."
00:59:50
But what I realized um about eight
00:59:53
months ago is that I
00:59:57
was
00:59:59
missing in-person
01:00:01
time and I was
01:00:04
missing being part of a an actual
01:00:08
physical community. Like I I have I do I
01:00:12
am friends with with uh a couple
01:00:14
interestingly enough a couple of um
01:00:18
girls. One girl that was one of the
01:00:20
original um uh homeschooling friends
01:00:23
that I grew up with in Pennsylvania.
01:00:25
Like she and I have gotten reconnected
01:00:27
in the last couple years, but you need
01:00:30
that
01:00:31
in-person sign. And I had this kind of
01:00:35
period of of euphoria, almost mania
01:00:39
after I I did a bunch of trauma healing.
01:00:42
And I was like, all of a sudden I have
01:00:43
all this energy and I want to go connect
01:00:45
with everyone. And
01:00:47
um I started a business um which is
01:00:51
Bassrop Co-working. So I live in
01:00:53
Bastrop, Texas. And I was like, I need
01:00:55
to get out and I need to be around
01:00:57
people. And there's not a spot for that
01:00:59
in my downtown. But there's I've been
01:01:02
part of a a gym community for several
01:01:04
years and I've kind of floated in and
01:01:06
out of the community and they've they've
01:01:08
really been there for me through some
01:01:09
tough times and I love them dearly. Um
01:01:12
but I wasn't connecting. Um because
01:01:14
spoiler alert, once you get into your
01:01:16
40s, if you're not doing CrossFit every
01:01:19
day of the week and you do it like once
01:01:21
or twice, you are going to injure
01:01:23
yourself and then you're going to spend
01:01:25
six to six weeks recovering and then
01:01:28
you're going to repeat that process
01:01:29
until it finally gets through your s
01:01:30
thick skull that maybe I shouldn't try
01:01:32
to do a 100 pull-ups at the same time on
01:01:35
the same day in a row.
01:01:38
Um, but it was this opportunity to where
01:01:41
I was like, "Okay, there's a little
01:01:43
office space in the building that the
01:01:45
gym is in. If I can connect with some of
01:01:47
those same people, but then just
01:01:49
literally show up and be around people."
01:01:52
Yeah. And that's what has gotten us
01:01:55
ultimately um connected to this new
01:01:58
friend group that we're a part of. um
01:02:00
more involved in the community, actually
01:02:03
getting out of the house and giving
01:02:05
myself
01:02:06
permission to
01:02:11
um let not let go. It's it's hard to say
01:02:16
because I'm still working through this,
01:02:17
but the concept of like I am not tied to
01:02:20
this desk and to this computer for eight
01:02:23
hours a day, 40 hours a week. Like I can
01:02:25
go work from a coffee shop. I can go to
01:02:27
a co-working space. I can go physically
01:02:29
be around other people and I not only
01:02:32
can I but I need to I need to because I
01:02:36
don't want to spend the next, you know,
01:02:38
20 years of my career sitting
01:02:41
here only connecting with people
01:02:44
virtually. So, and that goes all the way
01:02:47
back to um what we were talking about
01:02:50
from from Pennsylvania and and even in
01:02:53
Kansas somewhat of of
01:02:55
that academically I think I did very
01:02:59
very well in homeschooling. Um my
01:03:02
learning mo modalities matched the
01:03:05
ability to be able to pick up a textbook
01:03:08
and read it and understand the concepts.
01:03:11
Um, but that's one of my biggest fears
01:03:15
when people say, "Oh, I'm going to
01:03:17
homeschool my kids." It's like it does
01:03:20
not work for everyone. And it unless you
01:03:23
are truly an expert at all aspects of
01:03:27
reading and writing and arithmetic, but
01:03:29
also all of the social skills and the
01:03:32
understanding what learning disabilities
01:03:34
and learning challenges look
01:03:35
like. Like that is the power of going to
01:03:40
a place
01:03:41
where there are educators who have made
01:03:44
it their career to understand childhood
01:03:47
development to who have made it their
01:03:49
career to
01:03:51
understand at 13. These are the concepts
01:03:54
that a 13-year-old brain on average can
01:04:00
understand. And even at, you know, 42
01:04:03
years old, um, I'm still learning things
01:04:09
socially that I quote unquote should
01:04:12
have learned in high school. Um, when
01:04:16
like even the concept of like not
01:04:19
everything is black and white. I I joke
01:04:21
with with my wife that if I if I ever
01:04:24
write an autobiography, a working title
01:04:26
is ascent to gray because learning that
01:04:29
the world is not black and white and
01:04:31
that people are not good or bad, right?
01:04:34
And that there are all these different
01:04:36
personalities. One of my favorite parts
01:04:37
of my job now is that I get
01:04:39
to teach people uh run them through a
01:04:42
personality test and then talk about
01:04:46
like there is no like better personality
01:04:49
than another but we need to understand
01:04:50
these so that we can communicate well
01:04:52
together. Um, but a lot of that is is
01:04:56
like me having these aha moments in my
01:04:59
40s like, "Oh my god, I just figured out
01:05:01
how this aspect of the world works and
01:05:03
everyone's else was like, "Yeah, RB."
01:05:06
Like, good for you. We've known that for
01:05:08
a long time. Um, but in a in a way, I
01:05:12
get to approach some of these things
01:05:14
from that like childhood
01:05:16
uh curiosity of like I didn't learn this
01:05:19
before. And I feel like that's where the
01:05:21
true choice for me is as a human is I
01:05:25
can look back and sometimes I do and
01:05:27
sometimes I get stuck in the rut of like
01:05:29
god damn it why did I not learn this?
01:05:32
Why was I not why was my education
01:05:35
experience what it was? Why was my
01:05:37
sisters what it was instead of and what
01:05:41
I want to be is like whether I learned
01:05:44
it before or not is really irrelevant.
01:05:46
It's today is what matters, right? And
01:05:49
and I can have that childhood sense of
01:05:53
curiosity and joy today and connect with
01:05:57
that in some very real ways. And I I'll
01:06:01
give you just an example. Um, and this
01:06:04
is silly. And there's so many people
01:06:06
that are like, "That's that's so silly."
01:06:08
But I have this little um this little uh
01:06:12
bag that I carry around and I I hand
01:06:15
these lizards out to people. Okay. It's
01:06:17
a It's a little tiny and it's just a
01:06:19
resin lizard. It glows in the dark.
01:06:23
Um, but it's just this this childhood
01:06:26
like I get to give this little toy out
01:06:29
to people and you would not believe how
01:06:33
like the people who look the grumpiest
01:06:35
and like they're having a terrible day
01:06:38
and I'm like, "Would you like a lizard?"
01:06:40
And most of them are like, "What are you
01:06:42
talking about?" And then I'm like, "No,
01:06:45
like it's just a little toy." And
01:06:47
they're just like their face lights up.
01:06:51
Um, so yeah, all of that to say is I
01:06:53
feel like one of the things I missed was
01:06:55
that social aspect of being around a
01:06:59
peer group, learning those
01:07:01
relationships,
01:07:02
but that means I get to do that today
01:07:05
and with the knowledge and experience
01:07:07
that 40-year-old me does. And I do silly
01:07:10
things and that's just me. And I think
01:07:14
people are drawn to me because of that.
01:07:16
I think that's a really important
01:07:17
message. And like I was going to ask you
01:07:19
the question of like, you know, what do
01:07:20
you say to homeschool parents who are
01:07:22
thinking about it? And I think
01:07:25
ultimately I I this show has become as I
01:07:28
I have realized that part of the reason
01:07:30
for the show is to be a resource for
01:07:34
people who are thinking about
01:07:35
homeschooling, to hear stories like
01:07:36
yours, to hear stories like mine, to
01:07:38
hear stories like my friends,
01:07:41
because there is a case to be made that
01:07:43
homeschooling can work and you can do
01:07:45
it. But also, there's a lot of pitfalls
01:07:48
you can fall into. So take the stories
01:07:51
that you're hearing and listen to them
01:07:52
and go, "Okay, like I can change this or
01:07:54
I can tweak this or I can give this to
01:07:55
my kids." But also just understanding
01:07:58
that like I think every parent hopefully
01:08:01
maybe not every parent, this is maybe
01:08:02
the the really looking at the best in
01:08:04
everybody, but every parent should want
01:08:06
the best for their kid. And I think that
01:08:08
every parent does want the best for
01:08:09
their kid. I think and that looks
01:08:11
different for everybody. But I kind of I
01:08:15
I look at it and I go, every kid is
01:08:17
designed differently and some kids
01:08:18
operate better in the public school
01:08:19
system, in the private school system,
01:08:20
and in a home school system with private
01:08:22
educator. Whatever it is, figure out
01:08:24
what works for that kid and be the
01:08:26
strongest advocate to get them to where
01:08:28
they need to go and and try to give them
01:08:33
the best. It's never going to be
01:08:34
perfect. Like that's just that's just
01:08:35
the reality. It's never going to be
01:08:37
perfect, but Right. But we can kind of
01:08:39
continue that iteration of like you you
01:08:42
said it at the beginning. I've been I've
01:08:43
been doing a lot of research of like the
01:08:46
the trauma that's passed down people to
01:08:48
people, right? And so it's like yeah, my
01:08:50
grandpa maybe wasn't the greatest person
01:08:52
and he screwed up my dad in this way,
01:08:55
but my dad is a better person, right?
01:08:56
And then my dad screwed me up in this
01:08:58
way, but I'm a better person. And then
01:09:00
the next generation and I can pass that
01:09:02
on to the next people, right? And so I
01:09:05
think that's just that's the point is
01:09:07
like continue to grow and continue to
01:09:09
educate yourself. You talked about it
01:09:11
within just your own life of like rather
01:09:14
than be stuck in the past of I didn't
01:09:16
learn this. Oh wo is me. You get to
01:09:19
learn it today, right? Like and there's
01:09:21
so much more resources today. So it's
01:09:24
like you get to learn it way better than
01:09:26
you would have learned it way back then
01:09:28
anyways, you know? So yeah. Yeah, that's
01:09:30
true. Well, I appreciate you, RB. I this
01:09:34
has been a great conversation and I've I
01:09:35
I love just like your take on life and
01:09:38
things like that. I do want to give you
01:09:39
the opportunity shout out your
01:09:42
Instagram, your business one more time.
01:09:44
Um so if people are in the Texas area
01:09:46
and listening or if they're not in the
01:09:48
Texas area, the great thing about the
01:09:49
internet is we can follow each other on
01:09:51
Instagram and things like that. But
01:09:52
shout out what you got going on and uh
01:09:55
so people know. Yeah, thanks Jacob. I've
01:09:57
really enjoyed this conversation too.
01:09:59
Um, and and as I stated before, I think
01:10:02
maybe in our previous conversation, a
01:10:04
lot of what's happening in even in Texas
01:10:08
and even in the small town that I'm in
01:10:10
where we're we're, you know, talking
01:10:12
about school vouchers, we're talking
01:10:13
about private school, we're talking
01:10:14
about homeschooling,
01:10:17
and I just so value conversations like
01:10:21
this because I don't want my gut
01:10:24
reaction when someone says, "Oh, I'm
01:10:26
going to homeschool my kids or I'm
01:10:27
homeschooling my kids." be like, "What
01:10:28
the [ __ ] are you doing?" Um because it
01:10:31
is, but that's my experience. And so I
01:10:34
think exactly what you said
01:10:36
is there are um there are multiple ways
01:10:40
that kids learn and ultimately I do
01:10:44
believe every parent is trying to do the
01:10:46
right thing uh for their kids. Um and
01:10:49
I'll give a I'm just going to give a my
01:10:51
wife is a public educator. She has been
01:10:53
for 20 plus years. So
01:10:57
um there's an aspect to this which would
01:11:00
be interesting to explore that I I just
01:11:02
know a little bit about but it is for
01:11:05
those uh folks who are not privileged
01:11:08
who the parents don't have the time to
01:11:10
sit down and think what does my kid need
01:11:13
what kind of learning style do they have
01:11:15
what would work best for them right
01:11:16
because they're working two jobs and
01:11:19
they're you know they're poor um I mean
01:11:22
I grew up poor
01:11:23
but there's there's a lot of people who
01:11:26
public school is so important as that's
01:11:30
the only opportunity they have to
01:11:33
learn. Um, so I'm just going to give a
01:11:36
plug for uh for public education and if
01:11:41
if someone is listening to this and and
01:11:44
having that uh I'm I'm open. I'm willing
01:11:47
to talk. Um, so I'll give a plug for my
01:11:50
Instagram. So it's flyer brown because I
01:11:53
thought I was going to be a pilot when I
01:11:54
was a kid. So F l i f l i er b r o wn
01:12:00
and then uh by business uh
01:12:02
isbassrop co-work on Instagram as well.
01:12:05
So yeah, if anyone wants to connect or
01:12:07
has uh questions, I'm more than happy to
01:12:10
chat. And Jacob, thank you again. This
01:12:12
is this has been fantastic and and I'm
01:12:14
so glad we got connected. Yeah. No, I I
01:12:17
really am too. I'm glad you sent me. It
01:12:19
was like a cold DM or something like
01:12:20
that. And and that the some of the
01:12:23
greatest conversations I've had on the
01:12:24
show had come from people that like I I
01:12:27
I don't know, right? Like I I thought
01:12:30
that the show was going to for the
01:12:31
longest time just be people that I had
01:12:32
known that we lost contact with and and
01:12:35
it has reached more people than I ever
01:12:38
could have imagined. And so it's great
01:12:40
to have conversations like this. I'm
01:12:42
going to put all of RB's stuff down in
01:12:43
the description as well. So if if you
01:12:45
can't find it, it's going to be linked.
01:12:47
Um, and along with the newsletter and my
01:12:50
Instagram and my Tik Tok and all of the
01:12:52
stuff, you know, it's down below. If you
01:12:53
enjoyed it, like, comment, share,
01:12:56
follow, all that stuff. Yeah, do do all
01:12:58
of the the internet things that you know
01:13:00
at this point what you need to do. So,
01:13:02
if any of my friends are seeing this,
01:13:05
reach out to Jacob and tell him your
01:13:07
story because like the more people we
01:13:09
get talking about this and Jacob's doing
01:13:10
an amazing job of just creating this
01:13:13
community and I love it. Well, thank
01:13:15
you. Yeah, of course. Like yeah, like RB
01:13:17
said, reach out. I'm I'm always looking
01:13:19
for new people to to interview and and
01:13:21
hear their experience. That's the whole
01:13:23
goal. Even if you don't want to record
01:13:24
it and put it out in the world, if you
01:13:26
just want to have a conversation, I'm
01:13:28
down, okay? We'll hop on a call. We'll
01:13:30
chat. That is what the whole point of
01:13:31
this is, is to build. We've been talking
01:13:33
about friendships and community. That's
01:13:35
what I want to do here. You are not
01:13:37
alone. Our home school experiences are
01:13:39
they're unique, but they are not
01:13:41
isolated. Um, so yeah, with that, reach
01:13:44
out to me.
01:13:47
[email protected] and uh until next week,
01:13:49
we'll see you. Okay, peace.
01:13:54
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01:14:01
[Music]
