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another week another ex- homeschoolers Club I am your host Jacob Gooden and we are back to get to talk about The Good
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the Bad and the Ugly of homeschooling uh I'm so stuck today I have a brand new
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friend Whitney who is joining us she reached out to me via I don't remember if it was social media or email or
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something maybe YouTube uh but to talk about the show and we just connected and I was like I gotta have you on the show
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so Whitney first and foremost welcome to the ex homeschoolers Club thank you Jacob I'm really glad to be here let's
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just Dive Right In let let's share with the audience a little bit about your
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homeschool experience um you know kind of set the scene a little bit for us like what was family life like how many
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siblings were all of you guys homeschooled roughly like when were you homeschooled that kind of thing give us
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a little bit of a snapshot of what things look like sure I feel like my experience is maybe a little unique um
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so we were well I was born in the 80s and my brothers and I I'm the oldest I
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have two younger brothers um and my mom was an educator so she had a bachelor's
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and then a master's in education so was a teacher by profession um and she decided to
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homeschool all of us um but we did have a little bit of a I guess a a strange trajectory maybe so I'm seven years
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older than my youngest brother um and so I started first and then my my middle brother next and then by the time I got
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to seventh grade my mom decided to put us back into school partially she had some health issues and so we went I went
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back into school part day in seventh grade and then back into public school full-time starting in eighth grade
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through high school so my middle brother went back into school and fifth grade would have been and then my youngest
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brother was was so much younger that he essentially wasn't homeschooled he only
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really had like maybe a year of homeschool so the three of us have sort of very different uh experiences and
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very different um right memories of everything yeah so just it was a sort of a unique thing and
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then I think when we spoke before I I'd mentioned to you that my mom also did a
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kind of a strange thing where she put us into school for like a month or two at a
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time randomly and and so we ended up like even through Elementary School we'd
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go into school for like a month or two at a time randomly I'm sure that played
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like such a weird role too in just like socialization too because you're like
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you go from like not that homeschoolers have no friends but they tend to be a little bit more on the we're a little
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bit more antisocial to like all of a sudden I'm in a classroom with a bunch of kids who know each other who maybe
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have been going to school with each other for a number of years at this point and then like a few months later
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you're like pulled right back out so it's like that's also got to be kind of
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this weird ping pong back and forth effect as well oh it really was and I will say too that she never put us in
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the same school twice so it was like there was five different elementary schools I think in my hometown and so we
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ended up at different points in each of the elementary schools and so it was it was I again I'm not really sure like
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unfortunately my mom has passed so I can't ask her why and my dad doesn't
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remember um and so it's just yeah it's it was weird not gonna lie it was it was
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a strange experience and as a result I I did have friends but it wasn't like a
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core group of friends when I was young okay so your mom was an educator so when it comes to school at home did she have
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a pretty good like structure to what she was doing since she had that training of
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like okay hey we're gonna go through this curriculum and set the days up like
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this or was it was it just kind of a free-for-all it it was more of a free-for-all except for math um so math
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we had um we we did Saxon and I don't I think we we touched on this before it
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was a I don't know where the Saxon Math comes from exactly but seems to be a
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common curriculum that was used by homeschoolers um so we did saxs and math and then aside from that we didn't have
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any curriculum set for any of the other subjects um and so my mom was really into like uh I guess having us learn
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through doing things so for example I'm a musician and that was a big part of my
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childhood was was having me play music um my brothers to a lesser extent um and then we did a lot of things like um
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like knitting like we we did art classes so we do classes and things with other people but it was like you know an hour
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or two a week that kind of thing right so it was more experiential I guess except for math okay I don't know and
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she didn't teach us math it was more like um here's a math book and learn it
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right so yeah which sometimes doesn't work so well when you're like a little
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little kid like I by the time I by the time you're in high school it's a little
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bit you can kind of okay here's a textbook it walks me through everything and then you know I would go to my mom
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for like tutoring or my mom was not the math person so my dad was the tutor for math but you know what whatever subject
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it was just kind of go to parents for more of a tutoring approach as opposed to them being like I'm not going to give
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you a lecture at home like that doesn't make a whole lot of sense just read the
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textbook but uh but yeah I can imagine as a kid that would be kind of tricky and yeah is kind of one of those I feel
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like Saxon curriculum and ABCA curriculum are the two that a lot of people yeah and never used that one for
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whatever reason but yeah yeah I I recently chatted with my mom because I did a Becca for the first couple years
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and her reasoning behind it was the fact that it's kind it's structured to be in
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a classroom already and so it's kind of this if you don't know what you're doing
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it's kind of this easy just like plug andplay type of situation however homeschool kids are usually homeschooled
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for a reason and it tends to be we're a little bit different than most people uh
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our education style is different and so kind of recreating that school experience at home doesn't always work
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for everybody me included so it was just kind of like it just it never fit right
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with my family so she quickly transitioned out of that and by the time I was graduating it was like it was just
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this crazy mismatch of everything that worked together right so we had this math which was like math you see and
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then we had this English company over here we had this over here so it kind of this mix Mash of of a lot of different
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things um not everybody s you know Saxon and and ABCA can work for some people but it just didn't it didn't work for us
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yeah and I I think like for for me it worked okay because I was um I liked math and I sort of thought of it as like
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a puzzle um but my brother didn't work for him as well um so he and I you know
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had slightly different experiences um I think he needed maybe more one-on-one attention than he got and then for me
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for whatever reason I was able to do a little bit more by myself um yeah but I think like it showed when we got back
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into school like I was I was fine I was at the grade level I should have been um
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but my brother was struggling quite a bit more and he continued to struggle he's fine now but it it was definitely
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like there was a difference when we went back to school so you also talked about
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like experiential learning you brought up like knitting and other things like that were they like are we talking
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mostly like homech type of stuff or like are we also talking about like you know
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oh we go over with these friends and like do like a science experiment or like things like that a lot of it was
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home act centered um and and I mean to my mom's credit we all did it so like my brothers both had
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to go to knitting class too um but it was more like it was definitely more artsy focused I would
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say my mom was pretty into the Arts um yeah and then on the science side of things it was more I actually don't feel
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like we had any like formal Science Education we would have books and things that we could read um but we didn't have
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like a science or science things that we did together she was really into like history so we did a lot of like visiting
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museums and we did a lot of um uh you know going and uh visiting like like for example I'm trying to think of like
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national parks and things like that so we did a lot of like history related um but not not so much on the science thing
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which is ironic now because I am a Scientist yeah no I think that's interesting
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because I feel like it's one of two things I I interviewed someone on the show who they really had very little
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education as a kid their their mom was not was not a great educator and what was interesting was but the the way they
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found their passion was was they they like like the thing that they were interested in they didn't really get to
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do as much as a kid and so then when they actually like got to a point where they're like oh I can like make this
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decision they're like I'm really into this or I'm like you know and so they
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kind of were like okay like I'm I'm going all in you know and then um so I I
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think it's interesting how people different you know kind of find their passions it's like I also was big in
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music I I played instruments and that kind of thing and then I went to college for to get a music business degree so
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it's like but my passion was kind of all throughout my life um so I don't know
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it's kind of interesting to see how people when and how people kind of find that thing you know that they're like
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okay this is this is it you know yeah so I mean I I Thought I Loved music as a kid but then it turned out as I got
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older um when I was able to make more of a decision for myself about things that
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it wasn't my passion necessarily I think it was more my mom's passion but it was
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my it was like the focus of my child to be frank I started playing when I was five and um that was like the thing that
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I did I played violin I was in orchestras and you know all sorts of musical touring groups and things like
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this it was the focus and then when I got to college and was able to kind of make more of a
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decision about what I wanted to do it turns out I really really like being outside and playing in mud with plants
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yeah is there a specific moment that you remember kind of being like Oh I think science is the thing or was it just kind
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of a gradual like realization of like no I'm really into this I think it was a
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gradual realization but I did have a high school teacher that was very inspiring to me she was my physics
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teacher and I really really felt like I connected well with her and that was one
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of the first times that I I was like oh man I really like this like I don't know
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exactly what it is but it's like cool like I am like talking about how things
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move and you know how they interact with the with the world and like oh my gosh you can make things fly you know it was
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one of those like sort of oh wow and she was awesome she was a really great teacher and um and she was a woman too
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so I think for me that was kind of one of the first women I'd seen in my life
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that was a scientist or you know teaching science and so I connected really well with her and then it kind of
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sparked a you know a trajectory I actually thought I wanted to do Engineering in college um and then I
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changed my mind but but that's I think that's kind of what set me most on the
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path towards being like this is cool yeah and what area in particular like do you study in like the scientific raw I
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know it's just like vast plethora of everything yeah so I'm in plant Sciences
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I work uh specifically in agriculture but um I'm yeah I'm a plant scientist so
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I I get to go and do like you know you know look at plants and I I ID plants but I work in in a so in the context of
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a but I was in really into ecology in college that's kind of what I was like
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Wow people get paid to do this like hike around in the woods like look at plants
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I'm like oh wow this is so cool yeah so that that yeah College was when I really
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solidified like oh wow this is amazing I tell people all the time because being a
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podcast editor I'm like people pay me to learn stuff every single day and I love
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that yeah and so like I work on a vast different variety of shows from business to dating to relationships to now
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interviewing ex- homeschoolers and like all everything you can imagine in between right like therapy and all that
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kind of stuff and it's so funny because I just I sometimes I feel like I'm just robbing
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people because I'm like you're you're literally paying me to learn something
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that I would just do in my own free time yeah um and granted you know I'm actually editing their stuff but it's
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it's funny it's it it's so refreshing I think when you can kind of find
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something that you're like whoa like someone will pay me to do this thing that's like the craziest I think feeling
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I agree I agree yeah and I will say like for for my current career like I do think
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homeschooling in in the way that my mom did it actually maybe did help because um you know as a scientist my job is to
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kind of learn on my own right there's no there's no guide right I have to figure
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things out and and try things by myself so I think that that experience as a kid
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of like not having a super directed like learning environment actually did kind of help in for my
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current career so when you transitioned into like Junior High in high school for
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into public school the difference there I'm wondering because I mean that I don't
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know but like is there a difference of like are teachers kind of holding your hand a little bit more along the way to
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be like okay you have to do this reading and you have to get this done and that kind of a thing because the the way like
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the way my school was set up was like my parents would sit down with me at the beginning of the week or whatever and
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they would kind of be like okay hey here's what you need to accomplish by the end of the week we don't really care
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how you get there it's on you to get to this end point but I would imagine High School is
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probably like public high school is probably not like that yeah you know there's very much more of a regimented
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like okay you're going to sit in the seat for x amount of hours and we're
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going to study this for a certain amount of time and that kind of a thing yeah where it almost feels a little bit more
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like handholding but maybe I could be wrong I don't know your experience in hes school is very different than mine
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because there was no structure like that even of like this is what you have to learn it was just like here's the day
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just like figure it out um yeah so it was like you know I might read the whole day and then the next day I might you
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know do math the whole day and then I might you know was very I guess if right I was yeah I've heard parents that are
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more structured than I guess yours was but mine was not at all so I was so far out in the other end of things I
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actually really liked when I went to school and was like bit more clear like okay this is what we're learning and
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here this is you know the the assignment that you have right this paper um about
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this particular thing so for me but I I did have like a really high perfectionist streak so I academically I
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I felt this need to like always get really high grades and it was very stressful for me so yeah and I don't
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think my brother felt the same way about it um but yeah for me I was like I have
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to do the best if be the best and so um it was a little bit more anxiety inducing I guess than it probably had
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been in the past I felt I felt F I had to earn the grades I guess if that makes sense yeah yeah yeah I think
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that's also just like you know firstborn yeah that could we kind of tend to I'm also a firstborn kid so I
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think it also we tend to be that kind of like you know we got to please Mom and Dad we gota like we gotta try our best
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you know proba there's an expectation yeah um and then the younger kids tend to
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like get it easier even if they're tough on themselves to be like Oh I'm going to
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be an a perfect student or whatever but yeah you know I think they they sometimes catch a break that where where
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we didn't feel like I don't know I there were certain things that my parents it's
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talking now to my parents they go they go yeah we don't know why you held yourself to the standard because we
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would you know tell you like you know it's okay to get a B it's okay to like
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do this thing and it's like no no no no no like I have to be A+ student I have
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to be this thing and it's like well you know sometimes it's okay um that's not
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everyone's parents experence experience but yeah I get that I understand your
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feeling of like I I gotta earn it I gotta really like you know if I don't get an A the world collapses you know
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yeah and I do think that from my mom at least there was that expectation that I do really well I don't know I it's like
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my dad wasn't as involved and so even to this day like when we talk about things
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that he doesn't remember things in the same way that I do or he won't remember
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exactly like you know how things went or and and so I don't feel like he was
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as involved but my mom certainly had that um that expectation on me particularly yeah yeah there was a bit
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of a gender difference and how my mom treated us and so there was a different expectation for me than for my brothers
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with a lot of things yeah it did you grow up in like a in a religious household as well where
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that was also cuz I know sometimes religion also plays a role in that like that gender pushing
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that gender role stereotype like forward in lot of cases yeah so there was definitely um like I I wouldn't say it
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was you know cult-like or anything um but my mom was and again this was coming primarily from my mom um but she was
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super into church and things when we were little um and then it kind of persisted like I I had like a um purity
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ring like that was but it was only me not my brothers I was only one um and then like you know there was an
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expectation that I wouldn't date or wouldn't uh you know have a boyfriend or
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whatever until I was I think you know an adult um so there were there was that and it was very very gender specific in
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that way yeah we we did go to church um you know I went to Vacation Bible School
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and stuff like that um it was uh primarily Baptist Focus which I don't think it was very like culty but I guess
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um I don't know at the time I do remember there was also like you know a lot of uh pressure maybe publicly from
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like Christina agair and Britney Spears I remember a lot of like that Purity culture talk was happening um you know
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maybe they changed as they got older but it was happening a lot when I was in like middle school and from what I can
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remember I don't want to say Purity culture doesn't still exist I almost
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feel like because I was that age in like the 20 10s I mean I started High School in
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2010 um and so but yeah even a couple years before that Purity culture was very much still
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very real like I didn't have a purity ring I I had friends who did I I don't
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know I I didn't have parents who pushed that on me the the Purity stuff was pushed on me I didn't date in high
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school that kind of a thing um it's interes I've been I've been unpacking a lot more of it more recently
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and uh I shout out to one of the listeners of the show uh m is Annie slag boom uh she sent me a book called uh
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when religion hurts you and I've just been I've been actively listening to it
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and it's been kind of breaking down these thoughts of like because like you I don't I didn't view I don't view my
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church experience at a very like cult-like way I think mostly because when you when you think about a cult you
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think about a lot of times like Jonestown or you think about Waco Texas right you think about
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these like insane Cults where it's like they're very there's very strict rules
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there's very like you go outside of it you get you know yeah kicked off the scene Scientology you know that kind of
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thing and so I think we tend to go to those places and then ignore sometimes what could be argued as
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cult-like Behavior inside of okay the things we grew up in um so anyway and everyone's experience is different but
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this is just I don't know it's been helping me kind of unpack some of these
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things of like Purity culture and how was Purity culture like a manipul Behavior to get kids to do to act and be
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a certain way which was really I don't blame people for being like I don't want
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my kid to have sex I don't want my kid to get in high school like I don't blame
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people for feeling that way um but when you just replace all of like sex education with like don't have sex yeah
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there can be some problems with that uh down the line so well it's strange because my my mom like there was a bit
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of a dichotomy with her um so like she was actually pretty open about like sex education and stuff like that I grew up
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in southern Oregon and it's fairly liberal um and so it was like a weird like I don't know that's I in our
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current state I always tell people like I think if you go far enough left and far enough right they kind of come back
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and they meet right and so and I think my childhood like encompasses that so like my mom was very liberal like we
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learned all about sex and sex education when I was young um my brother and I were were all born at home for example
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so like I was there for my brother's birth um I guess we were we would have been more like hippies I guess a little
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bit along that side of things um but then yeah and then then I got a purity ring so it's just like this weird like I
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don't it was so confusing as a kid I'll be honest it was very confusing um very
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confusing yeah I had like a book like our bodies ourselves I don't know if you've read that book but like so I've
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heard of it before yeah so it was like and my friends and their parents were very liberal and and yeah so it's was
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just this weird very weird dichotomy that my mom was trying to I feel like hold both
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sides at the same time and it's was like how are you doing this it didn't it
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didn't manifest very well it made me super confused yeah yeah no I think that's the thing I I like I work with
00:22:19
these ladies and they're wonderful ladies and they're they're currently
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writing a book that's kind of hopefully going to be the way they pitched it to
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me was they were like it's like the playbook for like what you kind of like wish your parents had known and what
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they would have said kind of a thing and their whole show and the reason I work with them their podcast is they
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interview uh 20year olds primarily about like their experience with sex and relationships and all these things and
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they're trained therapists and and uh and a sex expert and so it's interesting
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to hear them be able to talk to these young people um about just like and and ask them like what do you wish you would
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have known right what do you wish Mom and Dad would have said or done and and things like that and
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so hopefully I think that's going to be really helpful for a lot of people because I think I think parents to your
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point I think parents they kind of like they have some idea of like oh I want to
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educate my kid and this but maybe sometimes they don't know how or they don't know like the proper ways to
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communicate it and so yeah you end up with these weird funky feelings and sometimes things Circle back around you
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just end up with these weird points and and then now as adults we sit there and we go
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what the heck were you thinking you know like what were you doing um but then again you know the next generation will
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look back at us and be like what what were you doing it will just continue on uh for all of time but uh but hopefully
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it just gets progressively better over time I hope so we can hope that's funny
00:23:49
so I do want to talk about to not to totally go off the rails but like yeah when when you did kind kind of like
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leave homeschooling and whether it was high school or college but like yeah catching up on like pop culture and like
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getting like were you some homeschooling has the you know the the myth or the title of also being
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like the sheltered environment right where it's like oh yeah we don't we
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don't do that we don't watch that you already brought up Christine angular
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Britney Spears but like you know was was there a learning curve when you kind of exited that to be like okay I
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got play ketchup a little bit with everybody else because I missed these cultural moments for sure well so we
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didn't have a TV as a kid it was banned in our house um we would watch like movies sometimes but they had to be like
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preapproved movies the weird thing was though that we did get a computer so I was one of the first households that I
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knew of that had a computer and so again it was this like strange dichotomy right
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so like no TV but computer and so my brother and I my brother's actually in Tech both of them are in Tech and I
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think part of the reason was because we had a computer kind of before a lot of other families did um and so yeah we
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spent a lot of time playing games on the computer getting on the Internet doing stuff probably in some cases that we
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shouldn't have been doing um so it's yeah it was a strange like um so in terms of like movies and
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TV and stuff I was totally not up on anything when I got back to school um music I I think I got exposed to a lot
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through my peers as a kid it was a lot of classical music and then you know my parents music that they listened to um
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so I remember like the first uh time I heard the Beasty Boys I was like what is this right and so then I started like
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you know I would like sadly I would sneak music right so I was like one of my big sneaking things which is I'm not
00:25:52
saying it's a great thing but one of my big sneaking things was listening to
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like bad music quote unquote so BC Sublime I I think the first album I bought was Lauren Hill Miss education of
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Lauren Hill so just like and then trading music back and forth with my friends like because that was back in
00:26:09
the day when we could do like mixtapes and CVS and things like that right so a lot of
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mixtapes yeah so that was my bad my bad thing was was listening to music I would
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like go outside and like put on my Walkman and listen to music I love that so much that's that's amazing I I feel
00:26:27
like my parents definitely they sheltered and didn't Shelter Me In The Music Arena I mean I
00:26:34
was I played guitar so and I wanted to play like I I we went to we had these people in our Lives who were kind of
00:26:40
like my adopted grandparents they were just like they were the grandparents who lived closer than the actual
00:26:44
grandparents lived basically it's how it felt um and so but uh Tom he he showed
00:26:52
me like Eric Clapton for the first time one time when I was over and I just fell
00:26:55
in love with it so I was like okay no most people you know air CLT not that bad right I mean it's it's classic rock
00:27:03
um you know maybe it is bad um but but it it sparked this like interest in me to kind of pursue that and I had a music
00:27:11
teacher who was really pushing me to be like okay you like listen to anything and everything because like you will
00:27:16
hear influences in anything and everything you listen to and it could impact you as a as a musician right and
00:27:22
so thankfully I had parents who were like a little bit more lenient where I was like okay I I remember buying John
00:27:27
May uh room for squares and being like Oh my gosh and then like getting every John
00:27:32
Mar album after that okay you know but there was definitely also this like you know Lady Gaga is kind of On The Fringe
00:27:39
of like maybe she's more of a bad artist and like you know uh Pitbull is like a
00:27:45
little bit more like a bad you know stuff like that so it's like that guilty
00:27:49
pleasure music that I would listen to quietly but it wasn't I wasn't blasting
00:27:54
it out loud um now I don't care now I'm like this listen to Mom and Dad um
00:27:59
exactly but yeah but it took a minute to like I don't know like when I got to
00:28:05
college I think is where I really like I flipped the script of like I was like I'm gonna listen to anything and
00:28:09
everything and Spotify was like really fresh at that point too and Pandora was massive so it was like it was a lot I
00:28:16
think easier also to just like access music in any genre you wanted to and find additional stuff but it's funny you
00:28:23
brought up mixtapes I do remember when I was a kid swapping CDs with my friends most of the time it was just like
00:28:29
Christian music back and forth um but when we were in high school we did for a while we all bought MP3 players and we
00:28:36
would load stuff onto them and then we would just swap MP3 players that was like our way of changing uh
00:28:43
mixtapes so yeah but that's interes it's funny because it's crazy too because you
00:28:51
know you're more of a product of the '90s I'm a product of the 2000s
00:28:56
primarily and so it's interesting that even within that it's a decade of time
00:29:01
but like there's still just a lot of the similarities in there of like yeah well
00:29:06
this is what parents were doing and this is what was like good and not good and you know um I know I I put a note down
00:29:13
because I when we chatted last time uh you brought up like Adventures in Odyssey which was like Audio Drama and
00:29:18
how that was really big in your house same for me it was like a massive thing in my house and that and Veggie Tales it
00:29:23
was like that's the clean stuff that's the stuff the kids can listen to any
00:29:27
time you know yeah that actually yeah I forgot about that we listen to adventures and odyssey like all the time
00:29:33
because we didn't have TV access yeah I I guess my mom would let us watch PBS
00:29:39
but that was like the one channel yeah yeah PBS and then adventures and Aussie very similar I didn't have cable for the
00:29:46
longest time we had like a DVD player at a VHS and yeah just you know um yeah so
00:29:53
I I feel you I I I feel you on a lot of these things because it's like I and it was just normal I think I look
00:30:00
back on it and I go well that was just normal and then I hear I meet new people and they're like oh I grew up watching
00:30:05
cable and I'm like what is that right exactly yeah and I do feel like there was like gaps when I when I went back to
00:30:13
high school I did feel like sort of I think you asked me this before but like I felt kind of disconnected in a way
00:30:18
because there were like large chunks of things that I just didn't know about and
00:30:23
then I did the same thing you did once I got to college is I went Bonkers with music I you know downloaded Napster
00:30:29
which I know was illegal but but yeah we were all doing it at the time right so I
00:30:33
had Napster and I was downloading you know as much music as I could I was like part of some CD Club where I was you
00:30:38
know buying a dollar CDs so I got really into just learning as much as I could about well music primarily because that
00:30:45
was my thing right um I still have huge gaps in movies so people will be like did you watch blah blah blah movie and
00:30:51
I'm like nope like from the0 80s through like 2000 pretty much no I'll try to go back and watch some stuff
00:31:00
now but it's like you know it's not as cool as it was I guess yeah it doesn't
00:31:05
hit the same it's not gonna have the same Nostalgia really I feel yeah that there's those few movies for me too
00:31:11
where I'm just like I I missed it I missed the cultural moment past it now you know yeah it is what it is it yeah
00:31:19
and then and then of course I went to college and then I I think I didn't I don't know if I mentioned this to you
00:31:23
before but I joined the Peace Corp after that so I have and during the Peace Corp
00:31:27
I was also like completely disconnected from M or like electricity so I didn't
00:31:32
have any like access to anything so essentially for me like if you ask me there's like a small chunk of time
00:31:38
between like 2000 and 2004 but like from up to like 20078 I'm just like a cultural wow so people are like did you
00:31:49
watch that movie and I'm like nope remember miss that one yeah yeah so I'm interested to know too like the
00:31:58
transition from like you you mentioned earlier that like well a lot of kids were maybe growing up with like their
00:32:03
core friend group you didn't really have that core friend group partly because
00:32:07
you were just ping ponging back and forth between home school and public school and and you know a few months
00:32:13
here and a few months there and all this different thing was there ever a point or or was
00:32:20
it difficult then when you kind of like okay now I'm in a more stable place of
00:32:24
like okay I'm in high school consistently like in public school now I'm in college where you were like okay
00:32:32
now I can build friendships finally or or had that kind of hurt your socialization skills so bad that it was
00:32:39
like just really difficult so I think I I was I did make friends in high school um but I was part of like I would say
00:32:47
you know I wasn't part of the cool Group by any means um I was you know sort of
00:32:52
with The Artsy kids I guess which which was fine it was fine to be part of that group I don't like you know
00:32:58
it was a fine group of friends but I but I don't feel like I have I only have
00:33:04
like maybe two people from my childhood that I'm still like regularly in contact
00:33:09
with and then in college I went far away so I didn't have any friends that like
00:33:14
transitioned with me from high school to college um and I did build friends or friendships but I I think I do have a
00:33:22
hard time like maintaining friendships and I don't know if that's you know
00:33:26
partially reflection of homeschool I I'm not sure um could just be also you know childhood
00:33:33
stuff who knows yeah but um but yeah I do have a harder time like I would say maintaining friendships than I I have a
00:33:40
lot of I have a lot of people that I know but not necessarily a lot of like close friendships I I feel that I think
00:33:47
I also moved far away for school and like my the first real like friend I made in college was honestly because we
00:33:55
were waiting in line at some party to get like a root beer float and I and I was you know day two of being at school
00:34:03
I know nobody I was like at some point I just have to start like introducing myself to people and I said okay
00:34:08
whoever's behind me right now I'm just gonna turn around and say hello and I
00:34:11
did it and we became good friends in college and that friendship hasn't I wouldn't say we're not not friends but
00:34:18
we it's definitely drifted a little bit so I I also relate to you on that kind
00:34:22
of like the maintaining friendships is very hard and I think that's also just
00:34:26
it's hard to have adult friends I think that's reality for a lot of people I will say though like in
00:34:33
comparison so my brothers have had more lifelong friends than I have like people
00:34:39
that they both of them for example married people from high school and so they they and they have like friends
00:34:45
that they've known since the time they were pretty little that they're still
00:34:48
friends with and they hang out with on a regular basis even as adults um so I do
00:34:54
think that like not having Elementary School friendships did do some amount of damage I guess to my like ability to
00:35:05
make like life long friends I do feel that way so in those early years like of homeschool where it was yeah you're at
00:35:12
home most of the time you have you you brought up you had some kind of like outside classes with other kids
00:35:18
potentially that were more experiential but like was it primarily just like were
00:35:23
at home kind of cut off from the world or was there was there opportunities to have
00:35:31
friends so there were and there weren't like so my mom was a friendly person so
00:35:36
we did have like friends that she made that would be like family friends that we'd all hang out with together um and
00:35:44
then I had like a couple of like oneoff friends that that I made through you know classes or things that um you know
00:35:53
things that we were doing um but weirdly like a lot of the experiential stuff wasn't with other homeschool kids I
00:35:58
think there's more of that now than there was when I was young but like we didn't have like a core group of
00:36:04
homeschool people that we hung out with right and so there wasn't like this continual like oh this is our group that
00:36:10
we get together and do things with um my mom did tutor kids like periodically in
00:36:16
our home so we'd have like an extra kid for a while that she would have homeschooling with us which was kind of
00:36:22
weird as well um yeah so that was yeah so I don't know I feel like there could have been
00:36:31
ways that we could have done better with the socialization part if she tried harder but I I think you know she had
00:36:38
her own stuff going on and her own like issues from her childhood that she was dealing with and I I think that like
00:36:45
reflected in our upbringing and maybe like I I don't think like her making the
00:36:52
choice to homeschool maybe was was necessarily in our best interest it was more something that she felt like she
00:36:58
wanted to do and so I kind of think about that a lot when I'm like why are people homeschooling are they
00:37:03
homeschooling because of themselves or because they truly think that it's better for their kids so in my mom's
00:37:08
case I think it was stemming more from her not from us if that makes sense no that does that does make sense well I
00:37:16
think it's interesting because like you said you have two brothers they're both
00:37:19
younger so one sounds like he's about three years younger than a sevene age Gap and so their experiences are just
00:37:27
vastly different where it's like you had a good 8ish years of your life where
00:37:33
it's like I I was homeschooled and then the next brother it's only five and the next
00:37:38
brother it's not even that and so their experiences I'm sure are just vastly
00:37:44
different vastly you know because of the fact that it's just like you didn't you
00:37:48
didn't ride the wave the whole time I rode the wave right yeah exactly you know uh and so for you I yeah and and
00:37:57
that's that's sometimes the struggle of being the oldest kid right is like at
00:38:01
the end of the day we usually get get P kids yeah yeah exactly um yeah I I feel that so much sometimes with my mom but
00:38:11
um that's funny but yeah so I think that's interesting because I'm sure
00:38:15
that's now shaped because you're you're a parent now and that's shaped maybe how
00:38:20
you've chosen to like raise your kids and like um you know homeschool not homeschool like um yeah you know you
00:38:27
shared with me before you're not homeschooling your kids but like you know did some of that has has your past
00:38:33
I guess kind of influenced maybe how you think about it today yeah definitely I so I I made a choice not to homeschool
00:38:42
purposefully um I not to say that any parent can't hom school but even me like I you know and I
00:38:51
have a PhD and I don't feel qualified to to homeschool my children and the reason
00:38:57
is because like I don't have early childhood education training at all I don't and I it's really hard to be a
00:39:02
parent um not going to lie like you're kind of like thrown into this thing that
00:39:06
you don't really know that much about right and you're like here go like huh
00:39:10
like there's no classes I mean some people take classes but and read books but a lot of people don't right and so
00:39:15
it's just kind of like you go off of what your parents did and you hope for the best right um right and not to say
00:39:23
that I think public school is always like the best uh place for every child but um the things that I really like
00:39:30
about it for my kids are that there are opportunities that I can't provide for
00:39:34
them like things that I don't know about or things that I you know can't get them
00:39:40
in in a normal setting like my son loves sports and and I didn't get really get
00:39:45
to do Sports as a kid there were you know City leagues and stuff but that's his thing he loves it it's his dream to
00:39:52
be you know and he's really good at it and as a result of being in school he's
00:39:56
been able to pursue you know whatever sport he wanted to do which is something that I would have had a hard time
00:40:01
providing for him um and then my daughter is more artsy and so I you know she really loves like all sort of Arts
00:40:10
um so I will say that's one of the things that I feel like you know public school's gone away from a bit is is
00:40:16
offering the Arts as much um yeah but but I was able to get them into a school that has choir and and music and art
00:40:24
classes and she's done really well um and then like both of them have very good friends that they have known for a
00:40:32
very long time and teachers that they've really connected to and I think that you
00:40:36
know some people get afraid of their kids connecting to other adults but I frankly think it's a good thing to have
00:40:42
good adult connections that are outside of your family that's something that I
00:40:46
really value like the some of the best mentors I've ever had in my life have
00:40:50
been teachers right people that I that taught me that were not my parents not my relatives um that inspired me in some
00:40:58
way like the reason I joined the Peace Corp was I had a middle school teacher in seventh grade that joined the Peace
00:41:02
Corp and she talked about it all the time and it was life-changing for her and it stuck in my head and right and so
00:41:09
like I I really strongly believe that like that whole village mentality you know it takes a village to raise a child
00:41:17
I really really believe in that and I think that having a village of good people in your kids lives can be really
00:41:23
really valuable to them in a way that's hard to recreate like with just a parent
00:41:27
or two parents I tell people I think my homeschool experience was it's it's kind
00:41:32
of different because I had a lot of that I feel like I had I was part of big homeschool communities homeschool
00:41:40
classes I had outside teachers and influences in my life and so I have those people like you're talking about
00:41:49
and that you want to provide for your kids and so I think the difference it made a difference I think
00:41:55
and and it didn't I think always feel like oh well I'm I'm a homeschool kid it
00:42:02
felt much more just sometimes like I I have some of those same influences I talked to my friends who
00:42:08
went to public school and they're like oh I was really close with this guidance
00:42:11
counselor or this professor or whatever and it's like oh well I had that too
00:42:14
like I was really close with my music teacher um you know and things like that and so it's it's like
00:42:21
those interactions and like you said I think being able to as a kid have those is especially being able to like talk
00:42:29
with adults and um you know hold conversation and learn from adults is is really important and as a parent you
00:42:37
know it's like I'm not a parent so I mean but this is an outside perspective
00:42:41
but I see the most benefit from the parents who regardless of where their kid goes to school how
00:42:49
they educate they are just involved in their kids's life and want to know and
00:42:53
they want the best for their kid and they push for whatever that is so you know that I think goes so much further
00:43:00
than like homeschool don't homeschool it's like well you can really screw up
00:43:04
either one of those true it's more about you being a good parent or not uh at the
00:43:09
end of the day is the way that's how I feel personally um but yeah so I applaud
00:43:15
you um because I mean there's you know there's also just like a billion in One
00:43:19
Voices out here that tell you like this is the right way to do this and this is the right way to do that and it's like
00:43:24
no there's just I don't think that there's one right way for a lot of it um
00:43:29
yeah so this has been incredible I um I want to say thank you first of all for coming
00:43:36
on and being so vulnerable um and sharing your homeschool experience um is there look kind of kind of looking back
00:43:44
at your homeschool experience I'm gonna ask you two things was is there a moment
00:43:48
that stands out as you go okay this is like in my opinion the biggest negative of homeschooling okay and then maybe
00:43:54
this is the biggest positive of homeschooling um so I think it kind of relates to what
00:44:00
you were saying but um for me the biggest negative was that my mom probably wasn't and my parents weren't
00:44:06
in a place to be the healthiest parents and so for me the biggest negative was that H school I was like trapped with
00:44:17
with this not great situation um and because I didn't have a good network of
00:44:22
other people to talk to or even like another reality of like oh other families aren't like this um it was it
00:44:29
was like took me a long time to like work myself through that as an adult and like that what what I went through um so
00:44:37
for me I think that's the biggest negative is that if you have a a family Dynamic where things are not healthy
00:44:43
toxic whatever abusive I guess that being in homeschool can trap you there in a way that I feel like yes people do
00:44:52
get trapped you know if they go to public school but there's teachers and other people that are looking out for
00:44:56
kids um so for me that that was certainly the biggest negative overall um but the
00:45:02
biggest positive I think that was that I I became like a a more self-directed learner I think I kind of touched on
00:45:09
that earlier and yeah and I and I've become somebody that like you throw me into a situation and I can just kind of
00:45:15
figure it out like I don't need necessarily guidance to be like this is the steps right I I like okay do this
00:45:22
thing figure it out and I and I can most of the time right and so so so that that
00:45:28
is the positive for for me 100% that and it's influenced what I chose as my profession essentially yeah yeah the
00:45:36
best compliment I ever got from someone was they're like you are like a human uh
00:45:40
Swiss army knife and I was like okay and they're like we have thrown you into
00:45:45
this situation we throw you into that and you just like picked it up and did whatever and I was like huh that's
00:45:51
interesting and yeah as I've spent time unpacking that it to to your point it's
00:45:56
like I think being at home and having an education where yeah you are kind of that person who has to you have to want
00:46:04
it and you have to like pursue it and it's a I think it's a love of education
00:46:10
at the root of it um which is like something that my parents instilled in me it sounds like your parents kind of
00:46:16
instilled in you or at least put you in a position where you're like I have to I
00:46:19
have to be in the learning yeah uh yeah and and I think when you have that it's
00:46:26
like you said it's easy to just kind of get thrown into any situation and be
00:46:29
like okay I can pick this up I can I know the questions to ask I know the like the logistics of like how to find
00:46:35
the information that I need and then we can roll and most of the time that's
00:46:40
half the battle right there it's just it's just that I agree I agree oh oh my gosh Whitney this has
00:46:48
been amazing is there anything I left out or that I haven't asked you that I
00:46:51
should have asked you um or any other homeschool memories that have just like popped up where you're like oh this was
00:46:56
funny or cringy or just like I don't know anything that I've I've forgotten
00:47:02
Before We Say Goodbye nothing in particular that I can think of but um yeah I just yeah thank you for having me
00:47:09
on it's been really great to kind of delve more into your channel and stuff so thank you yeah no I'm I'm so glad you
00:47:16
found me and I know what we chatted last you were talking about everybody I've
00:47:20
talked with who has kind of come from outside of like my friend group that I grew up with it's interesting how like
00:47:27
either hear about the show or that you know asking them about exploring the ex- homeschooler realm of just them being
00:47:32
like Oh I found Reddit post and I found quora and whatever else like asking questions to find that community and so
00:47:38
yeah it's been cool cool to kind of like be a part of that and learning and and
00:47:42
even me I'm I'm seeking out that more and and trying to find more people
00:47:47
outside of the you know the few hundred that I grew up kind of surrounded by um and because there's a lot of us out
00:47:54
there there's a lot of us weirdos out and we got some crazy stories um crazy
00:48:00
unique experiences and so um yeah so once again thank you for sharing your story I appreciate it so much and uh to
00:48:07
all my listeners uh if you want to reach out if you want to be on the show it's
00:48:11
super easy just shoot me an email at exhs [email protected] Whitney did it you can do it um we chat we have a good time
00:48:19
we we just we goof around um and we and we talk about our ex homeschool days so until next time I'll see you all right
00:48:28
peace [Music] [Music]