00:00:03
welcome back to the ex- homeschoolers Club I am your host Jake Gooden and today I am joined with my lovely friend
00:00:10
ellia um Elia is actually the younger sister of a former guest Carrie and Elia you and I have known each other for a
00:00:17
very long time uh our families have been like best friends for I don't know how
00:00:24
long at this point uh maybe it feels like 20 years uh I know that's not the case but it feels like it definitely
00:00:30
feels like that I know my dad was your music teacher and you were kind of our dance teacher at one point and went to a
00:00:37
lot of school stuff together it's yeah it was like a very long time of growing
00:00:42
up yeah it's so funny too because I now like obviously we catch up every now and
00:00:49
then but it's so funny because I still like I see certain people as like these
00:00:54
little kids in my eyes and you and my sister are like two of those people who I just still when I look at you guys I
00:01:00
see like 10-year-old people um and that's just not the case you guys are full-fledged adults you're very like
00:01:05
strong and capable women um and I love you both uh but it's just funny to like
00:01:09
get on calls with them and and be like oh my gosh like this person is not a child anymore
00:01:15
um oh yeah I know I was yeah cuz you were I think you were in the same like school year as my oldest sister and so
00:01:22
um yeah I was I was a very different child back then too I like was very quiet and kind of timid and and so yeah
00:01:31
I'm I laugh I Yap a lot now and I'm a bit different so it makes sense they
00:01:36
like why are you this is different you're not the same person no you really it it's funny because I feel like you
00:01:42
have really come into your own and it's cool to like watch you have gone to college and now like be out of there and
00:01:49
have a career and and be doing life but um yeah it is kind of wild but uh okay so backing up backing
00:01:58
up to the very beginning you have been homeschooled your entire life uh for for like 12 13 years of your life you were
00:02:05
homeschooled what did that look like how did that feel like give me give me a little bit of like the dayto day what
00:02:10
did that look like for you yeah um yeah so yes I was homeschooled like literally
00:02:17
all the way through my senior year of high school um I feel like every homeschool family is like you know a
00:02:23
little different to their own there's like the super like intense like graduate at 14 in and like wake up at
00:02:31
like 5:00 a.m. and like super strict you know like Olympian level like we're
00:02:35
doing our own schedule with homeschool to like get ahead and like you know be like you know in UCLA by the time you're
00:02:42
like 15 I know those families for sure and then it's such a huge Spectrum there's like way like different people
00:02:50
that maybe like move at a slower Pace or like just have a hold it are religious maybe you're not religious like there's
00:02:57
a lot of different factors so for me I was the youngest of three uh kids so I felt like my oldest sister got like a
00:03:05
lot of the like boom like structure let's do this like academics and then my
00:03:10
middle sister was like okay and then mine was a lot more like chill and laidback for my like academic
00:03:17
experiences so I grew up in like uh obviously you know you were there so you know
00:03:24
but um like a a homeschool sort of group uh with our community so there was and it was like christian-based so it was
00:03:34
like a faith-based like Christian group with a bunch of families that would like
00:03:39
meet every other week and like do some classes um but my individual like family and stuff we were really laidback with
00:03:47
like the pacing of everything so it was a lot of like independence with me from a very young age with like I have to get
00:03:54
my own work done and like I have to be a self-starter and I have to like not rely
00:03:59
on other people to like you know I don't know it was just a lot more independent
00:04:04
with um with my own education so I feel like that was a big part of my like high
00:04:10
school especially was like I have to get my stuff done and you know I feel like if I was a parent too it's like by the
00:04:17
time you get to the third kid I don't know it's not that serious it's like you
00:04:21
know do your homework I guess like your parents are two of the most like laid-back people I know personally um
00:04:28
they have always just been super chill I I remember a time being I think it was at your house and we were going
00:04:35
somewhere and we were running extremely late and I was just I came from the household of like Mom who's just like
00:04:43
very like we're on if we're on time we're late kind of a person and so and
00:04:46
that's my mentality too I'm like but I'm a I'm a firstborn kid I've got that like
00:04:51
I I have to be there 5 minutes early kind of a thing and your mom and dad were so chill the entire time I was like
00:04:57
where is the fire to go where is the like we're not going to make it and your
00:05:01
mom was just like it's okay we're going to get there when we get there there's
00:05:04
no like hard time to like there was no actual like we have to be there at exactly this time um and so I will say
00:05:11
your parents taught me to chill out quite a bit and just like relax take a breath like relax um but that can also
00:05:18
be a bummer like you said like if if you were not a self-starter person right you
00:05:23
know that can be a bummer when it comes to education because some some people need that like kick in the pants from
00:05:28
mhm a parent right to be like you got to get this done right yeah for sure and I
00:05:35
think that I kind of did struggle with that a bit because it is hard when you're young like you to be like having
00:05:41
so much responsibility um and that's sort of a big theme for my childhood too
00:05:46
which I kind of is kind of my fault because I liked to like take charge of things or like take a lot on and then
00:05:52
think that I could handle it like an adult and I was like oh I was young I look back and I'm like why was I 12 like
00:05:59
with this much responsibility you know but I was working a lot like I literally started working well
00:06:06
volunteering for you know volunteer for money you know it was not official it was not official but I
00:06:14
started working uh like pretty young like early early high school and then um which is nice in the fact that I had the
00:06:23
schedule flexibility to like work more hours than a lot of other kids but um like I worked in sports and stuff and so
00:06:31
I would like coach a lot and and um and I was able to like raise money like from a much younger age so I
00:06:38
had time to like save up I was like very much I need to save money I need to like
00:06:42
work I need to do all these things and um so like that's like a plus I think of
00:06:48
homeschool that I had of like having the time and like availability to get some savings going cuz I wasn't born rich you
00:06:56
know it's rough out here in this economy I feel you I I always tell people yeah
00:07:02
by the time I was done like those last two years of high school like I mean I worked at your dad's studio um you know
00:07:10
I ran I had my own guitar lesson company that I taught I did odd jobs for people
00:07:15
I lo Lawns I did whatever you know it's just like but that was the cool thing
00:07:19
about homeschool was like we had the flexibility to like make it happen right and so if you needed to be somewhere at
00:07:25
10:30 in the morning for a job you could just do it you know and it's like yeah
00:07:29
maybe school's happening at 8:00 at night but who cares you know yeah as long as you have a ride I mean yeah
00:07:36
exactly yeah and once you're old enough to drive then it's like well you just
00:07:39
got to make sure you have access to a car you know and then just go yes so so yeah that's super cool so I I
00:07:47
remember you guys cuz you worked at a gymnastics place right mhm yeah yeah and so I I remember you guys oh yeah cuz
00:07:55
your sister and I did gymnastics yeah together yes yeah um yeah but yeah I remember you guys
00:08:03
would always just like you guys just knew how to do certain I was just like oh my God I can't I'm not that flexible
00:08:09
I can dance but like I can't do the splits I can't you know I can't be on a
00:08:13
Balan me I'm no long I no longer know how to balance myself like I trip over
00:08:17
my own two feet at this point valid honestly I do too sometimes and I was a gymnast
00:08:22
so it' be like that sometimes but yeah I did jymnastics for a long time which is
00:08:26
also again nice in the sense that I was like working so that I could take gymnastics also like cuz again wasn't
00:08:35
born a millionaire so it was like you know hard to afford things so it was nice that I could like okay I can work
00:08:43
and like work my way towards taking classes like the more I work the more I can like take more like I could do
00:08:51
competitive gymnastics because of that and like I learned work ethic pretty quick you know I remember my boss like
00:08:56
when I was like 14 being like hey you got to step step it up like I got other people on the phone that could replace
00:09:03
you right now and I was like oh I'm learning real quick I got to actually like earn my keep here which you
00:09:09
know sometimes you don't realize uh till much later some people it's much much
00:09:13
later that they're like oh I'm it's it's not always a given depending on where
00:09:18
you are I guess but anyway I learned to work e yeah no I I I live in an area now
00:09:25
that like when I worked I worked at a barbecue restaurant when I first moved to Nashville and there was a lot of kids
00:09:31
who was this was their first job you know they're 15 16 years old it's their
00:09:36
first job and they have zero work ethic they like very clearly didn't want to be
00:09:41
there Mom and Dad were just kind of pushing them to get a job and I was like you guys got to have some kind of fire
00:09:46
under you and I get that it's not you know serving serving food is not the greatest job in the world um it can be
00:09:53
very rewarding but it's it is not for everybody I'll give them that um and but
00:09:58
oh my gosh I was like guys you got to get some fire under your butt um but I was just used to The Homeschool world
00:10:04
where it's like so many of us like like you said we did bartering for for certain things we would work odd jobs we
00:10:10
had our own companies like we did all kinds of stuff and had kind of that like drive and that discipline to like get it
00:10:17
done right we wanted to make something happen we would make it happen I know I know at least for Carrie it might have
00:10:24
been for you too but like you guys really enjoyed going to ComicCon um and yeah hey I'm still I'm still a nerd but
00:10:35
uh but I know like your parents were like you want to go to Comic-Con you got to pay for it and you guys would just
00:10:40
like bust ass to like fig out how to pay for bake sales whoa yeah that's so true
00:10:47
that's and like that was that was just the way it was it was just like you know
00:10:51
hey we we got to figure it out you know and that's super cool um to have that
00:10:56
and then I'm sure that has translated so much now into like you're a musician now
00:11:01
and you know performing and wanting to be out there and getting your music in front of more and more people like that
00:11:06
takes hard work and a lot of just like dedication to like you know I might not feel like getting up to go to bar and
00:11:13
perform but like I got to do it right got to get that bag yeah got to make those connections
00:11:19
absolutely absolutely very cool well so talk to me a little bit so like homeschooling it seems like we kind of
00:11:26
had similar homeschooling Journeys as far just like we're at home but also like we did have that achieve connection
00:11:33
of like having a group of people to come together for things like like field trips school dances you know the support
00:11:41
systems were there obviously where if one parent was struggling with something we could go to somebody else's house and
00:11:46
maybe get science classes and um we had group Solutions and things like that which was which was awesome but um tell
00:11:55
me a little bit about like once you got through high school what was like that next phase like did you immediately go
00:12:00
to college did you take a little bit of time like what did that look like the transition out yeah so for me like my
00:12:07
senior year of high school I kind of started panicking cuz all of my like little independent girly moments of
00:12:14
working and like trying to do school um to the best of my ability like I kind of
00:12:21
realized like I felt behind I felt like I started comparing myself you know to like other people that were those
00:12:27
overachievers and I just was like what do I do and I think I remember I listened to your episode where you're
00:12:34
talking about this like sometimes there's not that like assist assistance with the transition to college and H
00:12:41
school like it sort of again just depends on the family and my family was really chill about college so I like
00:12:47
didn't even really know like how to apply or like what it would look like or
00:12:51
if I should go my Elder sisters did a little bit but um or one of my older sisters did a little bit but so I was
00:12:58
kind of freaking out but I ended up doing community college um for two years and that was like a huge help I'm a big
00:13:05
advocate for Community College I know that there's shows like community that
00:13:09
are wacky and wild and that's kind of what it's like but I'm still a big
00:13:13
fan you know no no craic on the Community College they helped me so much um so I really appreciated my time there
00:13:21
because I was like talking with counselers like I could figure out what I wanted to do without spending a
00:13:26
bagillion dollars on tuition you know and so I stayed like in the area and stayed working and then took
00:13:34
classes and um I got connected with their music department and I really loved that and started like taking more
00:13:43
lessons and I also got into the psychology department which I didn't really know I wanted to do and so I
00:13:49
basically like did that for two years and then transferred to um a university transferred to ausa Pacific University
00:13:59
after that and I did 3 years there because of co co really uh hit me like a truck hit everybody like a trick so um I
00:14:09
did three years there that's super cool I feel like a lot of homeschool kids
00:14:13
kind of did that transition from like yeah High School to Community College to kind of figure it out and then went to a
00:14:20
university or figured out they wanted to go more down a trade route um something
00:14:24
like that I know for me I just was like I needed the motivation of like leaving to to like go otherwise I was going to
00:14:33
get stuck I just knew that about myself right um and so like I left and did did School in three years um super thankful
00:14:41
but like I had to just like work my ass off to like make it happen um because I just knew I was like I'm going to get
00:14:47
stuck otherwise but so many people I feel like needed that transition time to be like okay here's what a real
00:14:53
classroom feels like right and here's how to deal with um College professors
00:14:59
right and and a lot of times those community colleges can help point you in the direction of figuring out like oh I
00:15:04
think I want to major in this okay well what school should I go to for that you know MH yeah I agree and and I think I
00:15:14
just didn't even I remember being at Community College and I had never even like kind of dreamed of going to a
00:15:20
university like I had no idea what that looked like I didn't feel capable in
00:15:24
myself like academically like I had no real idea like what college would look like um and so I think that was that's
00:15:34
not every homeschooler for sure but that was definitely me in the sense of like I
00:15:38
didn't feel like I had outside resources to like hey let's go look at colleges or
00:15:42
like you're completely capable I was like I don't know I don't even feel like
00:15:46
my transcripts are legit or like you know it's just It's Tricky it's like
00:15:50
it's so its own thing that's so different from like the public school system that I just had a lot of
00:15:56
insecurity like going into my first year of college so I felt like Community College gave me the confidence gave me
00:16:01
the direction and like one of one of my music teachers who is amazing and I really credit that was not a
00:16:09
grammatically correct sentence but um one of my music teachers was really amazing in believing in me and like
00:16:16
basically telling me yeah you could you could get a scholarship into college actually like you are perfectly capable
00:16:23
and I was like huh that's crazy because I don't even know what I'm doing and I
00:16:26
feel like everybody doesn't know what they're doing when they're 18 anyway so
00:16:29
I wasn't the only one but um so I basically like worked my ass off at Community College to get really good
00:16:37
grades to like get that academic scholarship I worked my ass off in music to get a music scholarship and like I
00:16:45
essentially was able to get almost a free ride for University at a private school which is crazy um and I did a
00:16:52
double degree so look at me now I have two Bachelors yeah yeah what did you end up majoring in uh psychology
00:17:00
and music so I have like two separate degrees basically in those um it's a ba
00:17:07
and a BM basically so okay literally like 16year old me would like think that that's insane I I would I didn't even
00:17:15
know what a bachelor's degree was in full transparency so it's really wild no I I
00:17:21
feel you I feel you with like the the scholarship thing like I didn't really I I got a good scholarship to the
00:17:28
school I went to but I was like I when they sent it to me and I was like they want to give me how much money like I
00:17:34
was I was blown away because I didn't feel I didn't feel dumb but I didn't
00:17:39
feel incredibly smart either right it's hard to compare yeah it is yeah it it is
00:17:45
too because like you're competing with yourself a lot of times in The Homeschool world where it's like yeah of
00:17:50
course like I know my other friends were also getting good grades but like subjective to what like however their
00:17:56
parents decided to grade and so thankful my mom reframed our homeschool experience in the fact that she's like
00:18:03
we are technically a private school in the state of California and I was like oh okay so that it gave me a little bit
00:18:09
more like security and that I was like okay when when the state is looking and in other states when colleges are
00:18:17
looking at my education they're looking at a private education a private school
00:18:22
education right and so it kind of it reframed it I think enough that it gave me more confidence and then also my my
00:18:27
folks paid for me to have some assistance in high school to like how do I what is the FAFSA and like what
00:18:35
colleges should I be applying for and things like that and I was so hyper fixated on like I wanted to do this one
00:18:41
specific thing I wanted to be an audio engineer and so there's not a lot of schools that offer that so I was like
00:18:46
okay well it meant I have to go outside of California for some things potentially or I have to go do this and
00:18:53
like it you know it helped give me that kind of like guidance of like like you said you had a music Professor who said
00:18:59
well you can totally get a scholarship you know if you work really hard at this um and I don't know it just I think it
00:19:06
takes sometimes people who know a little bit about it to kind of give you that motivation to be like oh yeah I can
00:19:11
totally do this I got this you know and here you are like you said you double majored and before we hit record you
00:19:17
were talking about you know eventually you want to go and get a graduates degree like that's amazing that's
00:19:21
fantastic you know thank you it's crazy let's talk a little bit about like
00:19:28
you know passions you are you come from a super creative family your dad owns a recording studio he was my music
00:19:35
Professor crazy music Professor for a lot of homeschool kids and uh I have such fond memories of one being in the
00:19:44
studio and I remember specifically this one birthday of his all of your family and my family all being there and us
00:19:51
like recording just like songs together um and just playing a bunch of instruments and stuff but uh you and
00:19:59
your sisters are super talented when it comes to music um but you have kind of taken that and like actually pursued it
00:20:05
more as a career and as a hobby and like something you potentially want to do professionally but uh yeah tell us a
00:20:13
little bit about like what you're doing with that and what's going on in the
00:20:15
music world right now yeah absolutely um yeah so my dad has a recording studio and he um is a guitarist and
00:20:26
multi-instrumentalist piano based drums you know all the things and so that's
00:20:32
like insanely insanely like I mean rare to just be born into that is is crazy like I'm so aware of that privilege like
00:20:43
that's a very I'm very blessed and lucky to you know have that in my family so
00:20:49
I'm super grateful for that opportunity because I've grown up in the studio and
00:20:54
I've been familiar with what a recording studio looks like my dad and I recorded
00:20:58
my album together so my while I was in Community College we recorded my first like debut album as myself as my own
00:21:04
artist so um yeah musically my dad taught me how to play guitar but singing was always my favorite thing to do um
00:21:12
and so from when I was little I was like singing in church a lot and then in high
00:21:18
school I got into like jazz and R&B music and was working on my guitar chops
00:21:24
too and I started writing when I was like 16 and so it was like just for fun at first um and I really wanted to like
00:21:33
hey literally a recording studio right here I want to record I want to make music I want to like do the thing and so
00:21:41
that was really fun that was really cool to like work with my dad also was like you know on a more like work level like
00:21:50
that W work with my dad on a work level that's yeah period uh but it's kind of
00:21:54
like I'm basically no not me but it's kind of like a Alish moment with her
00:21:59
brother you know she was homeschooled and she makes music with her brother so that was like me with my dad basically
00:22:04
uh and yeah so I've learned so much from him about Like Instrumental like arranging and you know playing guitar in
00:22:14
music theory he's a big nerd he like also went to college and got his degree
00:22:19
in music theory is music music Something guitar performance one of those um yeah
00:22:26
something like that yeah he's like the first to graduate from was it Biola with
00:22:31
like whatever that degree was like he kind of designed and developed it himself right let's give let's give him
00:22:37
a shout out it's so cool he actually went to isusa Pacific in like the 70s late 70s when I not when where I went I
00:22:45
went in the 70s um but he was like their first guitar major like basically like the first one at that school which
00:22:53
wasn't even a University at the time it was like college I don't know the terms
00:22:58
but yeah he was like their first like guitar emphasis music Major which is so cool because then I went you know a
00:23:05
couple years ago and it's like of course there's like a bagillion of those now
00:23:09
there's plenty of performance Majors as a whole program but every time my dad
00:23:12
would come to like my recital or something he'd be like guys like anyone in the hallway like did you know I
00:23:17
actually like I'm the first like so y'all better know like put some respect they're like
00:23:24
who is this dude like I don't even know you but uh so yeah he's pretty cool and
00:23:30
I'm very grateful for everything that he's taught me and and then my sisters I
00:23:34
have two older sisters who also sing and um did music and they were always there
00:23:40
to like yell at me if I was like not singing In Tune or singing a Bad Harmony they'd be like um shut up what are you
00:23:47
doing you know cuz they're your sisters they don't care about your feelings ever
00:23:50
at least when you're the youngest and so I was like you know I got used to like
00:23:56
the oh I got to fix this thankfully they all had like good ears too and um so that was sort of like my my little music
00:24:03
training was them uh you know helping me not embarrass myself too much be like um
00:24:11
yeah that sounds bad you know not that they were just like villains they were lovely and great and awesome love you
00:24:15
guys um yeah no but you guys had like you they pushed you to be the best version that you could possibly be EXA
00:24:24
and like that's important you know keeping it real exactly it's funny because my my mom always tells this
00:24:30
story of my first guitar teacher uh shout out to Mrs uh Roseanne wal trip uh may she rest in peace but
00:24:40
like she I rented a guitar from her and it was just a really crappy guitar it was really bad and my parents had made a
00:24:47
deal with me they said hey if you do this for 6 months and you want to keep going we'll buy you a guitar and I was
00:24:52
like okay great so I did it for 6 months and they were like okay do you want to keep going I said yes and they they
00:24:58
could not believe it because they were like he sucks at Guitar like he's really
00:25:02
bad at it um but they were like okay well you know A promise is a promise they took me to buy a guitar um they we
00:25:09
ended up getting a really nice guitar um and I still have it to this day it's
00:25:13
like one of the most beautiful guitars I've had like professional musicians be
00:25:17
like this guitar is beautiful and amazing um so thank you Mom and Dad for a wonderful guitar that makes a lot of
00:25:24
people jealous but literally they put it in my hands I refused to play it in the
00:25:27
store because I was was too embarrassed went home we bought the thing I went home started playing guitar and they
00:25:33
both went oh my gosh he can play guitar um I had been playing such a crappy like
00:25:37
Kmart guitar that it just didn't sound good like the guitar itself just didn't
00:25:42
sound good um and yeah and then Flash Forward a couple years and like taking lessons with your dad and he taught me a
00:25:49
lot more about playing electric guitar and how to run a music studio and how to play bass and he tried to teach me how
00:25:54
to play drums still can't do it um but that's okay and uh but yeah he was just
00:26:00
like super Musical and so it was always cool too when we would all get in the studio and be able to record together
00:26:06
and you know and obviously hearing your music now it makes me so happy cuz like one I love jazz music um and and stuff
00:26:14
so um I'm always telling my friends I'm like oh I got this friend she's putting
00:26:18
out jazz albums uh you should go check them out so anyway shout out to you I don't well disclaimer for the Jazz uh
00:26:26
Specialists out there that are listening is not I wouldn't call my album a jazz
00:26:30
album okay don't come for me because it's technically like Jazzy inspired pop
00:26:34
for that album but I also do jazz I do real Jazz too yes just claimer no yeah yeah well when I saw uh at one point you
00:26:43
got to perform with um I I'm blinking on the guy's name but he plays like upright
00:26:51
base he plays uh upright base and um you know who I'm talking about I'm trying to
00:26:57
remember what their YouTube channel was but they used to take like pop songs and
00:27:01
make them into like a jazz version of it and I I sell a picture that you get to or maybe a video of you performing with
00:27:06
him and I was like oh my gosh I know who that is yeah that was so cool yeah it was actually so fun um his name's Casey
00:27:12
Abrams he's like one of my favorite musicians he works with postmodern jukebox and everything and he had a show
00:27:19
in Ventura where I like that's our that's my hometown and so I was like um
00:27:25
obviously I'm going and i' had already seen him live like multiple times in
00:27:28
like previous years but yeah I like it was so fun he was so incredibly kind I like got to jump on stage with him for
00:27:35
his show like halfway through and do like a duet with him on the spot just on the Fly and he's like literally amazing
00:27:42
I love his music so much that was cool that was a cool thing that happened like a while ago now but I still remember it
00:27:49
cuz it was such a fun time and he's the best that's awesome no I'm so I I love
00:27:54
getting to see my friends like do cool stuff you know it's like it's so cool
00:27:58
and um yeah I'm hoping that at some point when I'm in town you have a concert and I can come I mean I've seen
00:28:04
you perform before but it's usually been at like a homeschool talent show um kind
00:28:10
of thing or like in my backyard or uh in the studio go oh my gosh yeah wait yes at cuz you sorry I didn't mean it I got
00:28:17
excited go for it but um at like our little homeschool dances this was me little my little like selfstarter self
00:28:24
as we're saying um they had like a live band that would play it these dances
00:28:29
that were like vintage like 50s stuff and I just like went up to one of the organizers and I was like hey so I
00:28:36
noticed that the band takes breaks um in between sets can I like perform right then like when they're on a break like
00:28:43
can I do a performance can I just insert myself yeah and they were like oh yeah I
00:28:49
guess so uh make sure it's like clean and wholesome and I was like okay bet uh
00:28:54
I'm not going to go up and do like something crazy so I just did my little postmodern jukebox karaoke tracks and I
00:29:00
just popped up there and like saying while the band was on a break and got got the whole room going hyping
00:29:07
everybody up and I would just yeah I like no one asked no one asked for that why did
00:29:13
I I looked the videos I'm like this is so cringe but like you go I think somebody gave me like a dollar once just
00:29:19
out of like charity I don't know you got to put yourself out there especially as
00:29:22
a got have you got to embarrass yourself sometimes you know exactly EX exactly there is a video of me online uh with
00:29:32
Derry uh doing a song at one of our uh talent shows and every year it gets sent to me by like six people when it pops up
00:29:40
in their Facebook you know memories page or whatever and and I love it I I love watching it it's super cringey and I
00:29:47
feel really awkward about it but at the same time like I do love that that was like something we got to do part of
00:29:53
History you know exactly exactly and every now and then you know you get those friends and you get chitchatting
00:30:00
about the past and you bring that stuff up and it's like oh yeah I remember you
00:30:04
know you got to do this or like I remember seeing you sing at this thing and it was so cool like you know we were
00:30:09
so proud of you and whatever and like I just I love that you know it's like we
00:30:14
all it's it's cringey to look back on but it was like so fantastic in the
00:30:18
moment so um yeah that's and you brought up one of my favorite yeah absolutely
00:30:24
and you brought up one of my favorite pastimes um which I think I've brought
00:30:27
up successfully on every interview that I've done which is like the swing dances
00:30:30
of achieve take a shot every time Jacob brings up exactly um yeah yeah drink new
00:30:38
drinking game the ex- homeschoolers Club drinking game um but um you were also really big in the the swing dance
00:30:47
culture my gosh yes we have to talk about this cuz oh my gosh uh I was like your little your little student that
00:30:54
like carried the banner after you graduated I'm just like I don't even know if you knew this exactly cuz you
00:31:00
were gone but in case you didn't know I like took lessons guys I took swing dance lessons from Jacob cuz he was so
00:31:10
cool and you know knew what he was doing and I was terrified and 14 and didn't
00:31:14
know like how to do anything related to dance and he like taught lessons they would have like these classes like at
00:31:23
what like backyards basically I don't know you were like dedicated um yeah yeah I don't know I'm trying to remember
00:31:29
but I remember learning from you guys and then after you guys graduated I like realized that this is no shade but also
00:31:37
shade like the dancing at the dances was like not it I was like these people do not know how to
00:31:43
dance we're without our leader and I appreciate taking it up was I appreciate
00:31:50
you taking it up because I had learned from the Bozarth family and um and they had taken they had actually taking
00:31:58
lessons at uh the house of dance in Ventura and so yeah so I took lessons from them and then I took the lessons at
00:32:04
House of dance which I know a lot of people also took lessons there um and then yeah by the time I don't know those
00:32:10
last couple years of High School uh yeah I was teaching every summer in my backyard and then every now and then
00:32:17
we'd also do a dance lesson at the at the dances themselves and show people how to do something and um yeah and I
00:32:23
remember yeah you were one of my students and um but I'm glad that you took it up because yeah that was one of
00:32:28
the things that when I left I knew I knew my sister wasn't going to take it up and I didn't really know who else was
00:32:34
going to like interested in it and I just kind of was like I don't know I didn't pass it to anybody I just said
00:32:41
you know have at it and um some glad I'm glad that you took it up well you can't
00:32:47
blame anyone for what they don't know you know they just didn't know I was
00:32:51
just noticing I was like I don't really want to go to a dance and get asked the
00:32:54
dance and there's like no rhythm or like like it's just awkward if you are trying
00:33:00
and you don't know what you're doing and how are you supposed to know if you
00:33:02
haven't learned you know so yeah it's nice when people are like new to like
00:33:08
high school and like this little community that we had it's like okay I'll me and it was another friend from
00:33:16
the like who was also like a little a little star I think he'd taken some lessons and um so I was like do you want
00:33:24
to have an alliance with me what's that quote um and he was like absolutely I do
00:33:30
and then we were like let's also make some money over the summer and then like
00:33:34
help these kids out cuz how they supposed to know and then we just started making up our own moves too and
00:33:39
just like gaslighting them a little bit cuz why not it was fun and so we'd be
00:33:42
like yeah this is a swing dance move we just made it up yeah um but it was cool like the be
00:33:49
creative why the dances were super fun and yeah super creative and I think the only real downside to the school dances
00:33:56
was the fact that we had like and it and it like I don't I don't want to say it
00:34:00
was an insane dress code but it was kind of an insane dress code it was kind of insane and it was much worse for the
00:34:06
girls um so I apologize for that because like guys could get away with as long as
00:34:11
we wore slacks in a button- down shirt we were pretty much safe um but girls I know you guys had to deal with like so
00:34:18
many more things um so I apologize for that uh even though I had no control over it it was your fault
00:34:24
actually how dare you yeah I mean um just kiding sorry um no yeah no it was so silly uh yeah we there's you know
00:34:37
it was a very religious like organization in the sense it was very faith-based and Christian and so there
00:34:44
was always there's extremes everywhere you know no matter where you go but we
00:34:49
our dress code was very like traditional which I I know happens in like private schools and stuff too but like I do
00:34:55
remember like the skirts had to be like below your knee and like the the people who were like enforcing it were like
00:35:02
committed they were like committed to the bit like I remember going in and like one time they were like okay no you
00:35:08
have to like get on your knees so we can like see that your dress is like touching the or your skirt is like
00:35:12
touching the floor and then they would literally send you home if like your kneecap was showing and come on like
00:35:19
imagine you're like so excited to like go to this dance and like see all your
00:35:22
friends cuz you're like sad little homeschooler no just kidding well we fine but it's exciting it's like oh wow
00:35:29
to like I've been taking classes from Jacob Cen and I want to I want to go dance and then they're like literally
00:35:37
embarrassing you in front of everyone like you know there's a lot there's a
00:35:42
lot of psychological like impact well it plays a lot into yeah it plays a lot into I mean
00:35:52
again it was like a religious organization so I mean there is a lot of that like that Purity culture mentality
00:35:57
of like girls have a responsibility to like you know dress a certain way and be a certain way and like you know cuz guys
00:36:05
are animals and we can't control ourselves and and things like that which is uh there needs to be a lot more
00:36:11
responsibility put on on guys especially young guys to to learn how to just like
00:36:17
compose you know have composure and like understand when situations are um you know not a sexual situation so to speak
00:36:26
right it's crazy sorry you can't my I don't think you can see my face but I've
00:36:29
been making a lot of facial expressions as you're talking like dramatic you know
00:36:34
throwing up miming anyway continue yeah yeah well that's a whole another can of
00:36:38
worms which I I don't even think we're going to have time to get into like the
00:36:42
mime stuff so we might have to do a part two um just to talk about like the MIM troop and stuff but I love that that's
00:36:49
just a casual sentence like someone's listening and they have no idea what we're talking about like oh yeah you
00:36:53
know the mime troop anyway yeah you know it's just a homeschool thing you know you had to be
00:36:59
there and you know yeah next episode yeah next episode yeah there will yeah there's going to have to be part to um
00:37:06
just to touch on the mime stuff um maybe maybe I'll reassemble some of the mime
00:37:11
team and we can do a group chat or something bezy um and talk about that but uh but one of the things one of the
00:37:19
things that um I get asked a lot um and I know you will probably get asked this is like uh people who are
00:37:28
either just become parents or they have they are parents and they're thinking
00:37:31
about homeschooling their kids like I get asked all the time like oh would you recommend homeschooling your kids and
00:37:36
like I think overall you and I had decent experiences homeschooled but like is that something when if someone's
00:37:42
coming to you and asking you that like what do you what goes through your head when you're answering
00:37:47
that yeah um I think I don't know I me it's a little tricky because I never had the
00:38:01
comparison of being public schooled um MH to say like one is better but I think there's a lot of downsides of
00:38:10
homeschooling and there are some pros but I think it's very situational like I
00:38:16
think if you're the type of person who's very like independent and can work at
00:38:21
your own pace and like or maybe you're like a musician that's touring at 15 I
00:38:28
don't know like there are lots of situations that I think homeschooling can be a good thing um to like have your
00:38:35
own pace and it's like you're spending a lot of time with your family and that's
00:38:38
good that can be good you know like you're bonding you have good relationships hopefully with your family
00:38:44
maybe so like there can be a lot of amazing things and I'm very grateful for
00:38:48
like you know I was able to work and I was able to like do all these cool creative things
00:38:54
um but I think i al there was also just so many Extremes in our setting with like just with the like like we're
00:39:05
talking about we just kind of briefly talked about like the dress codes that's
00:39:08
just sort of like the surface of just some sort of like social norms that should not have been social norms about
00:39:16
like women's like bodily autonomy and like there's like a lot that we could
00:39:22
get into about sort of the psychological impacts of like being in this little bubble
00:39:30
um that it felt like a bubble to me um so I don't know it's like I think if you
00:39:36
were going to homeschool you your you'll homeschool your kids um homeschool your
00:39:41
kids uh I think that it should just be like not so overly spiritualized with every single thing ever I think if
00:39:53
you're like religious that's cool like I'm never judging anybody I think that's
00:39:56
awesome and but like I don't know like Don't Force It On Your Kids my family
00:40:03
wasn't like that but there was a lot of you know instances where it's like this
00:40:06
is the way the world is this is the way this is what you have to think and what you have to believe and it would bleed
00:40:11
into academics too of like so like evolution is fake and like this is history um basically like Jesus is
00:40:21
amazing and these like groups in history are amazing and Spanish Inquisition Spanish Inquisition like oh that
00:40:28
happened real quick but like anyways we're moving on Christians are great like there's a lot of like bias in my
00:40:34
academics that I was like kind of a lot so I think uh it took a while for me to sort of unpack and again like there's
00:40:43
nothing wrong every should have their own belief about everything in the sense of you know choose to be like religious
00:40:49
choose to not be religious like I don't know just like I don't want I don't
00:40:53
really Vibe with the forcing of you know like B into academics especially like there should I don't know like if you're
00:41:02
going to homeschool your kids give them like a variety of like information teach
00:41:06
them how to research teach them how to you know like evaluate information and question have questions for things and
00:41:14
think critically you know and like you know like I don't think homeschooling is
00:41:19
the villain I think it's just people can be extreme and that can be rough so just
00:41:24
don't be extreme absolutely no and I mean there's a big obviously there are a lot of
00:41:30
people who homeschool their kids for religious reasons right because they you know the school system is broken or they
00:41:37
you know they believe that the school system is broken or indoctrinating kids with like lies and evil yeah exactly and
00:41:44
and so they want to protect their kids from that and so I think it goes into you know it it ties into you know
00:41:50
homeschool kids are tend to be sheltered right because it's mom and dad trying to
00:41:54
keep keep the big bad wolf out at Bay kind of a thing and you know I think ultimately like you said it comes down
00:42:02
to like you got to figure out what works for you but it it is a lot of like I think it's important for parents to be
00:42:07
heavily involved in their kids education but it's also their responsibility to
00:42:11
make sure they're doing the best by their kids and I agree with you there's
00:42:14
a lot of things that like I was taught through our textbooks and things like that of just like through that lens of
00:42:21
Christianity and it really skewed the way I looked at things until I got to college
00:42:28
um and even after college and starting to actually like read other history books and start to kind of develop you
00:42:34
know new feelings around different things and being like wait what we skipped over all of this or you know or
00:42:39
you know not understanding like how Evolution uh you know is thought to be right it it is a theory but it's like
00:42:46
okay well that's one you know that's a possibility um and so you know when you
00:42:50
start to look at everything you go oh my gosh like there's so many things that
00:42:54
were just skewed from this one lens um yeah of feared go ahead sorry no absolutely a
00:43:02
lot of fear-based um type stuff as well yeah and I was going to I was thinking about this also um something I noticed
00:43:11
even while I was like in the bubble is that a lot of homeschool parents have like been through so much in their lives
00:43:17
bro like I remember kind of talking to the homeschool moms once I was like a little older in high school and I was
00:43:22
like are you okay like they've had hard Liv a lot I just it's not always but
00:43:28
it's like a pattern that I noticed that like the parents that have been through
00:43:32
like crazy crazy stuff were the ones that were like being the most overprotective and Sheltering their kids
00:43:39
you know because and it's like not to like justify like you shouldn't like
00:43:43
hide your kids away from the world but like it just kind of puts some context to it of like they went through so many
00:43:49
bad things and they obviously don't want their kids to have experience in those
00:43:53
bad things but you just can't protect your kid from everything you know so it's like a balance everything but it
00:43:59
was something I noticed to like you know give them some throw them a bone like okay yeah there's all these crazy dress
00:44:04
codes and crazy like you know whatever rules or like very legalistic sometimes or a lot of you know extremes but like
00:44:15
they're they're clinging for structure in a world where they kind of had none
00:44:19
and probably nobody was looking out for them you know and so they want to look out for their kids which is I it's like
00:44:24
I get it but like it doesn't really work to like swing to the Other Extreme you
00:44:29
know yeah I think what was hard too and you and I kind of talked about this before we hit recording too was like you
00:44:35
know you're growing up in yeah you and I grew up in a great we had Community we
00:44:39
had friends like the the antisocial myths that exist around uh like homeschooling kind of I don't feel like
00:44:46
existed so much in our friend group however there was still bubbles associated with like what was going on
00:44:52
in in family's like personal lives you know and a lot of times the when we would get together everything was
00:44:59
presented as like it's all good right everybody's kind of same Pace mom and
00:45:04
dad are happy you know things aren't things bad things aren't happening um
00:45:08
you know and but the reality was like families were like falling apart behind the scenes um and you know and you know
00:45:17
things were happening to kids they were being potentially put in unsafe situations and and you know and so it's
00:45:24
really interesting because yeah that was one of the things we were chatting about
00:45:28
was like had we been in more of a Traditional School situation would teachers and staff at those schools
00:45:35
maybe have picked up on things that we just couldn't pick up on because well
00:45:40
none of us were like trained therapists you know yeah yes exactly and yeah that's something that we were talking
00:45:47
about is that you know if a kid is going to school like a young kid there's ideally teachers that are trained and
00:45:57
you know have been certified to spot certain things if maybe the child is unsafe or maybe they're going through
00:46:05
something at home like there are PE there's a wide variety hopefully you know this is people fail all the time so
00:46:12
you know it's not like everything's perfect in real school and not in home
00:46:15
school but like in general you know when you're in a community a larger community
00:46:20
of people that aren't just your your your friends or family friends like there's just there can be more
00:46:27
accountability I feel like in homeschooling can be isolating like especially in the family bubbles
00:46:34
because it's just it can be scary and and I'm speaking from like experience of
00:46:39
people that I know that basically when I was in my like homeschool world I kind of thought everything was fine because
00:46:45
everybody was like we're fine we're put together and I think that's also like I
00:46:49
don't know sort of the self-image that comes with that like Evangelical Christianity and a lot of Christianity
00:46:56
where it can be you know like we have to look like everything's good like we're
00:47:00
representing Christ we have to look like him we have to be like him and that can
00:47:04
kind of get twisted into like we need to keep a front you know if we're failing
00:47:09
like we need to look like we have it all together and um and so there was a lot of things that I learned about after
00:47:17
like graduating that are heartbreaking and horrible and people that were in family situations that were very unsafe
00:47:24
and they went through so much and they should never have had to experience that and that's horrible and honestly The
00:47:31
Homeschool aspect exaggerated that in the sense of they didn't really have anywhere to go maybe their family was a
00:47:38
lot more we're doing our own education alone you don't get to go to those
00:47:41
groups you know and who do you go to like your neighbor like you don't have like you know certified um H sorry
00:47:52
mandatory reporters yeah um you don't have those resources and it's just it
00:47:56
can can be really scary and it wasn't even something that I thought about because I was you know privileged to
00:48:03
have like a safe family environment but not everybody experiences that and you're just born into whatever world
00:48:09
you're born into and you know it's scary it can be scary and I do say yeah
00:48:15
homeschooling can you know make those situations can increase the isolation in those situations you know absolutely
00:48:24
absolutely no I I 100% agree with you and think I'm so thankful that both of
00:48:27
us grew up in households that were safe and hopefully provided some safety for um people in our community um you know
00:48:38
and but yeah but it it definitely it definitely existed and that was it was weird it's weird because like you I
00:48:44
learned about a lot of things after the fact and I was like oh you know oh that's you know I I wish I would have
00:48:52
noticed earlier you know and there's obviously nothing we can do to go back and change certain things but you know
00:48:57
to bring awareness to that those types of things is very important and so yeah so again if you see something say
00:49:04
something that's um always very important and if something ever feels off uh with your friends you know please
00:49:11
like speak up um and tell people because uh yeah there there is help that exists
00:49:16
out there um but not to leave everything on a super dark note um but I I have really enjoyed talking with you and I do
00:49:24
want to have you back at some point to talk about uh the mime team um and um and the cringiness that existed
00:49:33
there but um and uh and maybe some other things as well but um ellia this has been freaking fantastic I love catching
00:49:40
up with you and chatting with you um is there anywhere you want to send people to hear your music check out I don't
00:49:48
know music videos whatever you know is there anything you want to plug there thank you so much for that opportunity I
00:49:54
will totally yep about my music um I am on Spotify Apple music all the streaming services um you can check out
00:50:04
my album that we talked about it's just under my name ellia France which is kind
00:50:09
of hard to spell so maybe reference I don't know if it's going to be like in
00:50:12
the title of the podcast okay Co I'll put it in the show notes you link to everything um and so I would love if you
00:50:19
know you checked out my music maybe you'll love it maybe you'll hate it but
00:50:22
hey uh thanks for thanks for streaming um and so you can follow me on Instagram that's where I do a lot of my posting
00:50:30
for music and things which is just aliia France music and I also have a band of my own that's newer and it's called
00:50:38
vinyl sunsets uh that's on Instagram and you can check us out there so thank you
00:50:45
for the the plug I will gladly be my selfstarter self and grow it out there very cool well I didn't know about
00:50:54
the band so um so I'll be do following right after this um but uh but yeah definitely go Give ellia a listen and if
00:51:02
you enjoyed this episode you know remember to subscribe follow leave a rating a thumbs up whatever you got to
00:51:07
do on any of the platforms and uh yeah this has been this episode of the exom schoolers Club until next time we'll see
00:51:14
you later right see you later peace all right we just hit we stopped the recording but it's okay because we
00:51:22
had one more thought that we needed to add uh in regards to dress code at the dances so OT hit me what you got
00:51:28
basically um so I was saying about like the strict dress codes um for dances and essentially like following what
00:51:39
Jacob was saying of what was sort of being said without words was that um it was the woman's
00:51:48
respons it was the girl little girl girl's responsibility to basically um kind of control
00:51:56
men's like urges and and feelings towards them like because there is so much attention on how women need to
00:52:06
dress themselves and how they need to cover up themselves and there was sort of these you know speeches that were
00:52:11
given to us where you know men are sort of like just animalistic in nature and it's hard for them to control themselves
00:52:20
and so we as women it's our job it's our responsibility to help them um stay like
00:52:26
pure and holy and it was like you know it was very much like preached to us in that sense from like the community and
00:52:38
and then it was sort of carried out with those dress codes not just there but in
00:52:42
other like spaces in that whole Community um and there was so many like talks given to girls about that topic
00:52:52
and how it was our job and I wasn't you know a male so I don't know what talks the men were
00:52:58
given to but I'm pretty sure it was less about in in general there wasn't as much
00:53:05
focus on these things of taking responsibility for yourself and managing your own emotions you know it's puberty
00:53:12
it's rough like I'm not saying that like it's easy but you know there wasn't like an equal
00:53:20
focus on both ends of hey you need to take accountability you need to work on holding yourself accountable and that's
00:53:29
your job you know what I mean it felt like it was very much not not equal focus and that can be so dangerous like
00:53:38
quite literally so dangerous because as we were saying like unsafe situations like it is so much harder to speak out
00:53:46
if something happens to you as a woman when you think it's you've been taught
00:53:49
your whole life that it's your fault and your responsibility and your job to
00:53:53
control that like yes that's crazy like you know outside of it now that my prefrontal cortex is like a bit you know
00:54:01
further along like what like that's a direct pipeline you know you are you are 100% correct because the
00:54:11
thing that the that us young boys were being taught was that like women had a responsibility to
00:54:20
present themselves in a way that was not um like seductive sexual in those ways right and so but we weren't being taught
00:54:30
that like we also as guys had a responsibility to like to put things in the context of what it was right and so
00:54:38
I use this example quite a bit with people when I talk about this because we GRE up in Southern California you go to
00:54:43
the beach a million girls are at the beach in bikinis right basically underwear as a guy you have to put it
00:54:51
into the context that this is not a sexual situation right now and so I need to not be I need to be mindful of what
00:54:59
I'm seeing um and how I'm reacting to it and that was like something that just
00:55:06
didn't get taught and so it was always really interesting to me because there
00:55:10
were certain members of our friend group who like they just couldn't control
00:55:15
themselves you know it's just like you'd walk by some girls at the beach and like
00:55:19
they couldn't help but like look or whatever and it's hard because I don't
00:55:24
want to say that looking in itself is not like I don't I don't even want to
00:55:28
say it's not bad but it's like it you ackn to acknowledge people in the world
00:55:33
is like not bad but what you do with that information in your brain is like that's the important part it's like what
00:55:40
are you doing how are you processing that information it's like you know is it in that context of like this is not a
00:55:45
sexual thing you know and like you said if if the girls had this felt this responsibility to like we have to dress
00:55:52
a certain way and if a guy comes on to me in a certain way or says a certain things or touches me inappropriately or
00:55:57
whatever it's somehow your fault that is totally not the truth um because as guys
00:56:02
it is our responsibility to one be looking out for our female friends um as best we can and to protect them and you
00:56:10
know that does not include uh yeah you know inappropriate touching does not include like inappropriate text messages
00:56:17
speaking to them inappropriately like they are our friends and it's our job to
00:56:22
like be like their friend and take care of them and make them feel safe and so anyway that's
00:56:30
that's no it's so true and it's like obviously there is Grace for being a
00:56:34
literal teenager like that's not my I'm not saying that like these teenagers
00:56:38
need to be perfect or like have to be these adults already but it's like it's
00:56:43
it's just the lack of of conversation and education and things like consent and what that looks like is so scary
00:56:51
because it's like it was just like the Assumption from the adults that like obviously were Banning those things so
00:56:56
won't happen and that's just like the dumbest thing ever like hello like
00:56:59
teenagers are going to be teenagers and so when they do find themselves in situations like they have no idea like
00:57:06
maybe they don't even know what is inappropriate because it hasn't been like taught to them you know in the
00:57:12
sense of like consent has to be enthusiastic and it needs to be there right enthusiastic consent oh my gosh
00:57:19
enthusiastic consent um there's also I I work with somebody and they talk about
00:57:25
there is no such thing as Universal consent um and so just because it happened one time whether it's like
00:57:30
making out whether it's actually like um having sex or doing a sex act like that
00:57:37
doesn't entitle you as a person to that being the case every single time right
00:57:42
you have to receive consent every single time um and and also if a person is intoxicated or under the influence of
00:57:50
something like they physically are unable to give consent that is just like given and so um yeah enthusiastic
00:57:59
consent is like very much a yes um needs to happen all the time um and men and women are obviously and Men Women they
00:58:08
and thems are always um you know everybody is at risk of something happening to them um but it does
00:58:15
obviously tend to happen more from men to women um and that is sadly so unfortunate and I think within the
00:58:22
homeschool Community there's such a lack of sex ed um because it's like sex is
00:58:27
bad sex is bad sex is bad sex is bad you get buried oh sex is on the table and it's a free-for-all buffet um for for
00:58:35
you to eat and it's like that is just that's not the case um and you know um
00:58:41
but like you said as a teenager especially as a hormonal teenager you know what do you do with that and we're
00:58:46
taught that anything sexual is bad like you repress a lot of that and it come tends to come out a lot later in really
00:58:53
unfortunate ways um yeah what we can talk about now as you know 10 or 6 years out of it is you see
00:59:02
like like the adults that have come from those groups like people that I grew up
00:59:07
with and like where are they now and there's a lot of creeps out there there's a lot and it's gross and it's
00:59:13
sad and it's like crazy like the actual like frequency of it like it's not
00:59:19
normal I don't think and that's kind of a scary thing because it's like it's
00:59:24
really not gosh like that's the it's just like school it's just you're just a
00:59:29
teenager and whatever we're just going to ignore that topic but that's like
00:59:32
such an important to topic because that's the rest of your life that this is such a formative time that like you
00:59:38
were saying like it's so like dumb to just like avoid all of that in the sense
00:59:46
of like make all the girls cover up so that the guys don't have to deal with it
00:59:50
that's not reality hello like it's just so simp it's like first grade level of
00:59:54
like you're going to exist as an adult like this is not it's not like hello you
01:00:00
know what I mean it's like obviously people can have different opinions about
01:00:04
like what women I don't know should wear but I just I mean I just think it should
01:00:09
be whatever you want and whatever you're comfortable with I love majesty and I
01:00:13
love the opposite like do whatever it's your it's you like do what you want and
01:00:17
like you have to you can't just expect everyone to like accommodate to you that's like so so silly so not reality
01:00:24
yeah well and I when it's funny because when we when we talk about like girls
01:00:29
being modest I remember there being a group of girls that would get together every year before summer and they would
01:00:34
make their bathing suits because they couldn't find a bathing suit in the store and they were making like like
01:00:41
full long long sleeves with like shorts and skirts that came down to your knees and it was like utterly ridiculous and
01:00:47
it's one thing if you want to make that it's one thing if you want to wear that
01:00:50
and you feel comfortable in that I don't care but there was it was not I didn't
01:00:55
feel ever like it was like oh I want to make this it was like I have to make this and I have to wear this um and it's
01:01:02
such a double standard because as guys you know we got to wear shorts and take our shirts off at the beach and you know
01:01:10
and there's kind of because of the fact that we also grew up in a heteronormative MH group um it's so much
01:01:17
of like you know girls shouldn't be looking at guys sexually and guys shouldn't be looking at girls sexually
01:01:22
but also like there was never any talk either of like are we looking at the same sex sexually um and things like
01:01:28
that and this is a whole rabbit hole that we can obviously go down um and I would love to have you back in chat more
01:01:33
about this because I'm also very passionate about like this particular thing um because it's just like utterly
01:01:42
insane to me um and and and and I have experiences too of the of some of the detrimental things that came out of that
01:01:49
of just like within my own sex life and so um you know one of the things that I have learned recently because growing up
01:01:58
it was always taught like masturbation bad and like recently I've taken on more
01:02:03
of the phrase of like masturbation saves lives um because you it is a part of like teaching yourself that like sex is
01:02:10
a healthy natural part of life um but it has to be done in the right context um with a consenting partner uh with
01:02:17
enthusiastic consent um and things like that so yeah no yeah it's so true it's
01:02:22
just like you can't avoid all of that it's like being a teenager is like the
01:02:27
perfect time to have those un like uncomfortable conversations and it's like I know that that's not just a
01:02:34
homeschooler thing I know that can be a universal thing which is sort of like I feel like the older generation is like
01:02:38
we don't want to talk about that just just figure it out you know it's like
01:02:42
it's it's an uncomfortable thing but it's like it's just like the risks of
01:02:47
what we've seen can happen as those kids go to adults without the right education
01:02:53
or with porn education and nothing else pourn in guilt like that's it and you
01:03:00
know like it's scary what can sort of happen later in life and even if it's
01:03:05
not the extreme of like turning into a creep and turning into this like crazy person like it's just like rough as an
01:03:12
individual to figure it out when you feel like you should have had this figured out already or you're having you
01:03:18
don't know what's normal and what's not and it's just like overall like yeah you
01:03:23
just have to like have educ not like not like taboo for that kind of thing because it's it doesn't work it's
01:03:32
we know it doesn't work now so can we just not do that again it doesn't yeah
01:03:37
yeah absolutely no abstinence uh and not only just like teaching abstinence is it's fine in practice if you choose to
01:03:45
but the idea of like this lack of let's just like you said skip all talking about it skip all everything just set
01:03:54
rules and boundaries around like you know boys are blue and girls are red and together they make purple and we're
01:03:59
not having any purple be made um kind of a thing it's like it's dumb it's like
01:04:03
you actually need to understand what is going on in the human body and what sex looks like and yeah how to show
01:04:10
enthusiastic consent when necessary and things like that and one I mean and just
01:04:17
to you know there are plenty of things out there now to educate people and to help with that education because
01:04:22
obviously it is very embarrassing to talk with Mom and Dad and Mom and Dad I'm sure it is very
01:04:28
embarrassing to tell your kids about the birds and the bees um and how all that all that stuff works nobody wants to do
01:04:35
that but there are so many great books there's so many great podcasts there's
01:04:38
so many great like documentaries and other things out there to help with like understanding how the human body works
01:04:43
how the mind works how I mean your mind is your biggest sex organ so you know how all of those things work in
01:04:50
conjunction and can work in a very healthy and mature and natural way um to give everyone like the best experience
01:04:57
possible yeah so yes it's so important so important and we you know we've
01:05:04
talked we've seen we've seen the the results of where where you don't want to
01:05:09
end up at not going to not going to like call anybody out obviously but you know
01:05:16
it was also not people in the community it was like coaches that I had or like outside of all of my circles or whatever
01:05:23
that you know maybe were pastors or maybe were these things and then it's like scary what can happen when there's
01:05:32
just like no outside support or education or anything and you're just kind of like left to your own devices
01:05:39
and it's like some people good it's not good it's not good like yeah anyway that
01:05:46
was not like very academic speaking but you know it's just just yeah yeah yeah I yes I 100% agree with you
01:05:56
and um yeah that is no that is very key and so I appreciate you bringing that up
01:06:01
and wanting to hit record again to touch on that um because that is super important and you know and so yeah Mom
01:06:09
Dad talk to your kids about sex um andent especially because if nothing else that is super important and um I
01:06:15
know we said it at the yeah if nothing else consent um and understanding uh bodily autonomy um but uh yeah and uh I
01:06:24
know we said it at the end of our recording but like if you see something say something and like stand up and
01:06:31
protect those people around you um please please and thank you yes absolutely be a good human
01:06:38
being yes all right thank you again was so cool to talk to you about all the things all the all the topics I hope the
01:06:46
listeners are enjoying yes [Music] [Music]