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welcome back to the ex- homeschoolers club uh I'm your host Jacob Gooden and
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uh I'm stoked today I'm joined by my friend Emily uh I know her as Emily
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Shields but I know that is no longer her actual name as she has gotten married that no longer my name but uh Emily
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welcome thank you so much for having me I'm very excited I've seen so many of my
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friends on this and I I feel honored that I get to be a part of it very cool well I'm stoked to have you and um yeah
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tell me a little bit about your homeschool Journey cuz I feel like we were friends but I feel like we were
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friends from kind of a distance if that makes sense yeah we were like friends of
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friends like we were at the same parties and uh both of our mutual like kind of bestest friend is Carrie France which
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you had on here yeah so we were kind of friends um like at parties I would talk to and stuff but uh I think mainly when
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we kind of got a little older I was talked to you a little bit more at like uh a friend's wedding we hung out there
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we danced a little bit and things like that but yeah uh I I did start homeschooling a little later than some
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people I started when I was entering the fourth grade so kind of like you I was in the I was in the private school world
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uh and it was a big transition for sure kind of like you said where you you knew
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you knew what the real world was like and then suddenly you're like what the
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heck I'm at home now like what is what is going on and you you missed it and I
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missed it a lot but yeah yeah so do you know why your parents decided to pull you out of private school to homeschool
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you yes so I I was not very good in school I would um i' zone out a lot and I learned that I had different learning
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disabilities that would kind of make it a little bit tough to keep up with the classroom setting and when I was in
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third grade that's when it reached the point where I was already taking kind of
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like kind of like special edish classes um and just to like try to keep up they wanted me to go to summer school they
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wanted me to uh see different like uh go into like a different special classroom
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and be held back like kind of things for people who are more mentally challenged
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than say I was but you know back then there wasn't really resources for teachers or like having more inclusive
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classrooms and stuff and um the teacher ratio was a lot a lot different than it is now now I feel like it's a a lower
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student to teacher back then it was just like let's put as many kids as we can in
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the classroom and so there wasn't really enough time for me and I they're
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basically kind of like giving up on me that's what my parents would say that
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the school system was giving up on me and they knew that I was smart like I I could learn things at home and I
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would I would get it like I would get my schoolwork or not school but like homework a little bit early before the
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other kids like I would get it um like instead of getting on Monday and working on it for the rest of the week
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like normal kids would do I would get it the Friday before so I'd have the whole
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weekend to also work on it just so I can like kind of keep up and they would see
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that I was trying so hard I just couldn't do it and so um they made the decision to take me out of school and to
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yeah to try to work on like how we can actually have her learn and homeschooling seemed like the best
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option for us my I do have an older brother who they asked if he wanted to be homeschooled he's about seven years
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older than me so I think he was I don't know like middle schoolish age or something maybe going into high school
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and he's like oh heck no I do want to be homeschooled so that's always interesting to have one kid homeschooled
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and one kid not homeschooled yeah so I still got to see some of that world of what school is like because of my
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brother but yeah it it was it was very beneficial for me because I could work at my own pace and do my my favorite
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thing about homeschooling is that you can learn what your super interest is yes you know um like like in history
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class instead of just you know reading reading the chapter on whatever of I don't know the Industrial Revolution or
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something reading that chapter and then you move on it's like if there's some
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little nugget that you really like your parents will say let's dive into that
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let's learn so much more about this one little nugget so you have like a way
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better perspective in the sense rather than just jamming every like I know like every date and every fact that they
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learn I that's I tell people that all the time because like I got really into
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Pirates when I was a kid and my parents were like let's just do history around
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Pirates and then I had my favorite pirate who was Calico Jack and like I knew so much about him as a pirate and
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he wasn't he was obviously an Infamous pirate but he wasn't like most people
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know Blackbeard they know Davey Jones they know kind of like you know they know Jack SP
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even though that's not historically an accurate person but they know kind of
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the basis of like a lot of um Pirates but they don't know very specific ones
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so like yeah like you said it's like you hook onto that one nugget and then your
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parents are just like oh yeah like we can find more books on this person or we can find more information or go to this
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Museum or whatever that is a super powerful thing with homeschooling and yeah and
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especially if you like you said you had some learning disabilities and I didn't
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but my sister did and she had dyslexia and watching her try to like work through things was so interesting
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because I just never struggled with that kind of stuff like I could I could read
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a book it was totally easy for me to just like sit down and power through a book but for her it just took so much
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hours longer yeah and so that's cool that you had parents who who saw that you were like I want to learn and I want
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to figure this out but like it's just the system isn't working to get there
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yet and so was there anything in particular that they did that you feel like kind of
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unlocked like that ability to learn even maybe not at a faster Pace but just kind
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of like it made more sense yeah so um my parents they uh they both they were they're preschool teachers and that's
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how they Met originally um they they weren't preschool teachers when I was being homeschooled but just when they
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first met they were so they had like a base of like the CH the child brain and like um human development and things
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like that so uh my mom has always been very creative on how we can teach the preschoolers like fun different things
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so she just kind of elevated that and you know if you make anything into a game it's just way better so with say
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with my spelling words I also um was pretty dyslexic when I was younger so that made it hard but my mom she would
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help with that and like with all my spelling words that I would have she would put on like a piece of paper and
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she would cut them in random uh places like either in half or like cut the Ed at the end or whatever and then she made
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it into a game where I had to try to match them up kind of like a puzzle to like make my spelling word and just
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learn things in a different way like that or she made little silly rhymes or silly songs with things cuz I was very
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um I connected to music a lot so I still remember some of like the songs that I still like do in my head sometimes when
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I'm like either spelling a a certain word or just things of that nature or um
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kind of like your sister where I had a really hard time reading like I could read a paragraph and then you ask hey
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Emily what did you read I have no idea I could not tell you what it was after like my reading comprehension was not
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good they learned that I was more of an auditory learner where if my mom read books that was way above my like reading
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level then I could get it I understood it and uh then I would do my reports that way and so it was just cool things
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like that granted um like I would still I still had to learn like how to read and at my comprehension level but just
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doing things at a different at a different pace type of thing yeah no and that's it's interesting because
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like yeah my my sister was the same way like she was very auditory and yeah had like the little game like she did this
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whole thing of like uh it was like with your hand it was like one way was like balloons and then pigs and like there
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you know there's little whatever but yeah I think it's it's interesting so like then when you
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navigate after like homeschool into like maybe more of a college experience or just even like the real
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world you know sometimes like I I know for her like she had to go find textbooks and things where it was
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like okay how do I find my college textbooks in an auditory form or how do I turn them into an auditory form or
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like um things like that where it's like for me it was like a no-brain right I
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just I didn't even think about it because that wasn't my struggle but it
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was just I I don't know it's interesting to kind of like hear people's
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perspective and then also like has anything shifted like do you I don't know do you read books now or you still
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very much more like an Audi book podcast kind of person now I am a super reader I
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read 247 um like anytime I'm at work I have a break I read when my baby's taking a nap
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I go read so it's so funny because when I was younger yeah I didn't really like
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reading because it was so hard but then um with a different like kind of like therapies that I did like I did um like
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a a vision therapy that would help with my tracking like finding the words because that was one of my issues my
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eyes would jump all around the page so it made it really difficult for reading so things like that um they did help me
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and I kind of found little other tricks that would just help me so now uh I don't really notice any of those
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disabilities too much which is kind of cool um I was able to work around it from my own way to to do things even in
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my day-to-day job and I feel like homeschooling definitely helped that where you don't have to do things that
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are like the cookie cutter way but you can do things as long as you get to the main goal just do it your own way type
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of thing yeah no and that's what's that's what's cool too yeah and to your
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point it's cool to hear too that you're like I once you figure out those those
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like tricks and those tools and you figure out your learning style well then eventually you get to the point where
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you would never even know right like you you can read a book just fine now right
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and you did classes to to track and so it's like it's like now it's like you
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probably don't look at a page the same way you did when you were first kind of
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like figuring out like oh my gosh this is like utter chaos right this is absolute hell for me to try to figure
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out so that's cool to hear because I think a lot of times people get discouraged because they one they either
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maybe didn't get diagnosed as a kid properly or didn't have parents who really helped win their education or
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like took notice of that kind of thing and so now they're full-fledged adults
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and they still struggle with it and instead of being like okay let's figure out a way to do this they'll just throw
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books out the window right they're like that's I I don't read because it's too
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hard for me um and so yeah so anyway highly encourage parents and kids to there there's answers out there you can
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you can solve a lot of lot of things and there's so much more knowledge now to be
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able to like figure out yeah what's going on with you and and and I feel like now it's so much more common to
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have something just like you know a little off in a good way you know almost everyone has a little at least something
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and they're more free to talk about it and in the back like back in the day it
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was like mortifying like I didn't want any of my friends to know that I I was
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having a hard time with this or struggling with this but now everyone is I feel just so much more open with
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everything about just who they are there's not as much secrets you know yeah which I love that's good that's
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good because yeah well and the more you talk to people the more you realize yeah we're all the yeah like
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you said we're all the same we all got our own problems and like the only way
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to really work through it is yeah you got to be open about it because the longer you store that stuff inside of
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you it's like that serves nobody you know anyway so okay so you were then home school so fourth grade did you you
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went all the way through High School through high school homeo yeah my parents when um when I was going into
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Middle School my parents said ask as me if I wanted to go into middle school because they felt maybe I could like
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attempt it even though I think they knew I was going to say no it was just kind of like giving me the offer and I told
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them like the only thing that I want is I want lunchtime because in movies like everything happened in the lunch period
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so I wanted to go to Lunchtime With Friends yeah and I wanted a locker because everything great happens in
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front of a locker so and so um for Christmas that year my parents bought me my own
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locker it was like a bright lime green Locker it was huge um if you for people who watch High School Musical it's like
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the size of Sharp's Locker the bright pink one how she has like double Locker
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for those who know they know but yeah so once I got that Locker I was like okay I
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don't have to go to regular school anymore I'm fine doing this uh and there
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was a point that I did stuff like I did go inside my locker and close the door cuz I was like I'm like a nerd and I'm
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stuffed in my locker because I was that sad cuz I just wanted to be like a normal school person and
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then my brother walked in and he's like that doesn't happen at school I don't
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know what you're thinking but it doesn't happen but yeah so yeah we have this
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weird glamorized like version of what public school looked like I think and yeah is movies like High School Musical
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definitely paint uh a much more glamorized version of what high school would have looked like um but that's so
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funny yeah I know never asked for a locker but that's hilarious that's I
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still have it it's in um and I would always put my schoolwork in it because that's what you're supposed to do with
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lockers but I still have it it's in my garage and my husband a few we've had a
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few rounds of garage Sals and every time he's like are you sure you don't want to
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get rid of it like do we still need that and I said I got this Locker so I didn't
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have to go to school this is the best thing ever and someday our kids are going to think this is the coolest thing
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ever but yeah who can say they have a locker in their garage not too many people so I own that yeah not too many
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people that's funny so so okay so following homeschool did you after graduation College job what what was the
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kind of the path there so after graduation I um I didn't really fully know what I wanted to do so I just did
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what most people do and they just uh you know try a few things at Community College and I tried a few different
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classes uh most of them are all fun like uh theater is or kind of Child Development things cuz I would Nanny and
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babysit in high school so I'm like oh that's easy I know kids I'll do that and
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um I tried to have a few normal classes so I tried to take a Spanish class and it was a um a film studies class and for
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both those classes I realized this is too intense I could not keep up I could not handle this and it is intimidating
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having so many students in your class that just seemed to get it and I just I just could not get it that it was just
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really overwhelming to me I mean in homeschooling you have classes and stuff with other kids but at Max there's like
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10 to 11 kids usually you know there's not too many in there but then suddenly
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you're in a a classroom that has you know people that just graduated but also
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since Community College it has so many other age ranges that and there's like
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30 kids in your class and there's or kids not adults in your class and it's
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just very overwhelming and I could not keep up with it and as I I left those classes and was just trying to figure
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out what I wanted to do and since I like Child Development I stuck with those classes because they made sense to me I
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could actually do them and I was a preschool teacher for about five years and then uh I stopped that and now I
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work at an electrical company the same that my father works at and you never know where in your where you're gonna go
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in your life you know I didn't think I was going to work some place like that
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but it's money and that's what I want so that's where I am yeah yeah hey
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sometimes a job def College material we I was just trying to graduate I we're
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still just amazed that I graduated so hey you know yeah it's not for everybody
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but you know it's I don't know I I didn't have a terrible College experience I purposefully chose a
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college that had it was a smaller student size and so classes tended to be a little bit more in that average what
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we were used to right maybe 15 kids and then there was a few classes that were like 50 kids and those classes were
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overwhelming because yeah it was really easy to all of a sudden feel like I'm
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very behind you know um and yeah and and going to a more traditional College I I
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mean I didn't have there wasn't too many people at that school that that were
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older like I know yeah VC oxer College yeah you got people all over the Spectrum you got high school kids to
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like 40-year-old adults uh plus taking classes to get an education and it's like it's cool but it's a definitely a
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different learning experience than like being at a university right where it's
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typically going to be at like 18 to 22 right and you're all living together and you know that kind of thing so it
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definitely was a it was a challeng it was an adjustment to to go into that for sure but but that was why I was like I
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got to choose a school that I feel like I can be more familiar with because I there was a couple schools I was looked
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at and I was like they're just massive and I was like I'm just gonna I'm a
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number at that point it's like I can't be a number I gotta be a person um so
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well that's cool and okay so one of the things that you had brought up in kind
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of our pre-show prep was you wanted to talk about senior ditch day so I didn't
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do a senior ditch day well I mean who do that exactly my yeah my senior ditch day was just a normal Tuesday
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like yeah okay so so tell me a little bit about that kind of like what we said before how you you know you learn
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everything from TV and movies uh because since we couldn't actually experience
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what was going on in the real world sometimes that was our worldview is like these movies these TV shows where it's
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like this is what they do this must be real this must be true so everything had senior ditch day and so me and my
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friends we wanted to also do a senior ditch day and we're like how are we going to do that also what are we going
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to do and only one of us has a car so we have to figure this out somehow and uh so we've you've mentioned this a few
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times on your podcast with other people uh group Solutions which was kind of like our version of going to school
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every other Friday we went to some place had about like three classes and we were
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all together and um so and we appeared so that was like our school so we decided Well it has to be when we were
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supposed to be going to school so it has to be on a group Solutions day cuz we're
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not going to ditch at home so we have to ditch from going somewhere but it only counts if you first go to the place
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that's what we thought so we went to group solutions to our schooling we stepped foot there and then we left
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because we had because we had to actually ditch it right yeah um but unbeknownst to my friends I I told my
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mom about the senior ditch day because I tell my mom everything and she was totally chill with it she didn't care
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but she uh did say well you know a lot of those moms in there those are my friends and your teachers are my friends
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and they're going to wonder why I'm like why me your mom is there but you're not
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there and I don't want to lie to them so you have to you have to call them and
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tell them that you're not going to be there and I was like Mom this is not a
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ditch day now I don't want to call my teachers she's like these are my friends absence at this point I did what
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my mom wanted me to do but I didn't tell my friends this and I still count it in
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my heart that it was a senior ditch day so we did our ditch day we or we ditched
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school to do schoolish activities this is so homeschool um we we drove to LA and we were going to go to museums okay
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so that's what we did we we went to we went to the Holocaust Museum the Science
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Center Museum Museum because they having an exhibit on King T and we were so interested we're just so
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homeschooled and um then uh we went to LACMA the LA Museum of Modern Art I think that's what it's called and but um
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something amazing happened at the Museum of Modern Art so you know how at museums
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you kind of have to follow a pattern like when when you're in there like uh you have to all walk kind of the same
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direction you know uh to follow the whole art and stuff since it was the middle of school day there weren't too
00:22:02
many people there and I was being hilarious and making comments on the art and stuff and my friends were laughing
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and then it turns out in the same room as us there was um Nick Jonas Kevin Jonas and a random friend so not Joe was
00:22:20
there but they were in the room with us as well and again this is a museum you just follow the path so we weren't
00:22:26
stalking them they were just we were following the the path and then we get to one room that had a uh like a statue
00:22:33
in like the middle of the room and we were all staring at the Statue and I said something funny and Nick Jonas
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laughed I don't know what I said I blacked out and my friends don't remember either cuz they were just too
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amazed that Nick Jonas laughed and we were like oh my God he laughed we're in
00:22:49
this is amazing and then their phone rang and they were like oh Kevin we have to leave and then Nick was like okay
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yeah we're gonna go so then they left and I think they were doing like some I
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don't know some thing I don't think it was a concert or anything but yeah so
00:23:03
that was pretty amazing so I could say like my senior ditch day was pretty memorable and I do count it as a ditch
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day even though I did call my teachers no that's 100% a ditch day I love that
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you guys went to a mum though that that CS me out three three and we were so excited to go to the
00:23:20
museums we didn't like do anything yeah yeah that is a super homeschooler move but um but yeah I mean
00:23:27
how many people can say on their DCH day they ran into two of the Jonas Brothers
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arguably the two best Jonas Brothers um yes sorry Joe yeah Joe you lost your spot but yeah
00:23:40
exactly you missed out on the opportunity to laugh at Emily's joke um so I know it was obviously really good I
00:23:46
don't wish I knew what it was I have no idea exactly Nick thought it was funny
00:23:51
yeah that's that's hilarious I don't remember doing anything like that I
00:23:55
remember doing special stuff senior year but like like you do your graduation right did you do the Disney night yeah
00:24:03
we did Disney I think you're just like one year younger than me so you weren't
00:24:06
in my year of doing yeah yeah cuz you guys graduated 2013 and I was 2014 so yeah yeah I mean we still the coolest
00:24:16
things on our senior year which is really cool because I know a lot of other kids like you know they didn't
00:24:21
they didn't do really anything other than maybe one like say grad night somewhere and then they just had
00:24:27
graduation and that was but I thought it was so cool how we had a bunch of different activities like we
00:24:32
would go bowling or we'd have game night at someone's house granted there's only
00:24:37
like um I think like 13 of us in the graduating class um yeah I don't know I
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just it felt like we were like a big Community or not big but like a community of like we're doing this
00:24:48
together and we don't have to be separate just cuz we're homeschooled like you know don't have to be separate
00:24:53
so that was really cool I got asked a lot when I got to college like oh so graduation like was it just your parents
00:24:59
like handing you a a piece of paper basically and I was like no like I had like a graduation and I was like granted
00:25:05
it was only 12 of us but I still had a graduation you know and yeah people were there we did the capping gown and
00:25:12
everything my parents were the ones that handed me my diploma but it was still it
00:25:19
was certified and then people clapped it was a thing you know yeah well it's
00:25:24
funny too because I have there's a couple people who were like is it even a legit diploma and I was like well yeah
00:25:31
like I went to private school technically um so it it's funny I don't know it's just funny I don't know if
00:25:38
you've had too many people be like well is your education ask that yeah because you you
00:25:44
do have to register and for me I don't know about everyone but we we didn't
00:25:48
register our own house as a homeschooling thing because I know some people did we were affiliated with like
00:25:55
um I don't know some kind of Homeschool Group that we would send in all like my
00:26:00
grades and my records in so then it was all like and then sent to the state to prove hey she's doing what she needs to
00:26:06
do like everything's right legal and good you know um so I think that's important I think it's always important
00:26:12
for uh like I don't know to still to still show the state or the world are just right and good of this is
00:26:24
all what am I trying to say like I I get you like there's there's kind of a
00:26:30
people there's a there's something to being like we're actually doing this you know and there's
00:26:36
great like I remember taking standardized testing when I was a kid that was not run by my parents that was
00:26:41
like I went to an actual physical place and took the bubble I had the bubble sheet and I did the test kind of a thing
00:26:49
so like getting to like the SATs for college and stuff was not super it was intimidating because obviously it's like
00:26:55
the test that determines if you get into schools not but at the same time it was
00:26:59
like it was less intimidating because I was already familiar with that kind of thing and then yeah I also knew that
00:27:06
because it's a private school my parents were also submitting stuff to the government to be like we're a legit
00:27:11
School here's the transcripts here's the whatever um but yeah and that's
00:27:15
something I definitely I'm going to have some parents on at some point and so uh
00:27:19
I'm I I want to ask them a little bit more about that because I don't understand the behind the
00:27:24
scenes to see the parent side of things with that because we we only get like a certain little Glimpse because I I was
00:27:33
just thinking about this the other day because you know homeschooling like is not for the faint of heart for either
00:27:40
parties I feel like it it is very hard and it is that very challenging because you I don't know about you but
00:27:48
like my schooling like you didn't it didn't like shut off at the end of the
00:27:51
day it you can always learn everything is an opportunity to learn um and if we'd go on vacation
00:27:58
then like say we went to Florida we did the whole Disney World thing but before we went to Florida I had to learn
00:28:05
everything about it like when it was founded what's the state flower all the
00:28:09
like lighthouses that were there I had to do reports on them we did definitely stop at the lighthouses so I can take
00:28:13
pictures so then I could report on it later like every single thing is an opportunity I still had to read like
00:28:20
books um like school books when we were on the plane or in the car or just whatever so just cuz you're not like
00:28:28
like in school or yeah just cuz you're not in school it doesn't it doesn't stop
00:28:32
for us basically right like you said how you were at Disneyland but you're still
00:28:36
doing like a math test like just every you can always learn even if it's a sick
00:28:41
day for other people um that went to school it's like oh I could just watch TV I can just do whatever you want to oh
00:28:47
perfect it's a sick day but you can sit up in your bed that means you could still do your normal work you know yeah
00:28:54
my mom it was like unless you were thrown up and were on death's door yeah you were doing school um yeah so yeah
00:29:02
she was definitely a stick a stickler we were I think we were usually you know I think we were a lot
00:29:08
of maybe you know a a sick day where it's like you really don't have to do
00:29:12
anything this day but it typically lined up with the day that you're the most
00:29:16
sick which you're not going to do anything anyways you know um so yeah a day where you don't do that much school
00:29:24
cuz your mom has to run a bunch of errands so you have to go and do the errands with her so it's like cool I
00:29:29
didn't really do school today but I'm probably going to make for up for it
00:29:33
like on a Saturday and do a little bit of school you know like it all will balance out but it's kind of just like
00:29:39
Mish mosed of when you do school kind of when you don't do school just as long as
00:29:42
it kind of gets done eventually yeah absolutely I mean I I have friends that they would they would
00:29:49
kind of they would go hard on like a particular subject right so they would they would be like I'm going to do math
00:29:55
for a month and they just do a whole Year's worth of math in a month and then
00:29:59
the next month would be something else and that was kind of the thing that was allowed I couldn't do that I was like no
00:30:04
that doesn't work for me I get too bored with that but um but yeah but there's definitely that
00:30:10
flexibility right to be like I I struggled to integrate uh I was learning Spanish as
00:30:17
my foreign language in high school I struggled to integrate that into my weekly routine and so it became one of
00:30:22
those things where it was like either the weekends or we're just going to hold
00:30:26
off and you're going to do it during the summer you know so to your point it's
00:30:29
like learning never stopped because well we're just going to push it until you
00:30:34
know there's actually a time that works for it and you know but that's that was
00:30:39
what was great that was what was one of the great things about like with the flexibility and things like that so yeah
00:30:45
yeah definitely it helped out for me because when I was um like in high school kind of end of or not not
00:30:52
actually Middle School I think it was mainly just all high school I had a cake decorating business that I did
00:30:58
and where I did like parties and I did like a few weddings and things like that and um I and I was you know a teenager I
00:31:06
was supposed to be in school but while like if it was like a certain day like a parties's on like you know on the
00:31:14
weekend or on a Friday night and they have a bunch of cupcakes that they want then I can take off that whole Friday or
00:31:19
like the Thursday before and Friday do all my baking things and then just catch up with my work like on the weekend or
00:31:26
whatever so it's it was nice it was you know to be very flexible if you have a
00:31:30
certain um activity or you know dedicated to a sport or just like if you're super dedicated or like really
00:31:37
want to get into something it's just so nice to have that like flexibility I was
00:31:42
the same way I had a couple of my own businesses and jobs and stuff and so yeah it was like nice to have that
00:31:46
flexibility be like Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. I'm going to this person's house
00:31:50
for a guitar lesson and then I'm coming home and then I'm you know gonna go do
00:31:53
this thing and work to the music studio yeah all that kind of stuff so no that's
00:31:57
super cool so you are a mom now you're married and you have a kid is homeschooling something that you are
00:32:04
thinking about or I know your kid is still very young no no okay my kid is one and a half or yeah he's one and a
00:32:11
half now um that was never a thought I never wanted I always wanted to be a mom I never wanted to be a homeschool mom
00:32:19
because I think it takes it takes a certain not I don't think everyone can homeschool and there are certain friends
00:32:27
where even I think their parents like maybe you should not have homeschooled your kids like I don't think you have
00:32:32
all the right knowledge kind of for this um I do think it takes certain people or
00:32:37
certain like even if you don't have all the know knowledge committed people that
00:32:41
can get you to like you know people who have like more teaching credentials or things like that right uh I know with my
00:32:49
struggles of uh like learning it would be too hard for me to do and I don't also I live in California and Southern
00:33:00
California and I own a home and that I can only do that if me and my husband both work and I want to give my child a
00:33:08
certain kind of LIF style and if I am a stay-at-home mom and not bringing that income I know that we won't be able to
00:33:15
do those kinds of things like go on the Vacations or give them the things that they want or like you know just have
00:33:21
have more of like the Peace of Mind life and again I do know some parents where they were super struggling because
00:33:27
someone had to stay home not everyone like my my family they were they were pretty good my mom was like an extreme
00:33:34
Coupe on her so you know we made it work but there's just some people where I'm
00:33:37
like even as I got a little bit older like maybe get a part-time job Mom so then you can like help out a little bit
00:33:44
more just because I don't know I just think about the financials a lot and my
00:33:47
husband is a very um like Financial driven guy so I just knew that I wanted to work and also I feel like I would
00:33:54
lose my mind if I was a stay at home uh home School mom so definitely props to everyone that wants to do that I do not
00:34:02
want to but um and that's okay to each their own you know and the cool thing is that
00:34:10
you I picked up on a few things that you said there and that was you want to give
00:34:14
your kid like the best life possible which involves you being involved in their life and that's
00:34:21
really ultimately I don't really care how kids are educated I know there's
00:34:25
some people out there who are like this is the only way children should be educated it's the public school system
00:34:29
or the private school system or homeschooling I don't really care I think each kid is different and I think
00:34:34
they have their unique strengths um in all different areas of education but the thing that sets people apart is when the
00:34:42
parent is involved and actually cares about it right they give a about their kid enough to be like I want you
00:34:48
to succeed and I'm going to make sure that that happens so whatever that looks like
00:34:54
they're there for them and uh so anyway I picked up on you saying that so already winning in my book oh thank
00:35:03
you but it is very interesting being a working mom because it one of was obviously just it's just hard like to go
00:35:10
back to work after you know you have a baby and stuff but being homeschooled you know you're
00:35:17
surrounded by people with their moms there all the time and that's all that you know and that's how you see like you
00:35:24
see them raise their children always being there and so now once I turned into a mom it was just I there was a
00:35:32
time where I kind of felt less of a mom because I'm like I'm not going to be
00:35:37
there I'm not going to be there as much and and things like that but then and I
00:35:41
think it's just because I was surrounded by everyone always having their mom
00:35:45
there and then I had to rearrange my thinking and be like okay there's a small amount of group that is
00:35:50
homeschooled that you know always have their mom there granted some people always have their mom there even if
00:35:55
they're not homeschooled you know uh whatever right but there's so if I was
00:35:59
in school still like uh yeah if I was in school for like more of my life then I probably would
00:36:07
have seen more working moms and I wonder if I would have felt differently and like wouldn't have felt so much Mom
00:36:13
guilt about going back to work so i' I've gotten past some of it now but yeah
00:36:19
I just I just know that I I can't do it I don't want to do it like I don't I
00:36:25
mean I don't want to like homeschool my child except if they really need it like
00:36:29
how that was not the first thought of my parents to like oh let's homeschool
00:36:33
their kids no they put your kids in school because that's what you normally do but when they realize that I could
00:36:39
not do it I could not keep up and stuff uh then they did what was best for me obviously for my son if for some reason
00:36:47
he cannot keep up with the school or just whatever then I would take him out and figure out what to do but I think it
00:36:53
everything is by a case- toase basis of like what the child is like what school system is like and now there's so many
00:36:59
more resources that uh like schools have like I don't know they they pick up on
00:37:06
things more if kids are like a little bit different they adjust their curriculum more like it there's just
00:37:11
more options I feel than there were back in the day when I started homeschooling
00:37:16
am grateful I was homeschooled but I I don't want to do it and it was definitely very hard in high school
00:37:24
especially um the relationship like with my mom it was hard sorry motorcycle went by I'm
00:37:30
filming in my car people I'm sorry um but yeah so it was just it was hard with my mom sometimes on both ends
00:37:39
because she has a you know a teenager who's going to puberty who has a lot of
00:37:45
emotional things going on and then she's never homeschooled a child before she
00:37:50
doesn't you know fully know what she's doing as as we're adults now we realize
00:37:55
that our parents don't really know they're just trying to make it through
00:37:58
it you know they they don't know what's always going on but when we're younger
00:38:02
we're like you know everything like why why are you ruining my life why you doing this and now that you're an adult
00:38:07
you realize they were just really just trying to figure it out they were just trying to figure it out and but it was
00:38:13
also hard for me CU my mom sometimes couldn't switch off the mom mode and the
00:38:18
teacher mode and so sometimes I had to say like just stop being a teacher like just be my mom right now or vice versa
00:38:25
like stop being my mom just like treat me like a student like stop either babying me I'm 17 like just give me my
00:38:32
school workor you know things like that so there's times where it did get just
00:38:37
rough yeah did you experience kind of hard things with your parents when you were yeah you're saying that and I'm
00:38:44
like I'm like I remember the same thing I remember my mom especially in the the
00:38:48
first couple years her really the struggle of like there was a lot going on and then on top of that like
00:38:58
and was like yeah my mom wasn't always a nice person you know so like her and I are
00:39:06
good today um and we have been good most of our lives but it's but it's like yeah
00:39:11
it's like Mom you got to turn off the teacher or Mom you got to turn off being
00:39:15
a mom for two seconds real quick and yeah and then going into oh my God going into high school and hormonal teenager
00:39:22
stuff like I've been thinking a lot about that and about just like the Purity culture stuff that we grew up
00:39:29
in which I do want to kind of bring up at some point but the one of the things that like I yeah they were just trying
00:39:37
to figure it out and you funny enough like I'm the oldest you're obviously
00:39:43
second kid and so there's a degree to which your parent kind of understands the teenager thing when you're the
00:39:48
second kid because they're like okay well I've already done it once but you
00:39:51
tack on your brother wasn't homeschooled so there is this there's kind of a no
00:39:56
break situation right where it's like and and even by the time I was in high
00:40:01
school my dad worked at home so there was no breaking between any of us there was just like we all were in one house
00:40:07
together almost 247 and uh and so yeah when when someone couldn't flip it off it was just like
00:40:16
you were just at each other's throats you know yeah you have a hard school day
00:40:21
and you know you have a hard time with your parent being the teacher for a little bit you know I don't know arguing
00:40:26
about and they just not wanting to do it you know you can be angry at your teacher like you know normal people can
00:40:33
just be angry at their teacher uh because they dis or they don't like they great or just you know they're annoyed
00:40:38
by something but then you have to go to dinner with them you know and then you have and then you watch TV later that
00:40:45
night and it's like you sometimes you just it's hard sometimes to separate
00:40:49
things so we would try to separate things like okay as soon as we turn on the show we just won't talk and we're
00:40:55
just like gonna watch the show and then we come out happier because it's like
00:40:59
that's like a a little buffer or something but yeah is just hard then even after
00:41:04
graduation yeah my mom tried to compartmentalize it a little bit by being like okay here's where the school
00:41:09
stuff goes and then we can hide it you know so when school's over we can kind
00:41:14
of like it we close the door whatever it's out of sight but it it still didn't
00:41:20
work always right cuz there was there was always those circumstances of like you didn't finish on time or you just
00:41:26
needed extra time or whatever so it's like sometimes that closet never got closed yeah my dad didn't work at home
00:41:33
like yours did so a lot of times we would just like let's just wait for Dad to come home and then he'll deal with
00:41:38
this you know he was like the principal kind of and uh like because we're both
00:41:42
saying two different things and we need the principal to like bridge the gap between us type thing so it was I just
00:41:49
felt bad for my dad sometimes like he's just coming home from work all happy to
00:41:53
be home and then it's like instantly like we're in a fight and then he's
00:41:56
seeing us he's like I have to deal with this but um yeah yeah and even after
00:42:01
graduation it was hard cuz you know my mom's been homeschooling for so long that's like her whole thing and then
00:42:07
suddenly she doesn't have to homeschool me so it's like we don't need teacher
00:42:11
anymore but then she doesn't know how to not be a teacher and that has been kind
00:42:15
of hard it took a little bit of time and there was not separation but just like not as much of a closeness for a short
00:42:22
time but then we were able to talk it out and it is good but now that I'm an
00:42:26
adult I was just realizing like you know she was one role for so long and then in
00:42:30
within a day you know graduation now it's gone it's like yeah I've put my
00:42:34
whole life into this for my kid and now it's over and I don't really know what
00:42:39
to do it's like kind of like empty nest syndrome but like not especially because
00:42:43
I lived at home still like well when I graduated I lived at home for like two more years um yeah but yeah I think
00:42:49
something that parents don't do that that I I'm not going to say my parents
00:42:56
did not do this perfectly however I think there was my mom did had a lot of intention
00:43:02
behind like learning from previous homeschool parents about like all of the different transition periods within
00:43:09
homeschooling right so your kid going from grade school to Junior High to then high school and then graduating and like
00:43:17
so not only is it changing for the kid the entire time but it's also changing
00:43:20
for the parent and I remember yeah one of the things that was became really instrumental for her was that she had to
00:43:28
learn that when my sister was getting close to graduating she needed to also start pursuing her own like hobbies and
00:43:35
interests because well my time as a teacher is about to end so now I need to have something to do to fill all that
00:43:41
time and it took a long time and it was really frustrating for her and it took a
00:43:45
lot of just like trying different things and meeting new people and all this kind
00:43:48
of thing um but she she came she found that thing finally but it was just this weird like I remember like I remember
00:43:57
calling and and home and her just being like her being like I don't know what to
00:44:02
do I'm just like bored and like you know your sister doesn't need me for school
00:44:06
today and I'm like well then I don't know go for a walk go to the movies like
00:44:10
go do something and she's like no but I I like can't it's like school time and
00:44:13
I'm like it's not it's not like you know what I mean it's that schol time for you
00:44:19
exactly exactly and I think parents just in general when their kids start to like
00:44:23
leave the house and become adults parents just in general also have to take that time to like reconnect with
00:44:30
each other because definitely yeah you you've spent so many years as parents
00:44:35
where it's like it's been mostly about your kid and yeah if you're not working
00:44:38
on your relationship in the midst of all that well then is there even a relationship there so and that's a whole
00:44:45
another deeper darker conversation to have with people but um but yeah so okay I wanted to bring this up let me know if
00:44:55
you're comfortable talking about this but you and I grew up in kind of the Christian homeschool bubble um which
00:45:02
kind of involved a lot of like it was like I would say kind of the tail end of Purity culture because that
00:45:09
was definitely more of a 90s thing but and I know you were not big into like the dances and it previously one
00:45:16
I've had people on when we talk about the dances one of the big things was like dress code specifically for girls
00:45:23
and that kind of thing but um I don't know like do you have any thoughts on that now like we're sitting I don't know
00:45:30
it's been over a decade at this point out of kind of growing up in that environment but
00:45:37
like I'm still unpacking to this day some of the weird trauma and Hang-Ups I
00:45:43
have around just like that stuff you know yeah I I don't know if I have too much
00:45:52
trauma but I just there's just like a lot of ignorance for yeah that that whole that whole time
00:46:01
and um like obviously we've said multiple times you know you learn everything from the TVs and movies um
00:46:08
because it's not like I could really talk to my friends about this kind of stuff because they didn't know like none
00:46:13
of us knew none of us had boyfriends we the the dating pool in homeschooling is so so small and you have like you know
00:46:23
like there's like five guys that are your age in your group and you're like
00:46:26
uh I don't know know about any of them but there's one that's just slightly
00:46:28
cuter than all of them so at least we could say we have a crush on someone you know but um so it's not like we were
00:46:35
really dating or doing anything like that I remember um but yeah so with with movies you that's where I got like a lot
00:46:44
of my knowledge and things like that and luckily because because my brother was so much older and um because we didn't
00:46:53
we were I did uh grow up Christian but I wasn't like restricted from too many
00:46:59
things and since my brother was older we would watch kind of like oldish things in our house like if he was maybe senior
00:47:06
in high school or a little bit older I would watch things that were like more seniors would watch sometimes because we
00:47:14
were just trying to find something we could all watch as a family so I was kind of exposed to a little bit more
00:47:19
than stay with my friends who would watch things that I feel like a lot of them would watch things that were under
00:47:24
their age range cuz we're not allowed to watch that like a lot of people like
00:47:27
we're not allowed to watch Harry Potter we're not allowed to watch you know any
00:47:30
things with like heavy make out things in it but my parents they're like you
00:47:35
don't really care you're fine everything's good there but um just the
00:47:39
thing is that I feel like any not just homeschool but any Christian culture you don't really talk about those things
00:47:46
like with your parents or um like like sex education class isn't really a thing
00:47:53
that you talk about you know I remember I talked slightly to my mom about it I got a tiny bit of things that happen
00:48:01
with the women and I didn't know anything about guys like whatsoever and um I remember I was
00:48:09
asking her a little bit about guy things and then she gave me a book and it had pictures and like that was about it and
00:48:15
because we just didn't just we didn't talk too much about that stuff it was
00:48:19
until I was a little bit older that we slightly talked a little bit more but um it thank God the internet exist Ed like
00:48:28
I just my looked up everything on the internet probably lots of things I should not have looked up but uh I'm I'm
00:48:34
now almost 30 so I can say this now but I looked up lots of different things um that's where mainly all of my sex
00:48:41
education came from is from that and uh my cousin who uh shout out to key you should be watching this key but my
00:48:52
cousin when I was 20 I think I was 21 when I moved out and my cousin just graduated and she was 18 and she came
00:48:59
from Washington and we lived together and she's 18 and she's teaching me
00:49:04
everything because she knows the world and she's experienced with the world and
00:49:08
I just felt like such a little Noob not knowing anything and I felt like I don't
00:49:13
know it was just so it just felt really kind of degrading that a younger person was I like I should be the older sister
00:49:21
and telling her things and then she's the one that is explaining everything in
00:49:25
great detail to me you know cuz like I just don't know anything like she made
00:49:29
me go on dating apps and stuff cuz I didn't even know how to date I don't
00:49:32
know how to talk to boys other than like friends cuz I don't know how to flirt
00:49:35
you know CU we only had like five kids and we've known them for our whole lives
00:49:39
how do we flirt you know exactly yeah no it's interesting because like my my dad
00:49:45
gave me like the birds and the Beast talk and I feel like I think he did an okay job um but
00:49:51
it's very like I don't know it's it was kind of clinical and like well here's
00:49:56
how things happen it's like well yeah that's biology like I've taken Biology
00:49:59
class I get it um you know and then they do the really awkward like your body is
00:50:04
changing and like I'm like yeah and I hate myself for it um but um but yeah like a serious lack of sex ed because
00:50:16
within kind of like the Purity culture thing was like it's kind of an absence only teaching is
00:50:24
really what it is and then on top of it is like in addition to abstinence only it's also like it puts on this pedestal
00:50:32
like virginity is like this crazy achievement right um oh my gosh which is and like oh just like the amount of
00:50:40
conferences that like all all wom or not all all girl conferences that I went if
00:50:45
we weren't women wear in high school and stuff you know of just like they would just say so much
00:50:52
how you know VI needs a gift and if you give this gift away you're going to feel
00:50:56
feel devastated and you're going to feel like you lost something you're going to
00:51:00
feel like a terrible like just really pushing it in on us about just how awful it is and um around this time like
00:51:08
around the age of like 15 16 uh a bunch of my girlfriends were getting the Purity Rings like that was like a big
00:51:14
thing and um my parents were asking me if I wanted one and I was like I wasn't
00:51:21
really feeling like I wanted one but I knew they kind of wanted me to have one so I did get one but then eventually I
00:51:27
did tell him like like I think I wor like for just a few days and then I said I try to be a really honest person and I
00:51:33
don't want to lie to my parents because you respect me and I respect you but I
00:51:38
don't want to wait and I don't want to do this life like I I'm not gonna have
00:51:43
sex now like also who I'm not gonna sex with you know there's like no one here
00:51:46
but like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna date anyone I'm not gonna do these
00:51:49
things but I just I know myself as a person that I'm not going to wait until
00:51:54
I'm married to do this but I will wait until the time is right for me later on
00:51:59
and um and so then I I stopped when my purity ring and then a lot of my friends they had their Pur rings and they would
00:52:06
still wear them but I knew for a fact that they were not pure they're just too
00:52:11
scared to like not wear them it's like I know what you do I don't even know why
00:52:15
does that ring burn you is Satan burning you right now because I know that you know that's not
00:52:20
happening oh my gosh I'm envisioning like you know vampires being scared of crosses but I same deal I my parents I
00:52:27
don't like I don't feel like they never pushed the purity ring thing on me I had
00:52:31
friends who had one I got made more of like a girl thing or did your sister anything or I don't cuz I don't really
00:52:39
know guys that had Pur R did I knew a good number of guys who did oh really and what's funny I don't feel like we
00:52:48
talked about it a lot but it was just kind of one of those things where it's
00:52:50
like no you don't talk about it you don't talk about it too much John got a
00:52:54
purity ring uh Ben got a purity ring this guy got a FY ring and then I got made fun of for not having one and I was
00:53:00
like one I don't wear jewelry and two me wearing a ring I just felt like it was
00:53:06
weird I'm a 15-year-old wearing a ring on my like wedding ring finger what or
00:53:10
the opposite hand or whatever and I also I don't I'm married now but I don't wear
00:53:15
a wedding ring like and that has to do more with just like when we got married I worked a job that I couldn't really
00:53:21
wear a ring but I I'm so used to not wearing a ring it's like it's a
00:53:25
commitment between me and that person and that's we know that and that's it
00:53:29
but but the purity ring thing was so weird cuz yeah I got made fun of for not having one but to your point I knew so
00:53:35
many of these guys who were doing things that were unpure we were watching porn we were jerking off we were like being
00:53:42
disgusting little um I say disgusting but like we were being normal boys we were being normal boys and then being
00:53:49
told that that was like we should be ashamed of ourselves kind of a thing and and I think there was a lot more
00:53:57
there was this weird what I've realized is I feel like there was this weird pressure on girls to be like it's your
00:54:03
responsibility to keep boys pure and then there was no responsibility there nothing back to the
00:54:08
guys to be like you have to have this kind of like guardan of your thoughts or like understanding of like when is and
00:54:17
isn't um a like sexual experience you know what I mean like like I can go to
00:54:23
the beach and hang out with people and girls can be in bikinis and I can recognize that that's not a sexual like
00:54:29
thing you know what I mean like we're just hanging out of the beach um but that was never taught that was something
00:54:34
that like came later in life where it was like yeah this is It's we were also
00:54:39
taught to be like so ashamed of our bodies that like every Church camp that I went to um you obviously you couldn't
00:54:46
wear bikinis but you had to wear one pieces or the tank kinis which is like you know bikini top but like it almost
00:54:52
it's almost like a shirt that you would wear and they prefer shorts you couldn't
00:54:57
wear like you couldn't wear bathing me bottoms you always had a shorts on and
00:55:01
yet guys could do whatever they want to like they didn't have to wear a shirt
00:55:05
like and their um bathing suit trunks were always hanging so low that you could like still see like things you
00:55:15
know or like sometimes it's like E I can see your butt like pull a plumber's butt
00:55:19
like pull up your pants please but there was never any talking to for them but there was always talking to for the
00:55:24
girls and so like we aren't even giving the guys a a chance to you know even be
00:55:30
kind of immune to it because if you hide something for so long and then suddenly
00:55:35
if it's revealed like oh my gosh I have to stare like I have to sexualize that
00:55:39
but if they just are already growing up with it like you know maybe going to the
00:55:42
beach like a normal person and seeing normal swimsuits and they don't think of
00:55:46
anything about it because it's just a swimsuit but I don't know that's just my
00:55:49
thought on that right no that's an interesting thing because like I yeah there was so much shame and guilt
00:55:59
associated with it and uh so I work with these ladies now who they primarily work
00:56:05
with college kids and do a lot with um sexual traumas and things like that and but one of the things that they've
00:56:11
talked a lot about is Purity culture and guys um you know wrestling with they don't learn any they don't learn consent
00:56:20
they don't learn anything like that and then by the time they they get there
00:56:23
that's can sometimes be why go off the deep end that's just in general sometimes why people go off the deep end
00:56:29
and then they get really hooked into like hookup culture and things like that but one of the things one of these
00:56:35
ladies always says is that um she goes uh she always says uh jerking off saves lives and I'm like what the heck does
00:56:42
that mean because that makes sense though because that was like such a like no no no no no don't do that like that's
00:56:50
so bad like push any sexual feelings down um kind of a thing and and I realized I'm like no that's like such an
00:56:58
actually like a great thing because when you're when you're an adult obviously there's a little bit more
00:57:06
control of like understanding what how our bodies are reacting to things but yeah as a high schooler it's like you
00:57:12
the the other thing is that guys and girls getting turned on guys is an external there's an external
00:57:21
thing that happens that it's very obvious when a guy is turned on yeah I can't hide that with girls it's a a lot
00:57:26
easier for you guys to hide things and um and so that's the other thing too is
00:57:32
that like we're told like you can't pop a boner however like it's G to happen
00:57:37
with like the gust of wind it's like nothing and yet you then have to be ashamed of yourself and there's but
00:57:43
there's nothing you can do to like deal with it so you just have to like write
00:57:46
it out it's like this is again it all comes down to like we these are things
00:57:50
that need to be talked about more in the Christian Community and in The Homeschool Christian Community because
00:57:56
it's like by the time I got married there were so many things I didn't know and
00:58:04
yeah the internet was my best friend because but the internet is also a very vast place with so much information
00:58:10
that's both good bad um that like sometimes you don't know whether what you're reading is actually like worth it
00:58:17
or not you know or or good you know um yeah like my husband's had to steer me
00:58:22
straight for lots of different things where like I thought something was true like even not even just talking about
00:58:28
like the uh sexual stuff that we were talk about just anything in general because like right with with that
00:58:35
outside knowledge of just anything because you're kind of like in this bubble for a lot of the things you just
00:58:41
kind of you learn what either your parents or your friends parents because a lot of our teachers who our friends
00:58:47
parents teach you so you want to learn more about the world and so there's just
00:58:51
so much that like my husband or my even my husband's friends which are now my
00:58:55
friends are like oh none of that is true or like you do you only think this or even like yeah again with the with the
00:59:04
uh movies I would think this is how it is right like this is what life is like or this is what high school is like or
00:59:09
like you guys did this right like none of those things all that is true I've
00:59:12
never been to high school that does that or any of those things so they just really blew my world and it's just it's
00:59:19
so there's been so much learning that has been happening in like the past few
00:59:24
years of just what what I think is true and what um versus like what I was just taught or just exposed to you know and
00:59:34
being able to like think my my own thoughts of things have been really weird we obviously grew up in the bubble
00:59:41
we grew up in a bubble and it sounds like your parents were maybe a little bit more lenient than some homeschool
00:59:46
parents but did you have this feeling I had this feeling for the longest time that
00:59:52
everybody inside of this bubble we all just kind of agreed on everything we all like this is the way things were
00:59:59
um whether it came to sexuality whether it came to just the way the world worked
01:00:04
like we all just kind of sat in this place where I believed in my heart that everybody was just in agreement and then
01:00:11
now to have more of these conversations with people I'm like holy crap none of
01:00:15
us really agreed on anything we did but we didn't but we would all do this lip
01:00:20
service to this like this is what is the truth and it's like but behind the scenes no none of us maybe believed that
01:00:27
I think some of some of us did but like did you feel that way at all so yes and no because yes I did feel like everyone
01:00:35
it's kind of like we're like Lemmings where we're all doing like the same
01:00:38
thing we're all kind of thinking the same thing uh for a lot of a lot of the
01:00:42
a lot of it um but I thought there were something sometimes wrong with me like I
01:00:47
didn't always fit in because I would always think a little bit differently than some of the people that are there
01:00:54
or like how we were taught kind of so um I remember when when Obama was running for president and I was a part of like
01:01:01
it was some like government class that I was a part of and uh the topic of like gay marriage came up because Obama was
01:01:09
you know Pro gay marriage and I thought that there was nothing wrong with it but
01:01:14
in my in my class there was a bunch of Mormons also so it's not only Christians
01:01:18
but we're also now involved in Mormons in there too and so I we had to write a
01:01:25
report like like a per persuasive essay about who you should vote for and stuff what was it like McCain and Obama right
01:01:33
and umle person was McCain and I was the only one who did Obama and everyone was
01:01:38
looking at me where because I did Obama because I was I agreed with the policies
01:01:42
but also was very supportive of the gay marriage I had my friends like try to talk to me talk me out of it and stuff
01:01:50
like that like like you could tell it was everything that their parents have told them like because it was almost
01:01:56
verbatim I'm like you don't use these kinds of words like these words are you
01:02:01
know they're too they're too big for you but um and same with and like so I just
01:02:05
felt like I just didn't fit in that way where like it was like more a progressive mind but then also I was in
01:02:11
a creative writing class and we had to do a book report and I did mine on The Hunger Games and this was before the
01:02:17
movies came out this was like you know long time ago where the books were like they were popular but not like obviously
01:02:24
as popular as when like the movies were announced but uh right yes it was a obviously Christian writing creative
01:02:30
writing thing and I was writing a book about a children murdering children murdering each other essentially like
01:02:37
for for sport and um since the books were not popular at all the teacher had to talk to my mom and be like so do you
01:02:44
know that she's reading about these books like I read the book report this seems awful and my mom's like yeah I
01:02:50
read them with her like they're they're good and then they turn into movies and
01:02:55
know everyone is like super obsessed with them including everyone in the H School group they were like all obsessed
01:03:00
with it so there was times where I just felt like everyone was having the same mind and I like I didn't fully fit in
01:03:08
the home school world but I didn't fit in the public school World either where
01:03:12
I just didn't sometimes I just didn't know where I belonged because I wasn't I
01:03:16
wasn't as sheltered but then also I wasn't as exposed so it was like a weird
01:03:21
weird balance where sometimes I had to like you know the whole fake it till you make it for both accounts type of thing
01:03:28
yeah I I remember there was I don't know in California there was the there was
01:03:33
the law that was I I think it was it was when uh gay marriage became legalized was really when yeah a big part of that
01:03:40
conversation went happen and yeah it was kind of around when Barack was becoming
01:03:44
president and stuff like that and I remember having taken yeah American government class or
01:03:50
whatever and in my eyes it was the role of the American government to uphold the
01:03:55
law of land not the law of the Bible and so I was kind of like well I don't see
01:04:00
anything wrong with them legalizing gay marriage because well they're they're
01:04:05
doing what's best for all people not just a select group of people yeah and I
01:04:11
remember also get getting weird backlash for that and being like I like I don't
01:04:16
know it was it was weird it was definitely but it it kind of puts you in this weird
01:04:21
like you almost kind of just shut up about it because you're like well nobody's going to agree with me me and I
01:04:26
don't want the only friends that I have so I don't want them to be M the only
01:04:29
friends I have it's a click I don't want to be on the outskirts of it because
01:04:34
then I'm really screwed right it's like then who am i g to talk to right yeah so
01:04:41
that's an interesting thing and I it's hard because obviously like you weren't
01:04:48
homeschooled for exclusively religious reasons and neither was I but it ended up playing like a big role in the
01:04:57
communities that we got involved in and um yeah because most homeschooling communities are religious based like all
01:05:04
the ones that because I was a part of a few different one A few different of them because I would live more in the LA
01:05:10
area and then I moved to Ventura where you were and that's where um uh that's
01:05:16
where I had that group but still I was a part of quite a few different H School groups and they're all the same I mean
01:05:21
I'm sure there was other ones and since uh I grew up religious like that was
01:05:26
obviously we're going to find a hom School group that was that but I now there's probably a lot of them but I
01:05:32
back then I really don't think there was that many that were not at least any
01:05:36
sort of religion based so at least not in the area we lived in at least lived in because it was like
01:05:45
yeah it was Christian Catholic and maybe a Mormon group but yeah it was very yeah everybody was religious to
01:05:54
some degree you know and and it was funny because I felt like we were part of I I feel like achieve was arguably
01:06:01
kind of the um the wokest of the groups because like we did school dances and stuff which was
01:06:09
a no no and other grp Kasa didn't do those yeah exactly yeah and even families from Kaza
01:06:16
who did were kind of like looked down on by other C I don't know there's all
01:06:20
these weird dynamics that go on inside of the homeschool World um and it's weird to look back now and be like whoa
01:06:26
this is so weird because back then it just was kind of like I don't want to say it was normal but we just were used
01:06:31
to seeing that kind of a thing play out right and now it's like looking back on
01:06:35
it it's like whoa what what was going on there you know well um I feel like I've
01:06:43
talked your ear off um but I appreciate you so much I hear my my kid in the house now I think he's awake he's
01:06:52
squealing making noise exactly I was like I promised it to try to keep it 45 minutes to an hour and here we are at
01:06:57
about an hour and 10 and um but Emily I wanted to say thank you I I wanted to say thank you for
01:07:04
coming on and uh is there anything that's come up while we've been talking
01:07:09
that has like sparked memory um you know I don't want to cut you off if you if
01:07:14
you've got something else but um but yeah thank you so much for coming on appreciate it well yeah thank you thank
01:07:20
you for having this kind of platform where we can um The Homeschool kids can talk talk about these kinds of things
01:07:27
and uh it's just been so interesting with the podcast that I have watched so
01:07:31
far how all of us have like kind of a different story or like they maybe they start off the same like some of them
01:07:38
start off the same but we we we're all living like the same um well so far because a lot of the people that you've
01:07:45
had on here are like friends or in the same world together back then uh it's
01:07:51
been like I had ideas of them of all having like this same life or same world but it's been so cool to see that even
01:07:58
though we all like generally we're in the same homeschool world we all have such different stories and it's just
01:08:04
such different feelings that happen for uh the same scenarios but we all came out of it different or have different
01:08:10
perspectives so it's thank you for having this place to share it's very fun
01:08:15
well good I'm glad I'm glad no it's been cool because people like yourself who
01:08:19
reach out and say I I got something I want to share that's what really makes
01:08:23
this show be awesome I started it thinking that I was going to struggle to get 15 people which was my ultimate goal
01:08:30
to come on the show and uh at the point of recording this I'm pretty sure we
01:08:35
have broken through that um and so yeah which has been awesome so having conversations like this is is great and
01:08:43
especially reconnecting with people who maybe we weren't the best of friends
01:08:46
back then but we' become the closest but obviously as long as we have that one
01:08:51
connection um we've we've already made like a bunch of uh what's it called just
01:08:56
like I guess yeah more connections right now because we have one solid one there's just more things that we can
01:09:02
talk about absolutely so without further Ado if you've got a story you want to
01:09:07
share or whether it's with an audience or whether it's just with me hit me up
01:09:12
you can reach me on Instagram that's exhs Club um or you can email me at exhs [email protected] tell me what you got
01:09:22
going on I'd love to connect um I love hearing from all you guys and you know
01:09:26
do all of the normal podcasty things listen to the whole episode rate review subscribe send it to a friend um because
01:09:33
you know that's what we're here for we're here for reconnecting and catching
01:09:36
up with old friends so until next time we'll see you [Music] [Music] oh [Music]