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What is good my ex-homies? It's your boy Jacob Gooden and uh we're back for
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another week in the exhomeschoolers club. And this week I'm so pumped because I have I'm going to deem him a
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homeschooled celebrity and uh but the author of homeschooled Stephan Merryill Block is joining us today. And uh if you
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haven't heard me talk about this book, where have you been? Okay, because I've
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been talking about this book quite a bit. And I'm so pumped to talk to Stephan today. him and I got the
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opportunity to meet thanks to CRA, the Coalition for Responsible Home Education and uh and we just kind of struck up a
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little bit of a friendship and a little bit of a back and forth and so I'm so
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stoked to have him on. Stefan, welcome to the Ex Homeschoolers Club. >> Thank you so much, Jacob. I'm so happy
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to be here and I uh the flattery is too much, but I'm glad I'm glad to be having
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this conversation with you. >> It's funny because uh every time I've
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chatted with you, you know, it's come up. I I know that that Tess from CRE also she you know we we both I think
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call you like the homeschool the current like homeschool uh uh poster boy in a lot of ways but I think it's it's mostly
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because you've been doing so much PR around your book and and out there and really advocating for uh just like
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homeschooling and and things that could be changed and and the homeschool experience. And so I know we're going to
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touch on a little bit of that today, but you know, the way I like to start every
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conversation is just kind of a little breakdown of like your homeschool experience. And so for those of us who
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haven't read the book and and seen all the years you were homeschooled, can you
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can you walk us through a little bit of that homeschool life for you and how it started and how long it was and and that
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kind of a thing? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, my mother pulled me out of school when I was nine.
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Um, I was halfway through fourth grade. Uh we had recently moved from Indianapolis where I was born to Texas.
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I think none of us were, you know, entirely settled or happy there. My mother had had a kind of big bigger
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career, bigger social world in Indianapolis. And when those things were taken away, she was, I think, somewhat a
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drift. And you know, her her whole sort of personality darkened a bit then. And um you know I I feel like a big driving
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factor be behind her pulling me out was like it gave her a mission. You know I was not entirely satisfied with my
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public school at the moment. You know um and you know I complained about it a lot
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to her partially because I could tell that she enjoyed it when I complained about it because she you know she was
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sort of like percolating this other idea of this other way of educating me. So, you know, at first she presented it to
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me as just a semester and I thought I was going to go back for fifth grade and then, you know, one year led to the next
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led to the next and pretty soon I was, you know, a teenager trying to think about how to, you know, persuade her to
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let me go to high school, which is which is when when my homeschooling ended at nth grade. So, it's four and a half
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years. One of the things that uh I picked up on because I've been rereading your book and I'm still I'm still kind
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of in that first uh section of the book and in the early very like you guys kind
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of trying to figure it out and maybe not totally having your your way yet. But you know what I thought was so
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interesting is the way you outlined like how you had Yeah. been complaining about
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like school is just like not working or I'm having issues with the teacher or
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whatever. and then, you know, and uh and maybe hoping like, hey, I'm going to get
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into like a private school or like something's going to change. And then your mom kind of being like, hey, why
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don't we do this homechool thing that's like new and and uh and there's a
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there's a scene in your book where you're you're in the principal's office
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and the principal's like literally saying like, I think this is a bad idea. Um but if you know, if it doesn't work
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out, you can you always have a place here. Come right back. And I I jotted down in my notes. I said it feels like
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Stefan uh you know would like he got his bluff called uh you know to some to some
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extent. Did it feel like that or or were you just or were you genuinely unhappy where you were like I do need some kind
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of change? >> No, you know I I think I was like in that classroom I did not love the
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teacher. But I there were a lot of things I did love about school. You know I loved my friends. I loved the other
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classes I went to other teachers I interacted with. Um, I was kind of on my way to being the class clown and I kind
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of enjoyed that. Um, you know, I I I think calling the bluff is is somewhat right. You know what it feels more like
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to me is like when I when I see like a pro a cop procedural show and I you know, some a confession is coerced out
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of an innocent person. That's kind of what it felt like to me. Like like I could feel the vibe of the room which
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was like keep saying more bad things about what's going on there. And so I was just sort of like, you know,
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exaggerating the badness to win my mother's approval. I, you know, I was a nine-year-old kid. So, um, and then, you
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know, and then finally like the that confession, that false confession led to a kind of imprisonment.
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>> Right. Right. So, let's talk about like what an actual day in the life looked
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like at, you know, when you were at home like I, you know, were, did your mom try
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to structure it like traditional school? Did she just heavily emphasize specific
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subjects? Like what kind of shaped that thing? And also like, you know, I'm keeping in mind too the fact that like
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this started as a hey, we're doing one semester, we're going to see how this
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goes and then like and then maybe we'll go back to school or maybe we'll keep
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doing it. But like was there a structure there or was it very I don't know. I'm
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just thinking of my own home school experience where it was like there attempted to be a structure but it was
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it just went out the window the second things actually started rolling. >> Yeah, it was like that. I mean I I began
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you know when we started my mother had this theory that uh that for I don't know why but she believed I think maybe
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because she had struggled with math but she believed that math was like the only
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thing that a school age kid really needed to keep current with to keep on grade level with and that the rest of
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the subjects would sort of come naturally if you just sort of followed your curiosities. So at first we um we
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had a math curriculum. I mean, we we just ordered this textbook they were using at school and we did math together
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every morning for um an hour or something. Um and then eventually um you know, I think that probably lasted for
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most of the first semester, but the rest of the the day was, you know, was she was she was a follower of like the John
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Holt unschooling movement really. Um we it's interesting we didn't really have
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the word unschooling somehow at that moment, but it what what it was was unschooling. Um and so you know the rest
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of it was you know sort of what we call like following my interests or my passions. Sometimes that involved a lot
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of um you know some sometimes I was like reading in my room or you know going to
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the library. A lot of it was just time spent at the shopping mall or you know going out to like endless lunches and
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things like that. Um it it felt very clear to me by the end of that first semester that like the substance of what
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we were doing every day was not education and that surely she was going to recognize that as well and this was
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just going to have been like a fun semester long break essentially. Um but that wasn't how she felt at all and you
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know and then she she wanted to to reup for fifth grade and I was sort of too too scared to to say to say otherwise.
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So then does that pattern then just continue for the next couple years while you're just like math is more of an
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emphasis and the rest is more of an unschooling thing or did math eventually also drop out from being involved? I
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would say the math continued to be I continued to do math at grade level or a fed because what happened was um I think
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probably in fifth grade and maybe sixth grade we were sort of doing math together but then I discovered um you
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know these very early computer correspondence courses and I started to do correspondence course corresponds
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math um it was the EPGY through Stanford that had these like CD CD ROMs. They would send you like a stack of CDROMs
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and you would, you know, pop it in and do the do these lessons. Um, and I really enjoyed that those those
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correspondence classes and and so I would like um what I would do weirdly is like I would binge them. So I would like
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do all of algebra 2 in like three weeks. I would do as fast as I possibly could and then and then I'd be done with ma
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math for the entire year. So then you know what that meant that like by October I had zero curriculum ahead of
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me for the rest of the year. And um I would say that the our education became you know my education became looser and
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looser and especially in like sort of seventh uh and eighth grades as my mother um you know because of our family
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finances she had to take on other work. So she was just like not with me a lot of that the day and um so I was just
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like increasingly um you know left to my own devices which which meant like ostensibly I was you
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know reading and writing and but a lot of the days were like you know not that I was you know watching a lot of TV and
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um and just sort of like hanging out and you know I think I think um by the really by the four by the third and
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fourth year of it um the isolation of of the experiences had really caught up to
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me. I was I was um I was just so lonely, you know, and it was just my mom and me.
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I have I have a brother who went to school every day. Um but homeschooling was just mom and me. And then when she
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was working especially, I was just like, you know, there there was no one for me
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to talk to and I had, you know, I felt like I had no friends left. Um and I think that I think I was in a kind of
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depression. Like I I think it was hard for me to feel ambitious or to care. Um, also also like what was behind so much
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of my mother's um, homeschooling was this like you know she she presented this narrative to me which was that I
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was you know one of history's great thinkers. I was so exceptional that um I
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was sort of too exceptional for school. She would we would go to the library and
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check out like children's biographies of of Einstein and you know Isaac Newton
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and Shakespeare and she would literally compare where they were at age 10 11 versus where I was at age 101 and
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convince me that I was like smarter than Einstein actually. Um but I you know you
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know as as like the years went by in this situation and I wasn't learning I wasn't engaging with knowledge I I just
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knew it all to be false you know and then I was also like without friends and and I just started to feel like I was I
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was trapped in this like sort of isolating false narrative. >> I feel like a common narrative in the
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homeschool world is that homeschoolers are smarter and they get better test grades and they do all these types of
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things. And I and I think back to, you know, I didn't necessarily have a mom. I
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think my mom was a little bit more realistic in understanding that I probably wasn't as smart as Einstein. Uh
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but but you know, I know that my mom was like, "You guys are very smart." Um kind
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of a thing. But I had friends that legitimately believe they were better than public school kids. They believed
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that they were, you know, they're in a lot of senses God's gift to this world.
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um as far as just like many geniuses. And you know, little did we know that come college time, come like adulthood,
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we would all be like, "Oh, I'm kind of an idiot." You know, to some degree,
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like I'm just as smart as the rest of everybody else. Um, and so, uh, I'm
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curious like, you know, as you headed into high school and like, you know, that was the transition back into a
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public school environment. What was there like a was there a moment that kind of I don't want to say broke you,
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but like kind of you knew, okay, I got to I got to get back to school. And then and then maybe became more of a like,
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okay, I got to figure out how to approach this subject because obviously mom's going to be a little sensitive
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about it, you know? So, What did that look like of that like I I guess plan to be like, okay, I gota I got to get back
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to school now. >> Yeah, I I think it was a convergence of two factors. I mean, one was um the work
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that my mother took on when um when you know what we're calling my homeschooling
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was sort of like falling by the wayside was was private tutoring. She was actually tutoring many of the kids who
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were my age from the school that I would have gone to. And so what I think this functionally meant was like I was like
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upstairs alone in my room and I would hear the voices of all these kids who I should have should have been my friends,
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you know, and my downstairs and my mother was teaching in the house and that I would hear their laughter and I
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would I would like feel like the world that they were a part of that was like just beneath my feet and I like the
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longing I had to be a part of that and like sort of anger that I wasn't was you
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know I think like the bigger factor behind it but but also in that year you know this is still this was 1996 When I
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went back to school, um, homeschooling hadn't been legal for so long in Texas.
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Um, we, you know, there were, of course, like John John Holt's like sort of newsletter community existed, but um,
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there wasn't like as much access to information and also because the movement was so new, it wasn't clear to
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us at least that um, I would be able to get into a decent college if I didn't go
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back, you know, like we, you know, like would a college accept me without a GPA?
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like, you know, now these questions are sort of answered for homeschoolers, but at that time it was a big question and
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it seemed like maybe community college would be like the best I could hope for or something. I would get like a GED and
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um who knows like how I would do in an SAT. And um so I I was just looking down this future of being like I was so
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lonely and I was like I am either going to do the scariest thing I've ever done
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in my life and confront my mother about this or I'm going to be a middle-aged
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man in my mother's minivan being driven around this this town for, you know, the
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rest of my life. So I, you know, gathered up my courage and told her and um she, you know, she she was she kind
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of pleaded with me to to cons consider continuing through high school. Um it was I could feel and see her heartbreak.
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Um it was an unhappy separation and I and I think in a lot of ways the beginning of
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erlong decline like I I think that that those years even even though like we were often for long parts of the day not
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engaging. It just you know I I think it was like the end of her happiest of life.
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>> I think there's this comfort that that parents have when they're just with
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their kids. And I say this as somebody who I I'm also a little bit of a mama's
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boy and like her and I have I'm I'm the oldest her and I have this just very
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special bond and I think you know I see it when when I go to visit and like the you know the attention that gets placed
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on me or the you know just the the relating and then also like when we talk about the past and we talk about our
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relationship from the past and things like that there is very much this like I I I I don't I don't totally know how to
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put it into words, but there is this there is this bond there that when I went to college was very difficult for
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her to let go of. She had to kind of like we had to build boundaries that previously we really hadn't had before.
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And so it was just like this weird like leading up to college I remember my mom being like, "Okay, so here's the deal.
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Can I just call you once a week?" Like cuz otherwise I'm going to call you
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every single day, but if I say it out loud then like we know we can like set this boundary. And I was like, "Of
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course. Yeah, you can call me once a week and you know and then you know call me more if there's you know crazy life
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stuff happens. But you know we set like this nice boundaries to our relationship
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and that was how we we pivoted right into into adulthood. But it's been interesting to then also like look back
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on it and see what you were describing like with your mom where there kind of the the depression and the
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>> this change was happening that like she maybe wasn't ready for uh in a lot of
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ways of like you know baby boy is growing up you know and that's you know I I I relate to that um in some ways.
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And so how then is the transition to high school? You know you've been isolated now for a little while. you you
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don't have friends like uh you know was it easy difficult like did you feel like
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a fish out of water? >> Yeah. I mean I think until the summer of 2020 which was the summer you know the
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pandemic um summer when my my second daughter was born and my mother died within 10 days of each other. Um that
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moment of going back to high school was the greatest trauma. I mean I think I think yeah only 2020 could touch it. Um
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I you know I had gone from being the most beloved most eleated child of you know the valadictorian with a class of
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one to being you know just another you know weird kid in one of the largest high schools in the country.
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Um, I you know I my social skills at that point were entirely developed or the impressing and placating of
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middle-aged lady which you know the things that impress 14year-old boys is very different. Um I also my I mean I
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think this can only be read as a kind of sabotage. My mother when she sent me back to school she um she was so
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concerned that my my handwriting still is not that great. She was so concerned that my handwriting was going to be a
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liability that she she she like came up with this crazy solution which was she was going to send me back to school with
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we had this like old electric typewriter and with you know it was like it's like
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this like 40 lb behemoth typewriter and she made me lug it to school on the first day. So like after after being
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away from other kids for four and a half years, the first thing that they see of
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me is me like pulling out this huge contraption like thump on the on the desk, plugging it in, and then you know
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this like clicketity clacky clicketity clack like drive driving everyone mad. And um oh the other uh thing that she
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came up with I I was like how how how am I going to carry this 40 typewriter around school all day? And she's like,
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"Oh, I've got a solution for you." Which is like, "I've reinvented the backpack."
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And I was like, "What do you mean?" And she said, she said, "Backpacks are so
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bad for your posture. You shouldn't be using them." She went to the Container
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Store and got me a filing cabinet on wheels. It was like a miniature filing cabinet with each of my subjects. It's
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like a hanging file folder. And then and then she was like, "The good part is you
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can balance the typewriter on top of the filing cabinet." So that's how I walked
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in. you know, they're like like not knowing a thing about how to relate to other kids. I like walked in pushing
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your office equipment >> and uh it went about as well as you can you might imagine. I mean, you know,
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there was there was just like the, you know, the absurdity of that scene, but like more deeply, um, you know, I just I
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just didn't know, you know, how to relate socially. And and it was it took me it took me like, you know, a semester
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to be able to do it at all. And then a couple years before I was like comfortable with other people really.
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Um, and then, you know, academically it was extremely challenging too. Like there were gaps in my knowledge of
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course because I hadn't had curriculum but the harder part was actually just
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testing like I had I had not taken a test in you know basically ever I mean you know test that test that fourth
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grader takes is a very different thing than like you know being tested on knowledge you know in seventh eighth and
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eighth grade. So I um I was just like failing, you know, and and then like you're saying earlier of like, you know,
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went from being Einstein to being like the kid who was failing the class and didn't know how to take a test and was
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the loser and the outcast. I was like none of the things that my mother had said I was. And the shock of that um I
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think is still with me on, you know, like like these are these are deep scars. That's something that I don't
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think a lot of homeschoolers always talk about is that like the the like I think there's two there's two trains
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of thoughts when it comes to like the legacy that homeschooling like holds on each of us, right? Like there's the
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scars and then there's like the really good stuff, right? And so like of course
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like >> you are a successful person. You've written a book. like you you've been on
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television like you're you're doing the thing like you are a successful person
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for all intents and purposes but there's also like you were saying those scars
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that just like linger with you for forever and I think you know but we don't always see the balance of the the
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two that people talk about like as more and more people are coming forward to talk about their homeschool experiences
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we hear we hear one or the other and so I'm I'm curious I don't totally know
00:20:53
what this question is but Like I'm curious for you like how how have you dealt with those scars? Are you still
00:20:59
dealing with those scars? And then how do you like I guess to some extent like reconcile that with like you are a
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successful person in a lot of ways as well. So like you know you're both like
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a homeschool success story and also a homechool failure story in some ways. >> Yeah. I mean I want to say like I do
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think like like homeschooling you know can be an extremely positive thing and sometimes it's you know saves kids
00:21:22
lives. it's, you know, absolutely necessary. And I also I also still believe that, you know, I I think the
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way that my own mother did it was kind of haywire, but the idea of letting students interest and curiosity kind of
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lead at least part of the path, I think, is an extremely exciting and productive
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one. And I I wish that public schooling had more, but it um you know, and and you're right, like I wouldn't I wouldn't
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be a writer definitely without homeschool. wouldn't have like you know if you anyone who's ever tried to write
00:21:55
a book like one of the things that you learn right away is that um you know it's all a confidence trick like you you
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write a draft it doesn't feel good you read the draft it feels like and you're like I you know maybe I can't do
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this and I think what separates a writer from a non-writer is just like you have
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like somehow this confidence or this faith that you're going to get there eventually and I think that was
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partially born of this like extreme elevation that of of my childhood of like you know or maybe I am Shakespeare
00:22:25
Shakespeare um maybe not that but but um but the scars are you know are real too
00:22:32
and and um you know I I think that that moment of you know going back into the world and like discovering that the sort
00:22:39
of like central narrative of my childhood was false is a big one. Um, also, you know, you know, some I I know
00:22:47
that some people have in hearing the more outlandish and, you know, borderline abusive things that happened
00:22:52
to me in my homeschool time, um, have said, "Well, it can't be so bad. He's,
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you know, look at him. He's he's published four books and he's, you know,
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there he is out in the world like talking like a normal person." Um, you know, I don't think that, you know,
00:23:09
career success should at all be read as like the outcome of of this situation, you know, or or like as like a sign that
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it worked. Like I think often and I I have felt in my own life that my ambition um grew out of a need to
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transcend my past and to like get myself to safety on the other side. And so like
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I I have felt I mean I don't feel this way now really but for years and years I
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felt like almost like deformed by ambition because I I just was like I have to win everything I have you know
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and it wasn't competitive. It was like if I'm not safely in the this place
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where I'm like get you know where I know I can go to what whatever graduate school or whatever you know I know I'm
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going to be published well like like just just feeling unsafe unless I succeeded you know on my own terms in a
00:24:02
big way. Um and that was that was a pressure. And then um you know I think when I went back to school I um I mean
00:24:09
some people I just did an event last weekend and um the other the the readers were like you know you seem you seem
00:24:16
normal whatever that means. And I I I've heard that from people. I'm flattered
00:24:21
that people think I'm normal. Um, but the thing that's, you know, I think I
00:24:26
learned how to socialize and I really like when I went back to school, I was like really taking notes on like how
00:24:32
people relate to each other um, in a sort of larger social scene. The thing that I still have struggled with um, and
00:24:39
and still do in some level in my adulthood is friendship. You know, I think it's like natural for me as
00:24:45
someone who like grew up in this extremely tiny, tight, claustrophobic household to um to be extremely close
00:24:53
with my family. Like I I have I have two daughters and my wife and like I don't
00:24:57
struggle like with closeness or commitment or anything with any of them. It's it's this like sort of second level
00:25:04
of you know I'm like good in like the general social sense. I'm good at the
00:25:09
family sense. It's the second level of like long-term committed friendships that I um I've had to like learn how
00:25:16
they work and to remind myself to show up for them and and you know it's just
00:25:20
not it's not natural. And um and I I realize now like how you know how many friendships I've let lapse just sort of
00:25:29
out of incompetence, you know, and and like what that what the loss of those friendships have meant to me. And so
00:25:35
it's I have to be like much more aware of of them, I think. kind of um and that
00:25:41
is still with me. I I totally relate on the on the friendship level and I think also I think men in general we also have
00:25:48
a little bit >> we have some other messaging from the world that sometimes leads to us not
00:25:52
having strong friendships but I realized you know this show is birthed out of kind of that place of like 2020 I was
00:26:02
really lonely and I got depressed like so many other people you know we're isolated from the world and it kind of
00:26:07
to some extent did take me a little bit back to the homeschool years of feeling that like you know that aloneeness and
00:26:13
and I'm somebody who grew up with hundreds of homeschool friends. I mean we were big part parts of big
00:26:18
communities. I had my best friends. If I didn't see them at least once during the
00:26:22
week like what was you know my life was over. You know in a little kid sense I was like oh my gosh the world is
00:26:29
crumbling kind of a thing. But as I've gotten older >> you know it's been harder to maintain
00:26:35
that kind of those friendships, those closeness like you were saying. um you know and so this show kind of came from
00:26:42
that place of like being uber depressed and doing a lot of work on like understanding my homeschool experience
00:26:48
and and some of those those scars maybe being unlocked at a later time where it's like you know for a long time I was
00:26:54
like my home school experience was great and 2020 comes around and I'm like oh
00:26:57
maybe there was some things in there >> but it was interesting >> to have you know I'm so thankful for my
00:27:03
wife because she literally goes I think you just need to call somebody from high
00:27:06
school and I was like Okay. And and she's like, "Well, I mean, what are they
00:27:11
doing? We're all just locked in the houses together. Like, why not just like
00:27:14
give them a call?" And so, I started calling these friends and we started having conversations around our
00:27:18
homeschool experience. And we started rebuilding some of those friendships that had lapsed like you were saying.
00:27:24
>> And it's so cool now to kind of like I'm not perfect at it. Like I still struggle
00:27:28
with the closeness of friendships and things like that, but it's it's definitely like it's gotten better as
00:27:34
time has gone on because, you know, it's you just have to put effort in. You got
00:27:39
to work on it, you know, and it's it's not easy, but you know, um and I liked
00:27:44
what you were saying too about, you know, homeschooling really trained you to have the closeness with the family,
00:27:48
which like I feel that very much too. You know, I'm a ride or die for my family in a lot of circumstances. And
00:27:54
so, you know, it drains you to do that. Um, but yeah, but some of the other things, you know, kind of fall to the
00:28:01
wayside when when that happens. So, >> yeah, you know, my my mother had also um
00:28:06
been very social and had great friends until really until we moved to Texas. And then she had this attitude,
00:28:14
you know, after I left the house like, you know, gone to college that that like that there's like a sort of awakening
00:28:20
that happens in middle age maybe where you you have children and you realize that these other this other layer of of
00:28:28
relationships in your life is like not really relevant and that that like what really matters is like family and that's
00:28:35
you know and then and I I remember like her sort of preparing me for for fatherhood. started being like, you
00:28:42
know, you're not really these people aren't really going to be in your life.
00:28:44
You know, that's just what happens. And it it's, you know, I I kind of believed
00:28:48
her and now that I'm I've been a parent for eight years, I'm like, oh, that was
00:28:52
insane. Like our our lives are so, you know, like I'm more a part of community
00:28:58
than I've ever been. I'm closer to my friends than I've ever been because, you
00:29:02
know, our kids are always playing together. We're, you know, like always like, you know, smooshed in together.
00:29:08
So, so it's like um and and how would I possibly get through this stage of life
00:29:13
without that? You know, if it was just like me and you know, five and an 8-year-old in the house all day. That's
00:29:18
that's rough. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I think, you know, there's that there's that old saying of
00:29:23
like it takes a village to raise a child, right? And and I think >> I think we we steered I think as a
00:29:30
country really away from that and into the individuality. And I think we're starting to see a a little bit of a
00:29:36
comeback to this idea of like we need friends. We need each other. We are just we are like I had someone on who was
00:29:43
like humans are pack animals. And I'm like, "Yeah, we kind of are, you know,
00:29:46
we need that tribe of people around us to keep everyone staying in a lot of ways, you know, and so, you know, you
00:29:53
build those friendships and those relationships that it's whether it's your neighbors or your kids' friends's
00:29:57
parents and, you know, whatever else." And, you know, you figure it out and and
00:30:01
you need each other because I mean, 20 2020 taught us anything, it's like when
00:30:05
we don't have each other, it's we go we go a little bit nuts. Um, >> yeah. Was there a part of you I I felt
00:30:12
like there's a part of me that was like a little bit like smug in 2020 when I
00:30:18
was like I was like now you all see what it felt like. >> You know what's so funny? I literally so
00:30:24
so leading up to co happening I I had quit my day job. I was I had gone full-time working for myself. I was like
00:30:30
okay like and I had made this plan. I was like I'm going to go make new friends. I'm going to be that coffee
00:30:35
shop guy who goes and works on his laptop at the coffee shop or at the co-working space. I'm going to be that
00:30:39
guy literally the week and I gave myself one week of like, hey, I'm just going to
00:30:44
like kind of get adjusted to to working at home all the time. And then that second week, COVID happened and the
00:30:50
world just shut down. >> But I'd still be on calls with a couple people that I was clients that I was
00:30:54
working with and they were all struggling way harder than I was because I went, I've been trained for this, you
00:31:00
know, I have, you know, and that's when I started talking about homeschooling
00:31:04
again because I was like, I am used to this. I don't need to go anywhere. I don't need to see anybody. Um, and that
00:31:10
lasted for probably about a month and then I was like, "Okay, now I'm dying to
00:31:13
see people." >> Yeah, >> totally. I'm curious kind of along that
00:31:18
same line of like, you know, as you went back into school and then later college
00:31:24
and early adulthood and things like that, was homeschooling something that was like an identity marker for you
00:31:31
where you like held on to it or was it something that you kind of hid away and were like, "Okay, that's the past." You
00:31:38
know? I'll give you an example. Like when I got to college, I I didn't tell
00:31:41
anybody I was homeschooled. I I literally did not want that mark on me whatsoever. I just was like, I went to
00:31:46
private school, very exclusive, first my class, like all that kind of thing. And
00:31:50
I just didn't really want, I think, the weirdness that was associated with homeschooling to follow
00:31:56
me as I got older. Um, and yeah, and it wasn't until really 2020 that I was like, "Okay, no, this is like a
00:32:04
fullblown part of my identity." And now I scream it from the rooftops. And when
00:32:07
people are like, "That's weird." I'm like, "I know." Um, but was there
00:32:10
anything like that for you where you hid that away or was that always a part of like
00:32:14
>> Yeah, I was a homeschooled kid. >> You know, I when I was reintroduced to
00:32:18
high school, like with my typewriter and my my file cabinet, I think, you know, everyone knew was the homeschooler. I
00:32:26
was like introduced that way. Um, I mean that I didn't ever try to like shrug off
00:32:32
that identity. Um, I don't think that I realized like maybe what a profound part
00:32:39
of my personality it had become until later. But the curious thing I would do, I mean maybe maybe a little bit less in
00:32:46
college, but when I got out into, you know, I moved to New York after college and was just starting to like come to
00:32:54
grips, I think, with with, you know, as people do in their 20s and early 30s with with like their childhood and what
00:33:00
it means for, you know, their lives lives going forward. I found myself suddenly telling the story of my
00:33:07
homeschooling or virt you know parts of it to everyone. Like it was the first thing out of my mouth on my first date
00:33:14
with my wife. It was the first thing out of my mouth when I would like meet like
00:33:18
be on an interview for a job. I would be like talking about the crazy choices my
00:33:22
mother made when I was homeschooling. And I I think what it was about for me um was was I was like curious to see how
00:33:30
people would react because it wasn't it wasn't about like how they would think
00:33:35
of me. What what it was was what what was my past and what does it mean? You know I think because I was raised you so
00:33:43
so much of my childhood was just my mother and me. Um there was no one I I I read once that sanity is consensus. It
00:33:51
requires three three people to for two of them to declare something as sane, you know, or insane, right? Like there
00:33:58
there have to be at least three people in the room for there to be some some agreement over like what's a good
00:34:03
choice, a bad choice, what's sane, what's insane. Um, and it was just the
00:34:07
two of us. And really it was her leading the narrative the whole time. And so I would tell these stories of things that
00:34:12
had happened to me in my home school trying to understand like are do people think this is crazy? Do they think it's
00:34:18
scary? Do they think it's funny? am I, you know, making too much of it? And so,
00:34:23
so like I was obsessively telling the stories for years and years and years until I finally wrote this book. And
00:34:29
now, now I feel like a little curative that need to tell these stories >> and I want to get into that. But before
00:34:36
before we touch on like the book and why you wrote the book, I want to ask a little bit about when did you know you
00:34:42
wanted to be a writer? Because you in the book you talk a lot about like and you even mentioned on the show like you
00:34:48
know you were doing math but then you were spending a lot of time reading and it seems like escaping his stories. You
00:34:52
mentioned the library like did you know even back then that you were like I want
00:34:56
to be a writer or was that something that happened as you got closer to maybe college age and things like that? I
00:35:03
think I have known it about myself since like I kind of since memory began, you know, like I I especially during my home
00:35:11
school years. I mean, I think it actually does pre I'm sure it predates it because I I I remember being in
00:35:16
public school and like sneaking novels and like turning the pages of the novels with my toes. I'd be like looking down
00:35:23
at the desk and like reading something under my desk and all I wanted to talk about was books. and I was writing a
00:35:28
novel and I was in third grade like a it was about like a boy in a school very much like my own. Um I was writing short
00:35:35
stories all the time. So I think it's I think it actually you know in some ways
00:35:38
my my homeschooling um deepened the that desire that feeling about myself. I think it was always there. Um, and
00:35:46
during homeschooling, you know, I found that like it wasn't a substitute for being with other people.
00:35:53
But what what reading allowed was like there was like people and voices from over the fence, you
00:36:00
know, like I I felt this fence between myself and the world. And I, you know, these things came over and and I felt
00:36:07
connected with these characters and with these writers. And then when I would write, I would feel myself throwing my
00:36:11
own voice over over my own story over that fence. And it felt like the like the only kind of form of like real
00:36:18
social discourse I was I was having. And um I think and and you know I still believe that that there's no deeper
00:36:27
connection that you can feel to another person's life than to read about them in
00:36:33
a book. Like you know I think a a a book a novel is an empathy machine. Like it places you into the experience of
00:36:40
another. and you know and then when you share your own story then people are placed in your experience. It's like
00:36:46
it's like the most intimately we can access each other I think. Um and I I you know I I think a lot of my like need
00:36:53
to write which is still so so deeply in me even though so much else has changed um is is probably a product of that time
00:37:00
a product of this like sort of primal scene of loneliness that that I'm still
00:37:04
trying to undo. I like what you touched on the like books. Yeah. They give you a
00:37:08
window into to another person into their thoughts, their process, the empathy machine. Like I love that. Like I I have
00:37:15
fallen back in love with reading um in the more recent years and reading both fiction and non-fiction. Um and
00:37:23
the great thing about when I read homeschooled was like, you know, I I went into it kind of with this like,
00:37:29
okay, it's going to be non-fiction. I I had my expectations of what you were
00:37:33
going to write about and and then as I read I got about maybe a quarter of the way maybe a little over a quarter of the
00:37:40
way in and I was like this is really written as a story and I was like it doesn't it almost doesn't feel like
00:37:49
I'm going to say it doesn't feel like real people um in the sense of like it
00:37:53
felt like I was reading a novel and I and so you know a couple times I had to step back and be like okay no this is
00:37:59
like this is a real story, you know, and so but but I uh you know, I when we chatted before, I had mentioned to you
00:38:06
like there were I wrestled with your book a lot because there were parts that were like I I related strongly to you.
00:38:13
There were parts that I saw like my own childhood self and or or even just your childhood self and wanted to give it a
00:38:19
hug. like I you know I definitely was not an easy book for me to read in the sense of like I connected to it in a way
00:38:27
that I don't think I've really connected to some other books um in the past like it
00:38:33
made me emotional um I don't normally cry reading books um kind of a thing and
00:38:39
so you know and I found myself tearing up reading your book and and things like that and so I love what you're saying
00:38:44
about you know a book is that you know it is that window and that that you know putting you in the place of that person
00:38:50
and connecting you to that person. And so, you know, even though you and I don't know each other very well, I do
00:38:55
feel like I know you extremely well because I've heard your story. >> And so, let's talk about books. Let's
00:39:02
talk about becoming an author. And like, you know, I know you you have a couple novels that came out before homeschool
00:39:08
did. And I had read a blurb somewhere that um of you saying that you know inside of those books there's elements
00:39:15
of yourself there's bits of your story um in those and that kind of maybe led
00:39:20
up to eventually reading homeschooled. But I don't know do you want to start
00:39:24
with those books? Do you want to start with homeschooled? Like where where should we start with the books and where
00:39:28
you know your love for writing comes in? >> Thank you so much for that Jacob. That
00:39:32
really means a lot to me what you just said about your experience reading reading the book. Um,
00:39:37
yeah, I I I mean, fiction is really what is closest to my heart still. Um, I'm
00:39:42
now back in the realm of fiction, writing another novel. Um, I, you know, I I I feel like it's all
00:39:50
autobiography on some deep level. You know, in fiction you're inventing other
00:39:55
people, but like what comes out of you and you know, the choices you make in some ways I I find to be more revealing
00:40:02
than just saying what happened to you, you know, like like the you're you're
00:40:06
showing people like how your subconscious works. It's it's like a it's a much more intimate thing. I I I
00:40:11
feel as a writer like I feel more exposed by fiction in some ways than I do by by memoir. Um but I yeah I mean I
00:40:19
always knew that this is what I wanted to do and um there there came a moment when I was 22 or 23 I was I had moved to
00:40:27
New York and I was working as a cameraman actually in like documentaries and a lot of bar mitzvah and weddings
00:40:32
and things um when I when I thought you know what I'm here I'm kind of in
00:40:37
adulthood and it's time to try it. Um and I just you know locked myself in a
00:40:43
room and um and wrote and wrote and wrote and um it it's shock of my life. I
00:40:50
had never met a published writer, but I, you know, eventually I like I sent it in
00:40:54
and I to an agent and he wanted to work with it and soon I found myself at Random House with a book deal, you know,
00:41:02
at 24 and it was like this like miracle had befallen me and like and literally the first the first time I met published
00:41:08
writers was in Random House when I went to like sell this book. Um and it was it
00:41:13
was this just this big transformative event in my life because um the book also sold in I don't know 10 languages
00:41:19
or something and I got to travel the world with it and like you know connect with readers who had who had like you
00:41:25
know read the story and felt something in it. Um I think I think that first book is called the story of forgetting
00:41:33
um has maybe the most in common with the memoir. I think it was probably like the
00:41:37
closest to my my experience, although also quite different in some ways. Um, and
00:41:45
and you know, the next two I I wrote three novels before before this memoir. Um, I you know, when I look back on them
00:41:52
now, I'm like there's a central dynamic between there they all deal with mothers and sons.
00:41:59
there's a central dynamic um that between my mother and me in real life that I wanted to push I could I can see
00:42:07
myself pushing as far as I can allow myself in those books and and you know when it finally came out like like I can
00:42:15
only write the memoir after she she had died she died in 2020 um but in some ways like it it wasn't just the fact
00:42:23
that like I finally told the truth of what happened it was that I finally showed the dynamic you know, and I that
00:42:30
could have taken place in a fictional context, too. She would have been just as hurt and, you know, um, you know,
00:42:37
felt just as betrayed by that as as by a memoir in some ways. So, you know, it took I wouldn't have had the courage to
00:42:44
share to publish this book while she was alive. But the way the book came to be,
00:42:49
homeschooled came to be was um you know I had the idea of course of like writing
00:42:55
a memoir someday about about exactly what had happened. Um I didn't know that's what I was doing
00:43:01
though. I you know after she died like it happened on screens for me. She was in Texas and I was in New York City and
00:43:10
I was like you know I said bye to her on FaceTime and like saw her body on FaceTime. Um, and it was like the, you
00:43:17
know, the most central relationship of my past just vanished. You know, there we couldn't have a funeral. It was, it
00:43:23
was just like she like ceased to this. I mean, that that is what loss often is. It's just like, you know, it seems
00:43:30
impossible. The person is just gone. But, but my reaction was, well, I am like the last surviving member of this
00:43:36
nation of two. And if I don't write all these memories down, as many as I can
00:43:40
right now, then then it's as if it never happened. And so it started as like a
00:43:45
sort of morning grief exercise to just it was just like writing memories down. And I I was thinking maybe it was very
00:43:52
unfiltered, very raw and rough. And I was like maybe I'll use these in a novel
00:43:56
at some point. And then what happened was I um I had I wrote a lot and then I I was like what would happen if I tried
00:44:05
to polish like five pages of it to look to read like a book? And I tried it just
00:44:10
as an experiment. I I may I maybe did like 15 pages, but I I revised and revised like I would with my fiction and
00:44:17
then I read it after, you know, I put it aside for a while and then I read it and
00:44:21
I discovered something amazing which was um you know when you when something has
00:44:25
been revised you stop looking at it as just the writer and you start looking at it as the reader and when I could read
00:44:30
my own story um I started to like see myself as a character as as you're saying like um
00:44:38
and I started to like have have pity for this did and to be scared for him and to
00:44:42
root for him and and I kind of like wanted to hug my former self. And I saw that like the dream that this boy had,
00:44:49
which is absolutely the truth, is is that like someday someone would come along and tell his story. And I just
00:44:55
like thought how amazing that like I can be that person for my former self and I
00:44:59
can like come come along and like rescue that kid out of that feeling of like nobody is watching, nobody nobody cares.
00:45:07
Um, and it so it was it was an incredibly empowering. It wasn't cathartic. People have asked me about
00:45:13
catharsis. It wasn't exactly cathartic. It was empowering. It was validating.
00:45:16
And you know, I I know like some memorialists don't like the aspect of like it makes them uncomfortable to have
00:45:22
their story shared widely and to have strangers like have opinions about their mom. I feel the opposite. I feel I feel
00:45:31
like isolation was the problem and like the work of bringing this book into the world and to letting myself be seen and
00:45:38
letting my story be seen has been just profoundly healing and I I feel I feel transformed by it. I really do.
00:45:45
>> What you mentioned there about like the you know her passing and then immediately taking to writing down like
00:45:53
as much as you could remember and like the stories and the things like that. I I recently had a family member pass and
00:45:58
that was as soon as I got the news I did the same thing and I just because because to your point of like
00:46:07
yeah there's a lot of stories that involve other family members and they'll
00:46:10
remember them as well. But there are certain stories that relate only to his and my experience of of our shared
00:46:16
dynamic. And I was like I never want to lose those things. And so I have a whole
00:46:20
journal now of all of those things. And whether that becomes a book probably not. But it but I you know to then take
00:46:27
that and and put that into the story like you were saying and start to see yourself as the character in the story.
00:46:32
It's like it's such a a beautiful way I think to to heal in some ways. And uh so
00:46:38
like when you can remove yourself sometimes from you know the the the narrative that was
00:46:47
our experiences and look at it from the outside perspective like you were saying
00:46:51
and see ourselves as those characters that were happening and you can relate and you say I want to give them a hug or
00:46:55
I want to like high five them or I want to whatever the things are. It's a really
00:47:01
it's a beautiful way sometimes to like deal with the trauma in in some ways.
00:47:08
Um, and so you know, um, so I applaud you for that because >> you recommend it to everyone, too. Like,
00:47:16
you know, even if you're not a writer, I think that like writing therapy is just
00:47:20
profound. Like, >> you know, I think it's just as profound as my other therapy that like, you know,
00:47:24
to to see to try to like create a narrative out of your your past and to see what that narrative looks like and
00:47:31
what you choose to include and not include. Um, and then to see see yourself as a character and to see
00:47:37
yourself a little bit from the outside is just um it's it's really healing.
00:47:42
>> I'm curious too where the title comes from because again when I wait when I
00:47:47
when this book was presented to me as like hey this is coming out I was like okay I feel like I know exactly what
00:47:53
Stephan's going to say. Like I just I built a narrative in my head of what you
00:47:57
were going to talk about and probably in in my head I thought you were maybe going to talk more about like the
00:48:02
homeschool experience itself. But as I read the book I realized the book is really about it is about homeschooling
00:48:08
but it is very much about your relationship with your mom and the dynamic there and the love and and you
00:48:13
know and the fighting and the everything and and the the complicatedness of it. And so you could have named this a
00:48:20
billion different things and you know you know you could have named it my mom and I you know something like that but
00:48:26
like why why did you land on homeschooled? >> Yeah thank you. You know I I did name it
00:48:32
a billion things like I went through so many names so many titles in the process
00:48:37
of of finally settling on homeschooled. Um, you know, I I it's it's hard to
00:48:43
title things and it, you know, I know titles can be like kind of determinative of how people think of the book. Um,
00:48:50
you know, I at some point I mean what what I was just like in a sort of like you know
00:48:56
state of like laying in bed every night and free associating mother and school adjacent words and trying to come up
00:49:02
with something and my my friend who was who was the first reader of the book was
00:49:05
like you know Stephan it's a book about it's about education and it's about home
00:49:11
like it's it's obviously should be called homeschooled. Um, and you know, I
00:49:17
I think when I titled it, I I did have a sense that like people might feel with that title that it's going to be like a
00:49:24
larger history of homeschooling or like more more directly about, you know, like
00:49:29
the topic rather than the experience. Um, and so I I did it with some some trepidation, but like the the more that
00:49:37
it has been in the world and the more I've connected with other former homeschoolers, the more I'm like, "This
00:49:42
was absolutely the right title." And I'm so glad I listened to my friend. And the
00:49:46
reason that like what what what it feels like to me is that um you know I first of all I know it's the I know it's the
00:49:54
criticism that that like it's like the number one critique of the book is like
00:49:57
it shouldn't be called homeschooled. It should be called like toxic mom or something or like you know like
00:50:01
something about like mother son or you know some something focusing because like it's really about that. It's not
00:50:07
about homeschooling. But what I would say is like because of the laws and the regulations we have in place or don't
00:50:14
have in place around homeschooling um you know every homeschool situation is inherently and entirely tied up in
00:50:23
the dynamics of home of of family you know and like every homeschool situation is so different. It's as different as
00:50:31
every family is different, but what what we all have in common, what every homeschool situation has in common is
00:50:37
that is entirely specific to the house in which you were raised. And so like in some ways to like get deeper into what
00:50:44
happened in my own experience is is in my mind to like show more generally like what can happen when no one's watching
00:50:53
for years, you know? And and I I I like I I feel like it took, you know, sort of
00:50:59
the material and the the writings and research of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education to to sort of
00:51:05
make me understand the context of my own story in this larger this larger homeschooling movement and and to
00:51:12
realize like um that it does have these things in common that are, you know, like yes, it was highly specific to my
00:51:19
mother and and our, you know, complex codependency, but it was also So, um, it was also about something something
00:51:26
bigger, >> you know. I know I I kind of before I asked a question, I kind of gave you the
00:51:30
criticism of like maybe it could have been called this or that, but like I do I agree with you. I think homeschooled
00:51:35
makes the most sense as title for this book because yeah, maybe I went into it with that like he's going to tell the
00:51:41
history of homeschooling and then also fit in his narrative and then maybe give some resources or whatever. I I went
00:51:46
into it I think really thinking this is a non-fiction book in the sense of like I think a lot of non-fiction books today
00:51:53
which are present you know present historical evidence present whatever and that's just not what you did. It really
00:52:00
is in a lot of ways a novel, >> but that's a real story. And >> yeah, you Yeah, that's right. You know,
00:52:07
it's because I'm a novelist. Like I I you know, it's like the way that I write
00:52:11
is it reads like a novel. It's like what naturally comes out of me. >> Um I al I also think that there's
00:52:17
something to my like I think changes need to happen. I think I think like some amount of regulation needs to be
00:52:24
uniform across the country. And I think, you know, I know that, you know, regulations about like socialization
00:52:31
outside the house, about curriculum, just health and wellness, like these things would have helped me. They they
00:52:36
would help a great number of other of other people. And I I feel like calling it homeschool is like and and for it to
00:52:43
not be an entirely happy story is is to provoke. And I like I'm glad to have
00:52:48
provoked a bit with it because I because I think the change is necessary. I'm not
00:52:52
inherently a provocative or argumentative person. I'm actually very conflict avoidant, but but I I think I
00:52:58
think like conflict is necessary in this case because I I I do think some change
00:53:02
is necessary. >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's it's I get similar feedback with like this show
00:53:08
because the idea of this show is the good, the bad, and the ugly of homeschooling and like and it's told
00:53:14
from the perspective of the student um a lot of times. And so, you know, it it it
00:53:21
can be messy. I've had people on who talk about just insane neglect and abuse
00:53:25
and then I've had other people come on and they had a much they it just was a
00:53:29
better experience. And so, you know, all of those stories are very valid. And that's again what I think your book does
00:53:35
beautifully is it tells your story very beautifully and it brings attention to the fact that like I think anybody can
00:53:40
relate at some degree to to this book. But it, you know, it's it's your story
00:53:45
and it's starting that conversation that I think is starting to really happen in
00:53:49
our country around this topic of homeschooling and you know, how can it be done well and things like that. I'm
00:53:54
curious how you got connected to CR in the mix of all of this because I know they also helped with some of the the
00:54:01
end chapters of the book. >> They Yeah, they've been they've been so
00:54:04
helpful. Um, you know, I think I just found them in a way that like we all sort of found each other in the, you
00:54:12
know, digital age when when finally like we could like there are online spaces for us to connect and to compare notes.
00:54:19
Like I I was just out of um curiosity. I I remember like I was Throughout my 20s and 30s, I was like always trying
00:54:28
to pitch these stories of my homeschool experience or something or something more journalistic about homeschooling to
00:54:34
to magazines and newspapers. And the response I kept getting back was like, it's too niche a subject. And it made me
00:54:40
angry because I would be like, you know, I know that there must be thousands or millions of other kids out there who
00:54:46
have complex feelings about this and it's such a large movement that it's not
00:54:51
really niche anymore. But but it was just sort of like born out of this need to like find more people like me. And I
00:54:57
think it was just through googling that I found them and you know read all of their material long before I I um
00:55:06
connected with them. And then um I think I actually my my first point of contact
00:55:11
was Rachel Coleman who was you know one of one of the founders or maybe like the
00:55:15
official founder of the coalition who I reached out to um trying to I wanted I wanted to actually write an article
00:55:23
about their founding and about you know who they were and like how they had made
00:55:28
this choice to you know say these difficult things about their own experiences. Um I think there's still an
00:55:34
amazing group of people who who are acting so bravely. I mean, I I think if you're not a homeschooler,
00:55:40
a former homeschooler, you don't know like the courage it takes to like, you
00:55:45
know, speak about something that was unhappy, which mean, you know, because you're not just speaking about a
00:55:50
teacher. You're not speaking about like some something that's in the past. Like,
00:55:53
these people are still in your life. It's sometimes it's like, you know,
00:55:57
you're talking about your parent, you're talking about the only teacher you had,
00:56:00
which was sometimes it was your parent. um you know you you're talking about the
00:56:04
ideology or belief system belief system in which you were raised and and you know it's it's potentially an act that's
00:56:10
going to like blow up your world and uh so the stakes are very high and then you
00:56:14
think like well the stakes are that high and people are still you know telling these stories they must they must feel
00:56:20
really necessary you know >> no that was a big point of contention even like within my relationship with my
00:56:25
family as I started to have these conversations with people and I started to recognize things about my experience
00:56:31
and going and talking to them and I'm thankful my parents are who they are and
00:56:36
they could kind of hear some criticism and yeah they'll maybe push back on some
00:56:40
things but like you know they have recognized some of the shortcomings of their of of my homeschool experience and
00:56:48
so we can talk about it but every now and then I will text my mom and I will say hey I said this thing on the show so
00:56:53
just don't listen to this episode because I >> I'm not ready to have that conversation
00:56:58
with you kind of a thing but Um, you know, yeah, to your point of like if it, yeah, if if you're willing to tell the
00:57:06
story and you know that it could blow up your life, like yeah, it's probably a
00:57:10
story worth telling uh to to some extent. >> So, >> yeah, totally. I, you know, it's worth
00:57:15
pointing out that like I get a lot of, you know, letters, messages from from readers.
00:57:21
A lot of it is hate mail, you know, and like people angry at me for sharing the story or for calling for reforms or
00:57:26
something. And um a lot of it is like profoundly moving notes about like people seeing themselves in, you know,
00:57:36
in the story. And like almost always the the hate mail comes from homeschooling parents and the the positive email come
00:57:45
from from exhomeschoolers. Not not universally, but almost always that's the that's the split. And I I think
00:57:50
that's somewhat telling, too. And I I think to to your point you made earlier
00:57:54
like we're going to hear more and more of these stories as as you know more homeschoolers reach adulthood.
00:58:00
>> It is a very interesting dynamic because I think more I think more parents need
00:58:05
to be open to the idea that it's okay to be wrong and it's okay to have made a
00:58:10
mistake and it doesn't mean that your child doesn't want anything to do with
00:58:14
you. It just means that they sometimes want you to recognize that this wasn't
00:58:18
the best decision in that time and that's all it takes is sometimes just that acknowledgement
00:58:24
>> and then we can move forward from that. But when you don't acknowledge it, I
00:58:27
think that's where a lot of the >> like you're saying that hate mail kind
00:58:31
of comes from of like, well, I did everything right >> and they, you know, and then they went
00:58:35
down this other path and it it it's >> it's frustrating because I've gotten a
00:58:39
few of those comments as well of people saying, you know, well, you're just telling nasty homeschool stories. And
00:58:44
I'm like, "No, not always." Um, you have you listen to three. Yeah. Yeah. Which
00:58:51
>> offense because they they feel implicated by But you're not talking
00:58:54
about them, too. You know, I think that I think it's interesting like >> when I when I receive these messages,
00:58:58
I'm like, I I said I've said nothing about you. In fact, I've said positive
00:59:03
things about homeschooling. I'm telling my own story. And it's like, why does my
00:59:06
telling of my story bother you so much? And you know, I think that's a question
00:59:10
for them to answer more than for me to answer. Yeah. Um I'm curious, not to pivot too hard, but I'm curious what's
00:59:18
next. Like are I, you know, I know we've chatted for, you know, a couple weeks
00:59:22
now and and I know you're working on a new book or something new. You know, is
00:59:27
this has is homeschooled like the end of a end of a chapter in a lot of ways and
00:59:31
you're like, "Okay, now I feel free to do something else or or I guess what's
00:59:36
what's in the works? What do you what do you got cooking up there?" Well, you
00:59:39
know, in my past, I've like thought it's a really good idea, and it I still
00:59:44
believe it's a good idea to be sort of halfway into your next novel or book by
00:59:48
the time the current book comes out because you you know, like the the anxiety of releasing a book is just
00:59:54
immense. And like, you know, you're watching people criticize it. You're
00:59:58
seeing whether or not people want to even read it at all, if it's selling. Um
01:00:01
when you're already halfway on to the next thing, you're like, "Oh, I don't
01:00:04
that's not even me anymore. That was some other person who wrote that thing."
01:00:07
You know? Um, in this case, I just had the strong feeling that um, this was going to be such an upheaval to publish
01:00:13
it that I couldn't possibly start another book because I didn't I knew that that whatever whatever I was going
01:00:19
to experience by the release of this book was going to change me as a writer and like shift my focus of what it was
01:00:25
interesting to me and it has. And um, I'm glad I had like sort of started a novel before I I tossed it and I I've
01:00:33
just started over. Um it became it became clear to me um while I was traveling around a lot with promoting
01:00:40
homeschooled like what kind of book I wanted to write. And you know, I've only
01:00:46
like I actually just articulated this to my therapist yesterday and I had never I
01:00:50
had I this is like a brand new thought, but um I'm I'm you know, I'm probably
01:00:55
20% of the way through a novel. And what what I'm discovering is that for the
01:01:02
very first time in anything I've written, the focus is on connection and friendship and love. like the focus is
01:01:12
on positives and then of course there's threats to like that that positive relationship but it's really a story
01:01:18
about like people finding each other in hostile world rather you know I think in
01:01:25
in everything I've written before this there's like it's all about like the
01:01:28
hostilities between people and I'm like I'm like why why is it that I could
01:01:32
never I could never like write about like how we find and rescue each other I never never come even approach that
01:01:39
material and those are the books I actually love the most. And like why why was I so tied up in in conflict? And I
01:01:46
think it was I I think it has something to do with like feeling this deep profound unexpressed conflict that I had
01:01:52
in the central relationship with my mother and then expressing it and finding all of you, you know, in the
01:01:59
process of publishing it like makes me feel like how we heal each other, you know, and and I I want to write about
01:02:04
that now. That's a that's a beautiful thought and a you know a beautiful take
01:02:09
on that because I think this I I I think the homeschool alumni exhomeschooler like group that is like
01:02:17
what is happening right now is that a lot of us kind of existed in maybe more of that hostility or like you know those
01:02:25
were the narratives that were playing in our head and now we're building this
01:02:29
community and this love and this like I see you you know it's like I see you for
01:02:33
who you are kind of a thing. Um, and it changes you as a person. It makes you like,
01:02:40
>> you know, we go from maybe the isolated little kid to now like I have friends. I
01:02:46
have people who understand. Not not even just that I have friends. I have people
01:02:49
who understand what I went through. >> And that's really powerful. I think
01:02:56
that's that's where >> this whole movement I think of just homeschool alumni speaking up finally
01:03:01
and and finding each other and connecting like that's that's what's going to be the big deter is we're not
01:03:08
alone. We we found each other. >> So >> absolutely. You know, I I've been
01:03:12
thinking a lot about, you know, the C CRG has just um gotten these two bills through state houses, one one in
01:03:20
Nebraska and one in Connecticut, you know, that that are putting in place some like very quite modest protections
01:03:26
for homesooled kids. But, um, Tess, you the exec director of of CRJ pointed me toward some of the deliberations that
01:03:35
happened in these state houses. And I was I was so excited watching some of this because it was like what these
01:03:40
lawmakers were saying as they're trying to support it is is they're telling
01:03:44
stories of homeschoolers. They're telling they're telling like what happens and what the experience is like.
01:03:49
They're not, you know, like the groups fighting, you know, against these regulations are so powerful. They're so
01:03:56
well um they have so much money. They they're so well connected politically.
01:04:02
But what we have are stories, you know, and it's like, you know, like we tell
01:04:06
our stories, people share them, and these stories have power. And I think like the more that we connect with each
01:04:11
other and share our stories, like the more these changes like are going to be inevitable.
01:04:16
>> I am going to link down below so that people can go buy your book, go read it,
01:04:20
get it at your library, get it at the bookstore, do do what you can because this book is is incredible and a
01:04:26
worthwhile read. Even if you weren't a homeschooled person, like if you're
01:04:29
listening to this and you're not a homeschooled person, like still read this book cuz it it definitely it's
01:04:34
good. It like I do I need to say more. It's it's a fantastic read and well
01:04:38
worth the time and and the energy and I thank you so much for putting it out. I'm looking forward I am going to pick
01:04:43
up some of your novels at some point, >> too. Start with the first one, I think.
01:04:47
But yes. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Good to know. Yeah. And I'm looking
01:04:50
forward to the the next book that you've got coming out. But is there anywhere
01:04:53
else I should send people um to go follow along, see what you're up to aside from
01:04:58
>> You can follow me on on Instagram. I'm I'm I'm posting fairly often there. And
01:05:03
then also uh which I mean you can just search for me on Instagram and then also my website which is just my name.com. Um
01:05:11
I keep it pretty pretty up to date. >> Awesome. Yeah, I'll make sure all of
01:05:14
that's linked down below for everybody as well. >> Perfect. Stephan, is there anything we
01:05:18
didn't touch on that, you know, in just our conversation that you feel like we
01:05:22
we need to need to touch on real quick? >> I feel I feel like this is like one of
01:05:27
the more in-depth and and like uh meaningful conversations I've had on this on this book and like I just I just
01:05:34
want to say again like how grateful I am for the existence of your show, but also
01:05:38
also for you, you know, giving this like so much time and attention. Um, you know, like I I I really do think like
01:05:46
like you know, for those of us like just like you were saying like who felt so so
01:05:50
isolated like just just like that that a show like yours, a podcast like yours exists is is just um a reason to feel to
01:05:59
feel some solace and so so thank you for that. >> Well, thank you. I appreciate I
01:06:05
appreciate the kind words. Um that's what I'm shooting for >> and you're doing a great job. Thank you.
01:06:12
Thank you. Uh with that audience, you guys know what to do. Do all the internet things. Share this episode, you
01:06:18
know, comment down below, subscribe, send it to a friend, you know, let us know qu more questions you have for
01:06:23
Stefan, more questions you have about homeschooling, what else you want to see on the show, like all of the things you
01:06:27
you guys know how to do this. We've been on the internet long enough, you should
01:06:30
know what to do. Um and uh but with that, I'm going to let you guys go. Until next time, we'll see you. Peace.
