8 - ARE YOU WEIRD?!

Debunked! The myth that homeschoolers are weird. Well, not totally debunked, because some of them really are weird. But what is normal? That's just a setting on the dishwasher. Also, how does a homeschool family find balance with multiple kids in multiple extracurriculars? Please listen in for some tips. 

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Transcript

Welcome 

to another episode of Home is Where the Truth Is. I'm Matt.

And I'm Maeve. And we have five kids that we're trying to raise in the ways of the Lord. We want them to understand the truth of our Catholic faith and how to defend it.



, and this is an everyday job and a lifelong commitment, and it's so important before they go out into this world and leave our house.

Which is why we've chosen to homeschool our children and whether you homeschool already or perhaps you're praying about it for the future. We want to share our adventures with you because let us tell you, it's an amazing life to let the Lord guide your kid's education and your family's adventures.

So listen up for some relatable stories because we are sinners and we get burnt out just like everybody else

But we do get some things right, thanks be to God. So we invite you to laugh with us or at us and glean some parenting wisdom and tips for deepening your family's bond and creating a family culture centered on the Lord.   Tonight we're going to talk to you guys about that homeschool myth. 

Will my kids be normal?

Will my kids turn out weird? We're gonna talk all about that and also talk about how Matt and I have found somewhat of a Balance in having three kids and three different sports homeschooling  him having a career and me writing  ways that we have found balance in that and sometimes survival mode sometimes balance  One of the main things we hear are homeschool, kids are weird, 

There are some really weird 

Super 

Oh yeah. 

There are, well, I'll admit that. ,  what conjures up in your mind when you hear homeschooling, you think they're in  Laura's Engle, wilder skirt, milking the goats.

It's like they cut their own hair in the dark.  With no mirror.

Right, right. , they button their collars all the way up and they pull their pants up just as high. Sure.

Sure. Like the Urkel.  Remember the show? 



There's some people that do that

still. Yeah. we're just joking joking., 

like Heidi St. John says,   what is normal? That's just a setting on your wash machine, right? So who decides what is normal? Is it pop culture? Is it, , the cool kids school?  Is it the parents who want their kids to fit in?  Actually, I would say God decides what's normal.

Because he created everyone with their own individuality. And,

 Homeschooling is the way that kids are going to be fearless in being who they really are. Because they don't have a horde of kids to act for, to try to fit in.

fit Right.

They

do have their parents and their siblings that they can be completely, , themselves around. Well, sometimes the kids will make fun of each other, but , we try not to let that happen too much, but,

I will say I used to teach high school. I taught high school at the biggest high school in our county. It had 3, 500 students and. , there are just as many weird, no there's more weird kids in high school , than homeschool. We had emo kids, you, you didn't have to look far,  you see  16 year olds wearing Hello Kitty beanies,  who else, I mean the band nerds as they were derogatorily referred to.

 

Yeah, well, everybody wanted to have like , their own look or whatever it was. , you have people that didn't care about fitting in. , they might have had a smaller group that they  hung out with, but there's kids could give two flips about, , how they dress. That was just their individuality, whether you made, you know, they were made fun of or not.

But of course, you know, the more cool kids dressed

fairly conservatively, if you think about it. , just your basic T-shirt and jeans or shorts. I remember back in the day, Eastman's were the thing, , when I was at high school, they're  boat shoes,  leather boat shoes. Mm-Hmm. . And they had , their own knot and everybody had to get 'em. 

I got 'em. I fell into that trap.

got just didn't want to

but yeah.

trap me. A little bit of individuality was sapped from you. 

Okay. , along this same weird thread,  I've heard parents say, Well, I just want to prepare my kids for the real world. You know, those bumps and bruises that are going to happen when someone snatches the ball out of their hands, when they get dissed and laughed at in front of everybody, or , a friend stabs them in the back. 

And it's like, Wait

Good luck.

Yeah, did you really think that through you're gonna actually  instead of bringing your kid home to thrive? You're just  gonna send him out to have basically lots of sucky days and you're like, oh, yeah I'll just throw them in there at five years old. Surely they'll fight their way to the top of the pecking order 

 Instead of thinking, okay, I'm going to raise them in a loving environment, kind of shield them from that while they're young and help them to be who they really are, be comfortable in who they are.

And then, , as they get older, , of course, they'll be exposed to that kind of stuff. But, the wisdom of Mike Tyson here prevails. 

Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth. .

Something like 

that.

 . 

   You need a lisp..  Everyone had the threat to get punched in the face. 

plan. 

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

But yeah, that's true. You can't plan for everything. 

here's the real question though. Are you weird? 

 

Totally. 

Okay, well then your kids will be weird, okay? Because if 

Well, it depends. Again, weird is like the term normal, except weird's not on the washing machine. That's when you mix your reds and your whites.

And the reason I'm asking, yes, 

yes, no doubt. 

The

reason I'm asking this is because, well, a, I don't really think our listeners fall, if they're listening, they, they relate to us. I don't think they fall into that weird,  kind of like culty, 

The stereotype that's conjured when you think of , a sheltered homeschool kid that's super weird.

 It really does fall on you parents because as  a homeschool parent, you're their number one influencer. 

, think about it like this I personally never wanted to be like my parents and when they would do stuff or give me rules, I would think to myself, I'm never going to do that to my kids.

But fast forward 30 years and it's like I've stolen their entire playbook.  So what have you said lately that makes you think , Oh, I'm so much like my mom or dad.

Like for me, I said, Oh, this is why we can't have anything nice because of you kids. And I'm like, Oh my you used to say

 my god. Oh my gosh Oh, okay. Gosh, I used to say all kinds of stuff like that to me. I remember one cliche that I still use to this day is cheap is expensive and expensive is cheap  Especially when they waste their money on stuff.

And I guess you could use that for anything else too, But 

Oh, one of my favorite cliches. I think I heard this from your parents.

Better to have it and not need it than need it and 

I love that one. I love

that one. that's wisdom right there, okay? That is wisdom.  but the point is It falls on you. Are you weird? , their kids are gonna be more like you and that's one of the great things about homeschoolings is That your passions are what you hand down to your kids easily naturally.

So for example, Have a friend Sherry And she just loved history. She's graduated her kids, she had three kids and she homeschooled them the whole way. She was so into history, she would make it come alive for her kids. They would go to, Colonial Williamsburg 

Oh yeah, Jamestown, right. 

Okay, and we live in Florida, so they would drive there all, all different seasons of the year.

 They, they had the period costumes, they would dress like that when they went.  She taught history at the co op, she just made it come alive for her kids. And I remember when we were going to Colonial Williamsburg, which is a highly recommend, that is a great history lesson, just submersive.

We saw so much cool stuff.  And there's three things you can go to Yorktown, 

Yorktown  so Williamsburg.

Yeah, and you go through Colonial 

and Jamestown 

is still the same 

as it was 

Colonial and Jamestown Landing, the 

the first 

place that they landed and had that fort.

Right. 

So  there's period reenactors and she told me, , when you go there, if you see the Marquise de Lafayette, tell him Sherry said hi.

Now I only know who the Marquise  de Lafayette is because I'm a homeschool mom, and I did history with my kids. 

Do you know who he is? Clueless  

Okay. And listen, Matt and I are both public school, college degree holders, okay. And neither of us knew who the Marquette de Lafayette 

was. I mean, you can't even say the name. Well, 

okay, it's a French name. Anyways, he was pivotal in the Revolutionary War, he was a French nobleman that came to help fight the Revolution, and he became like a surrogate son to General Washington, and a huge hero of the Revolution.

In fact, he, he's the one that pursued and trapped Cornwallis at  

Yorktown  

before Cornwallis surrendered. Anyways, when I told, when I saw the Marquise 

 Lafayette,

Lafayette, 

How do you know what he looks like?

and he's in period dress, well, , she did show me a picture. She's like, here's the actor. now. Her kids have been grown for a few years and I said, Hey, , Sherry says, hi, and his face lit up.

Oh, and he remembered her. And it was just, wow. How, how cool is that? , that they built these relationships and it was all because of her love of history. Now for me, things I'm passing on is my love of sport and Matt too.  We love athletics and we weren't college athletes at a division one college.

We didn't even play in college, right? Only intramurals. 

We

weren't 

We weren't that good. 

Is

I wouldn't say it wasn't that good, I just didn't try out. 

gosh. How's that?  

worst excuse Okay, I mean I could have made something, I'm

sure, if 

all right.

Okay. So we're passing on our love of sports.  And that's what we'll get. We're going to get in a little bit deeper into sports and our life balance with that in a minute. But Matt, what else are you effortlessly passing on to your kids?

I would say my love of travel and camping and being outdoors and doing outdoorsy things, I guess. 

Okay, I definitely

agree with that for me.  I'm effortlessly passing on to my kids party planning,  home decor, fashion, just aesthetics in general.  My girls know what dishes to put out for what dips at a party. They know, Oh, let's light these candles here and there.  The homemaking stuff that I thrive at,  I'm easily passing on to them.

, I will agree with that. 

 I wouldn't call this like a trade or anything. I guess this is my more on my OCD. Hopefully at some point they take on my, 

 Clean, my act of cleanliness when it comes to around and keeping the house organized. 

OCD, but he   clean a lot. I remember I was so proud. There was something tacky. We had put, uh, some, oh, we, for home date night, which we had talked about.

We had put a sheet up over the doorway because it had no door anyways, it's just a big opening, so we put, put a sheet up there  and we hadn't taken it down yet and one of our daughters is like, how long is that staying up? Isn't that really tacky? 

And I 

Oh yes, honey, that is tacky. 

And we took it down.

I was just so 

proud of her. 

That was her only means of keeping them out.

Right. Right.  We've, we have talked about home date on previous episodes. It's just like, you know, having a date at home, keeping the kids out of the room, lighting some candles and enjoying time together.

time, 

One other thing I am passing on is. My love, or it's even a hunger, I would say, for Apologetics.  Apologetics

is not apologizing for your faith, which I used to think what? What is Apolo? Apologia is the word giving a testimony of why something is  I'm a cradle Catholic and I just grew up in the church, so we did everything we did, but I had no training as to why  we did what we did.

So when I got to college, people were asking me things like, well,, you baptize babies and that's not biblical. One guy was like, Catholics leave Jesus on the cross crucified. And another person said to me, I went to the Catholic church all my life and I never heard the gospel. So they were throwing all this stuff at me and I didn't know the answers.

Luckily, I had my dad I could go back to and say, this person just said this to me. What does this mean? Why do we do that? And which if I can rewind to that guy who never quote unquote heard the gospel, it's like, hello, we read from the gospel every week. 

Right.

meant that whole 

believe in

Jesus and be saved the power of the gospel, I guess.

But he just wasn't paying attention, which lots of kids have checked out in the pews Sure. Our kids have done that too. Now, 

don't know.

they've actually confessed our 10 year old.  

Yeah, he's having doubts. I asked him today, I'm like, are you a Christian? He's like, I don't know.  

my gosh. 

 And it's funny because we're going to let him work through those doubts. , we're here to answer questions, but we're doing the right thing eventually.  Gonna come to the truth. , so my love for apologetics is I realized I have to defend I have to know why I'm doing what I'm doing. Why am I doing it if I don't know?

So I even left the church. I went to a megachurch  at the megachurch there were no kneelers 

No way, they don't even know what that is.

I know, , that was so weird, , how do you not kneel in reverence? And then I realized, well, A, they don't have the Eucharist either, so they, that presence of God isn't like we feel it as a Catholic, like you walk in that church and boom, you feel it.

and so when I realized wait, they don't have the Eucharist. They don't have kneelers

But they got a huge band in the back, that's sweet. You

know it jamming in the front Oh, that too, yeah.

That 

their main thing and 

so when

I realized what was missing from that mega church, oh, let me tell you that pastor. He was funny He had you laughing in stitches.

His message  it was so great. The music was like a concert lights everywhere, fog. 

Sounds fun. So 

it was but  being raised as a Catholic I missed the Eucharist and the Eucharist called me home ultimately. Do you remember you went to Northland Church with 

me Yeah, I did. 

That was when we were first dating.

 So I wanted to know, I had that deep yearning for apologetics and now so do our kids. They are hungry for why we do what we do. We use these great things, these little flashcards called Friendly Defenders  and it's a question, well why do, why do Catholics worship Mary? And then on the back it gives the scripture and actually the proper response and they are just hungry for it.

So that's cool. 

Um,  year old is asking these off the wall questions, what was the other one the other day?

Is the devil ugly? Can you  Oh, can I say hate? Yeah. I'm like, oh, I guess  Meanwhile, 

yeah. 

Why can't we say 

You don't have 

let us say  

anything.

Everyone says people suck. 

people suck. I'm like, no, that's, I don't want to hear that coming out of your mouth.  

maybe. I'm like, 

maybe. I'm like, you can say they're sorry. That's a sorry team. You can say that. They're like, that doesn't even mean that.



Cool. It's not cool though.

But yeah, they always are asking questions and they, are really hungry. We do a Bible study at our house for girl, for our girls age. 

I'm going to tell you, they are so hungry for the truth. It's amazing. And it's amazing to imbue that in your kids through homeschooling. So that's another thing that is coming naturally.

But Matt had said that he wanted to talk about sports.  And the benefit, In the life balance of sports. So, let's talk about it, Matt.

it Matt. Oh, are you handing over the mic to me?

Wow.  important. Okay. You're going to give me my my

two minutes 

can think of something good to

me off. Okay. I don't know. Maybe

should have their child do  

I think with sports, every parent should have their child do some sport at some point in their lives, right? I mean, there's gonna be sports the kids hate. There's gonna be some sports it takes, a season or two till they finally catch on and realize this is what they like to do. 

But ultimately, I think it has benefited our kids to not only learn camaraderie, to play with others well, and to be a teammate, and to experience what that's like, to win and lose, to have  crappy days, whatever you're doing, to have exciting days, and things to, 



Look forward to, and to want to talk about.



To be dedicated to something.

Yeah, to be dedicated?

Now, let me, back up a little bit. Um, I agree with you there, Matt. I do agree that everyone should at least try sports, but think about it. There are parents out there that might be listening that they don't have. 

any

athletic ability and don't care anything about sports.

So as far as that goes, well, something that  is still going to imbue those values.

Well, I'll, so, to answer your question. So, a perfect example.

on

our daughter's swim team.

I remember last year there were two boys

that were on her team. I think it was their first year. They couldn't swim their way out of a wet paper bag. 

Okay? I'm just being honest. And

fast forward a year later, they got awards for being

Improved. Yeah, I  

Yeah,  they  legitimately made it to the team on 

certain  meets So there can be kids that have no athletic ability whatsoever And that can either be brought out They might not ever have it but there's something out there that I think any child can participate in  

And, okay, but I'm being inclusive here, is also things like  robotics club,

Okay, sure. Or,

, choir, or, you know, just things where you're,  dedicated.

, so it doesn't have to be a sport, but we're going to talk about sports because , we definitely agree with that. Anyone can learn a sport, let's talk about the marriage benefits for Matt and I working out together, okay,  because you're raising these kids, you need something to do besides raise kids together.

True. So,



Now, having kids in sports is a full time thing, after school. I mean, we're realizing that right now.

We are , in the thick of it, as far as being Uber drivers.

to talk about that in , balance. 

Oh, gosh,  you're bouncing all over the place

 Yes, it's a full time thing, but  let's talk about 

 What we get out of working out together. Okay.  Common ground.

Well, let me preface this before you even get into this so there was a point where Didn't want her working out with 



Because



It's like, do you want to play golf with your wife? 

That might sound good.

be

I think in reality that could be really detrimental to everyone's health and relationship. For some people it works out great. So I was hesitant at first because this was my thing, right? I had my thing. It's like you guys have all your other things. This was my one and only outlet that I could do. 

CrossFit. Yeah. Well, you also did road bike. But you're right. You did protect CrossFit. Now,  

I did., 

now that I have been CrossFitting for five years, I'm always like, Matt, you knew I was going to love this.

You knew I would love how competitive this is. And he's like, yeah, I didn't want you to take over my sport.

Yeah, next thing you know, you're like, uh, I'm going to go at the class time you're going so you're just going to have to go later or you might not have to

work out. And I, Yeah, I'm like, I knew that was going to happen.

I'm like, so. 

I did have my marathon training and stuff 

like

that. 

right.

So she jumped in and it worked out great because now. Before she would work out and then I would work out.  And then it finally came to the point where we could do it together and we realized that's the most fun we have doing it. So now we make it a point to take classes at the same time.

And it is so fun 

Yeah. 

your man work out is so sexy,  and

and dying

well,  over there. 

it's nice to know that your man 

likes to stare at you while you're working

out. 

man likes to stare  you while you're working out. Well, you are staring.  Like it.

do you care so much about what shorts I'm going to wear? 

Oh, 

okay, 

okay, that's what I thought.  

 Let me rephrase that. I don't mean that you're staring at me creepily. What I mean is, it's nice to know that I still have your eye.  Ladies, we know our husbands are very visual. And what I'm saying is, it's nice that I know after 18 years of marriage, you're still attracted to me.  I mean, of course,  I am.

 Who wouldn't be?  But, I mean, it's not like I'm, you know.  Standing over there by the weights and just Peering through for like a minute  Checking you out from afar  That's a little creepy  I mean i'll throw a little wink or something your way just let you know. Hey  Keep it up the good work,   So, yeah, I mean you work out hard i'll give it to you  You should   



it doesn't have to be a sport, but you need to find some activity that bonds you besides raising kids. It could be taking a walk. It could be morning coffee together or afternoon. Maybe you have a ping pong table and you guys play ping pong together or volunteer together. , I've asked around a couple of people.

, one of my friends said, well, we like to go away. Well, okay, that's awesome. We like going away on the weekends, but that's great and you need that and you need date nights But do you have something that you can do? two or three times a week and maybe it doesn't cost money I there's a really sweet one.

I have a friend told me that what they do is one night is her night and one night is his night and The other person can't say no and they just basically have to do

Go along with

whatever they plan? Yeah, so 

one night she was like, I want to play this murder mystery game and he had to play 

along and 

One night he's like, okay I want you to sing me these songs and she sang him in the songs and it could be Anything that other person wants so I thought that was so cute because you're 

just making them feel loved, , Which, I could just see,

Matt asking, just scratch my back for an hour, you know.

would be sweet. Yeah,  Right, and you'd ask me to do a puzzle for an hour, and I'd be

like, Oh 

I,  

Put me to

bed now. 

separate the puzzle pieces 

puzzle pieces.  Torture. 

 Okay.

But I'd still do it.

Yeah. , so something like that. , it's basically working out has been that for us, which bleat it bleeds over into Saturday is family day at the gym and we take our kids to work out. So  it bleeds into , our just regular downtime together. Okay.

Let's go out and shoot some hoops. Let's go out and play catch. And that involves the kids, of course. , so how do we find balance in a life of, you got three kids in three different sports or four kids, or however many for us it's worked a couple of ways. When the kids were too young to leave them home alone, we each had to have our own 

own 

outlet. 

did CrossFit. I, I did marathons. We could go to the Y occasionally, like once in a while together.  I remember one of my kids was literally  six weeks old to the day. And I brought them to the Y and they were buckled in their little car seat carrier. And they were so tiny that a mom who was picking up her toddler literally asked me, Are you leaving that baby here?  

In the daycare. Yeah. Not in the

gym. Not 

yet. And That tone just  indicated that she didn't trust the Y staff or she thought I was a careless mom

But without hesitation I said, oh, yeah, because when you have an athletic regimen that's gotten derailed You want to get back to it? You want to start crushing those goals getting the baby weight off?

Plus that was like my third or fourth kid So maybe even fifth by then all those new mom jitters are gone, you 

know The, like, hand sanitizer who? I don't care. 

will, 

my baby will be fine for 45 minutes in this nursery. I mean, you got  a high schooler and a millennial running it, but I don't care.

They can  just play with a little dirt ball in the corner, you 

know, pass them 

around like a bag of potato 

Just don't feed my child dust

bunnies. 

Let the other little kids help, don't let him mark up his face with 

markers Yeah. 

be fine. Well, and that's okay if they're washable markers. I mean, we'll be totally fine there.

, because you need that time

Definitely.

for me. It was like, I need that heart pounding camaraderie with other adults, conversation and stay in fit and mental and social fitness, so I would run at 5 a. m. I would get home. Matt would go. 

His CrossFit, 

his crossfit or he would go in the evening.  And then finally we had one kid old enough to stay home.

That was a game changer.



For

real,

we just put her through the CPR class at like 11 and a half years old. We're like, you're going to go learn the CPR and first aid class at Red Cross Oh yeah. 

we were

able to work out together.  

Yeah, we could disappear for an hour and come back and everything would be fine.

Yep.

Just don't cook anything and don't answer the    , 

we would find, we would function better throughout the day. Not only were we bonding, but we have focus, clarity, energy, and , once they're old enough, it's a great family activity. But, admittedly, sometimes you will be in survival mode. Okay?  Matt, what is survival mode? What do you think?

It is getting through the day without  wanting to kill somebody. 

Every day 

for like months and  Yes. I 

Survival mode is different for different people. For me, it's from the time my feet hit the floor at 5 a. m. to when my head hits the pillow at night, and hopefully that's not a second past 8. 38 p. m. Okay , that I'm engaged. I'm on. I'm doing something.

And then the house is probably a mess. Yes, meals are not planned, not a lot of school is getting done, it's all a flurry.

Yes.

And then it's like, well wait, okay, if I'm not cleaning, cooking, or doing school, what am I doing? 

Yeah, it's just a blur, you don't know, 

You know? Right.  learned not to ask. What have you been doing all day?  Because that didn't get me

anywhere. right, 

don't, , it should be one of those things 

statement number 1578, not to say to your homeschool wife.

of the day. Yeah. When she's sitting there with gum in her hair and 

 Right.

That

look. 

Yeah,   oh, you know what gets us in survival mode quick is traveling, I feel like, , coming back from a camping trip. Coming back Sunday night, Monday morning, you got co op and work and it's 

just 

mode for two or three days.

or 

Sports seasons put us in survival mode. , but you know what? Life is an iteration. In other words, you learn what doesn't work one season. And you are going to iterate on that, like what we learned this past fall, let's not camp or travel during NFL playoffs.  Because it sends our one son into anxiety, how, where am I going to watch this game?

You know? And , we all liked it too. So, . Let's not travel during playoffs. 

What else do you have to say on that, honey?   , 

we're not getting home till sometimes nine o'clock at night because that's when some of these practices are over and It was kind of funny because I know you had talked to the kids saying  You're at your wits end. We've been doing this three four nights a week staying out till nine o'clock Granted we do conquer and divide but it still makes it for a long day when we're up at 5 a.

m  And so you kind of had to lay the  The expectation that, you know, you might not  make it to everything you guys want to go to just because it's running us ragged. You know, we're burning the candle at both ends, so to speak. But I had a conversation with the dad at one of the practices , cause his son does a lot of stuff too.

And I'm like, do you ever just say,

I

can't do it. I'm just not going to do it tonight. Tell your kid that 

he's like, no,

he's like, we do conquer and divide, but

it's divide and

Or divide and conquer. Right. But  my son made a commitment to be in the sport to play on this team. I have to commit to , we'll make it work.

And I got to thinking, , you're right.  We're letting the team down by not being a teammate with our child. I mean, we're almost on the same team because if our kid can't make it because of us,  I guess you could lay the blame on us. So as much as it pains us to stay out late, it's all kind of hinging on us to get our kids to where they need to be. Because they made this commitment and we need to have them stick to that commitment because we can't be the excuse.

Right. Well, and when I said we can't do everything, that means youth group and, Some of the practices are optional.

So I'm not just saying, 

Oh 

kids, I know you have practice tonight, but I'm not 

doing it.  Okay. 

Well, I mean, you're like

It's 

had a, we had to set the expectation, you want to be out all these late nights. You got youth group, you got weightlifting, you got this and that. We need to, as a family team, figure out what we can do and what we can't, but hey, Matt, if 

you're ready 

to say, Hey, I'll take you to everything, no matter what, then that's on you.

I'm still going to have balance.

Oh, nice guy. 

Ok, and  divide and conquer 

So this might sound obvious, but it really wasn't for us because we just started doing this about last year, right? Well, actually, if you think about it, one of the things when we first had a child was that remember the nurse came and said, you need to have a routine every night to put your kid to bed.

And one of those part of that routine was to bathe your child every night.  Well, we've been doing that for the last 15 years, pretty much bathing a child  and it get to the point by your fourth child,  you're like, okay, it's your turn tonight. Oh, well we figured that out a little bit. Yeah. It's just like, it's just impossible.

I mean, now I'm, I don't care if my child doesn't take a bath for three days. I mean, sometimes that happens.  , our six year old has worn the same thing for the last three and a half days, and he's okay with that, and so are we. Yeah, yeah. Well, as far as with sports, , we've had kids in sports for  nine years at least, and we just kind of got on the divide and conquer bandwagon with that, maybe last year.

Because, , it is important to be there to support as a family,  These sports organizers are bold. They got us by the balls apparently the footballs. Okay, the best. Good transition. I've seen this. I've seen soccer tournaments, scheduled on Easter weekend.

Okay, which of course, seen, or the worst, The first is these  prelims and finals.   The organizers say to each other, Let's have this competition in the middle of nowhere, where everyone has to drive at least an hour. Okay?  And then we'll make them get there to warm up at 7am. But, ha ha ha, it's not going to start until 9am.

Oh, but that's just the prelims.  If your child does great, You get to stay another nine hours because finals are at 5 p. m. So parents you're going to be sitting in a lawn chair for 13 hours that day. Okay? And, then, let's have it run Thursday through Sunday. And you guys, I'm not even kidding. Let's have one on Super Bowl Sunday.

Matt, talk. Wait, were you at a, were you at a Super Bowl?  I was there at 7 a. m. and we got home at 2 p. m. , so they did the half day on the Super Bowl, thankfully. But that was a divide and conquer. I drove the hour there Thursday. Drove the hour home Thursday. Matt did Friday. Sometimes, yes, we take the whole family.

 And you know what? If you're thinking, oh, my child would be so hurt if we're not all there. No, they won't. They could give two flips at some point.

They are enthralled with their team, the competition. They could literally care less. And who's there? I mean, as long as they know you're like an overall support in their life. Absentee parents, I'm not talking to you on this one. And at a certain age, too. I mean, of course, when they're young, yeah, they want to see you there.

Our teenagers,  I don't even know if she walks by and even looks over at us to make sure we're still paying attention. And I'll  set expectations.  It's huge in helping your kids to understand and being okay with it. And this was, I, is what I found in a conversation. The other day is I basically said to my athlete, I know you want to play as much as you can. 

And I want you to, I want you to keep getting better.  That's a growth mindset. Like we talked about in the last episode, which was a really good episode. So go check, check that one out on growth mindset.  I said, but we can't physically And  we might not be there, but you could carpool, we'll be, we can get you a ride.

We might be, , Friday, we might be able to be there Saturday.  Are you okay with that? And she's like,  heck yeah. I just, I want to, I want to swim.  So it was a good,  set expectations. We're a team here and she understands.     Say that would be.

I mean, I think it's really respectable enough to know that, hey I committed to this, we want to make sure that you're there. We're still behind you, even though we can't sit there through practice obviously we've got, other responsibilities too. They understand that.

It's not like you're completely shirking, hey, mom and dad, I got to go to practice.  Good luck. Yeah. You know, it's not like we're blowing her off.  And I did say, there's nowhere I would rather be, of course, there's nothing I would rather do than be watching you, but it just isn't going to work out like that.

Sometimes, not all the time. Right. 

 ​

 

well, here's the other thing is. as a homeschool family and when you say homeschool,  it's a there's a standard that embodies  That is I'm not gonna outsource some things. I'm gonna educate my kids. I'm going to Do their faith formation now? Will I get people to help me?

Sure. I'll have tutors help me. With their faith formation? Yeah, sure. I'll have a youth pastor. , I'm even going to teach them sports. Sure. I'll have a coach help me.    Some things we like to do that we don't want to let fall by the wayside.

 When you're in survival mode is having dinners together, or having meals 

together at home. 

Because, the benefits to having meals together are astounding. If you have meals with your kids, they're going to have a better vocabulary.  They have less chance of being obese. They have more chances of going to college. They have, , less chances of drinking  less chances of doing drugs.

Is so neat how God ordained that, that breaking bread with your own family has all these benefits. So , in sports life, that's not going to happen all the time or even every day. So when those things, start to fall by the wayside, that's when you got, we do have to pull in the reins and say, okay, something, we got to get more balance here.

balance 

And 

while we're talking about balance is also important to keep. spiritual nourishment flowing. So this faith life hack that I'm about to tell you about is good no matter where you're headed. Field trips, sporting events, but if you're a sports family you got a lot of practices you're taking your kids to.

when

you're in the car they're listening to what you're listening to now with athletes. I know you can look at any Olympic event and you see these athletes with their headphones on or big sporting events. And you know that,

They're jamming out

yes, you know that they have this playlist that gets them hype.

Or when you see that boxer headed to the ring, he's got like some thug rap song that makes them sound so hard. 

Right.

your song? 

Well, um, actually, I don't really have a hype song. I'm going to tell you more what I do.  I actually get hyped more on spiritual stuff. So is mine 180 beats per minute? No.  , on that note, those, the songs that are getting these kids hype, they're probably rife with cuss words.

It's probably pop music talking about drug, sex, and rock and roll. Okay, but that's not what I do, and that's not what we do  when I'm driving my kids. You really want to get your mind right before an athletic event? Try this. We have these CDs, and yes, my minivan does still have a CD player. And in fact, if your minivan has a DVD player, that is a CD player.

So it's still a thing, 

okay? 

Okay. 

But maybe MP3s are fine. , we have these CDs, and they're called Glory Stories. And they are about the lives of the saints in a play format. So it's audio, it's just audio. 

I mean, I'm gonna stop you right there. If I'm listening to a story before I'm getting ready to just kill it on the field, you might as well just give me a  Benadryl and a glass of wine and put me to bed.

okay, a lot of people probably think that sounds lame, like you said, , I remember this is a true story. One time we were listening to the story of Miguel. Pro and Miguel Pro was a priest  martyred in the Mexican persecution of Catholics back in the 1920s. I've talked here before about Jose Sanchez, Del Rio.

I told his story. He was a christero. Well, so was blessed Miguel Pro, and his story was amazing because they told about his personality, he was always joking and a jokester, and what he would do is he would disguise himself to bring. The sacraments to the people because it was outlawed to be a Catholic in Mexico.

So they were persecuting anybody who did any mass or anything. So people couldn't get baptized. People couldn't get married. But Blessed Miguel Pro  was giving the sacraments, but somebody set him up and he got caught and he did get executed.  He got executed and when he stood there in front of the firing squad, he stood there with his arms out and with a crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other, and his arms were out in the imitation of the crucified Christ and he shouted, May God have mercy on you, thou knowest that I am innocent.

With all my heart, I forgive my enemies. Vivo Cristo Rey, which means long live Christ the King, the Mexican president, had it photographed  he was going to scare, he put it in the newspaper  and Miguel Proe's death, gave the revolutionaries such a fire and vigor to keep fighting.

, we were on the way to a swim meet and I saw the kids dabbing their eyes. It was so intense.  To listen to that story go down that actually sports don't mean that much. Yes, it's beneficial, but it's superficial because what, yes, there's all those great things and we love sports, but what Blessed Miguel Pro did, he gave his life for the Lord.

So this little race you're about to do, it's a blink of an eye. Okay? This little competition, this little game,  it's nothing but a chafe in the wind compared to the real meaning of life.  

meaning of life. And then it's like, you  just feel

that as a I'm going to run a race, , I don't know if I want to be thinking about some dude getting  mowed down

your 

then , you just feel that as a Christian,  then it turns your focus to how can I glorify the Lord? How can I use this sport to glorify the Lord? And you know what? you think Blessed Miguel Pro listening to his story, I will play  

Mmm, good night.  Wow.

which is Eternal Word on Fire or something like that Sister Angelica used to 

Yeah, I think it's only  broadcast in AM radio

too , 

I've played pastor Joel Osteen because he's uplifting. Okay. And say what you want about Joel Osteen. People say, Oh, he doesn't mention Jesus and the, yes he does

He's a life coach.

he 

talks about the prosperity gospel, but a sermon of his every once in a while is uplifting and you know what, it has made my kids see the difference in the prosperity gospel.

And the 

real gospel and they know the difference , at least my older ones 

they're

listening to what you are. So be careful. Like Matt, loves to give that taste for pop music, which never 

oh glorifies God. 

We're coming home from the camping trip. I'm like, what is this Snoop dog from the 

It was 90s, that's my

jam. 



I'm sorry. I'm singing along Yeah, you're singing. Gosh, and then you're giving me grief.

And I'm realizing, oh my gosh, this is terrible. This is what I came up on  

like, okay, turn this because I my my gosh. 

and it's 

degrading women. It glorifies sex and drugs and we literally don't want our kids to think like that or grow up to live like that.

So let's not indoctrinate them with that as much as we can. 

But again, as Mike Tyson's strategy states, just because you don't doesn't mean they won't.  Right? Cause somebody Well,

well, that's our plan, right? That's our plan. But what's gonna hit us in the face is they have other friends that listen to it too. And as much as you'd like to put them in this little bubble,  someone's gonna burst it.

So, you're not gonna save them from the wretches of the world.

I realized that you're right. That is a good point because yes, homeschooling isn't. Nothing I'm doing is except literally Jesus's saving grace. So all we can do is give the foundation,  give our lives to. Raising our kids how God would want and , you know what,  duty is ours, the results are the Holy Spirit.     📍  We  

 

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