This Golden Hour

74. Part One of Nomadic Homeschooling with Janette and Aaron Beier

• Timothy Eaton

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In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Janette and Aaron Beier from Colorado.  The Beiers share their unique journey of blending two families and homeschooling their nine children while traveling the United States and Canada in an RV. From overcoming personal tragedies to creating an intentional family life, they discuss their philosophy on education, family unity, and the challenges and joys of their nomadic lifestyle. The interview dives deep into their homeschool methods, their approach to family bonding, and their goals for their children's education.

Connect with the Beiers
@beierfamilyzoo

Resources
Brené Brown
Homeschooling IRL
The Good and the Beautiful
Beast Academy
Harvest Hosts


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Janette Beier:

Our end goal, and we've talked about this repeatedly, is that we want our children to love learning. Because they'll easily forget everything they learn, right? You can't just cram it down their throat to get it done. If anything, that'll make them hate learning. And anytime you get a job or even go to college, you're relearning it all. So you just have to know how to learn and be excited about it. We want them to love learning. We want them to have a very healthy sense of who they are. And what makes them tick, and for our kids in particular, we want them to have a healthy emotional assessment of who they are, and how to take care of themselves

Tim Eaton:

Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill. You're listening to this Golden Hour Podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Jeannette and Aaron Byer from Colorado. The Byers share their unique journey of blending two families and homeschooling their nine children while traveling the United States and Canada in an RV. From overcoming personal tragedies to creating an intentional family life, they discuss their philosophy on education, family unity, and the challenges and joys of their nomadic lifestyle. The interview dives deep into their homeschool methods, their approach to family bonding, and their goals for their children's education. Welcome back to this golden hour podcast today. We are really excited to have with us, Aaron and Jeanette Beyer from Colorado, but currently they're in, what did you call it? Frankfurt, Michigan.

Aaron Beier:

That's right. That's what the locals call it.

Tim Eaton:

That's what they call it. So they're in ag country. They got trucks passing behind them as we talk and this is going to be a fun interview because I have a really good friend that just met Aaron and Jeanette. Here in Alberta, but they have since moved on. They've been traveling for a while and they'll tell us about that, but they have nine children. And they're going to explain that mix of awesomeness and two sets of twins and and they've been homeschooling for a while, but they've said it's their third time homeschooling. So give us a bio, get us started and then we'll have a good conversation.

Janette Beier:

Yeah, absolutely. So we we started our story when I was a little 12 year old and he was a big 17 year old. That's how we met. He was my brother's friend. We both ended up marrying other people the exact same year, 2006, and we sadly and surprisingly both lost those people in 2018 within three months of each other. I lost my husband to cancer.

Aaron Beier:

And I lost my wife unexpectedly she passed in her sleep.

Janette Beier:

And

Aaron Beier:

Oh man, I'm sorry to hear that, man, that's,

Janette Beier:

Thank you.

Aaron Beier:

It's definitely shaped. Choices we've made and how we approach life and how we look at life. And you'll kind of get that as we go through this interview.

Tim Eaton:

Yes, for sure, man. And thank you for sharing that. That's intimate stuff. So thank you.

Janette Beier:

You're welcome. Our families had stayed close, but I reached out to him at that point just because of our shared, suffering really I had three kids, I had four year old twins and a six year old girl, they're all three girls, and then.

Aaron Beier:

I had at that time, an 8 year old girl, and then, gosh, Darian was 5, and then Brynn was 3, and then Isaac was, Isaac, yeah, she turned 3 right after. So

Tim Eaton:

You had 4 kids at the time,

Aaron Beier:

Aaron? Yep, two girls and two boys at the time, and you had

Tim Eaton:

three kids

Janette Beier:

and I had three. Yep. So we we connected and someone, you know mentioned in seeing two widows young together. Oh my gosh What if and I said that chance seven kids are you crazy? yeah,

Aaron Beier:

and I was like Wow, wouldn't that be nice to sit in a church pew and have Three kids on one side and four kids on the other and us smashed in the middle. Just

Janette Beier:

Yeah. I was

Aaron Beier:

like, that's not a good

Janette Beier:

fantasy. That

Aaron Beier:

sounds awful.

Janette Beier:

Our poor, beautiful children. We're happy to have all of them, but at the time, seven was a big number. And so we were friends, but we very quickly found out there was a lot more there. There was a lot of meant to be ness and stars aligning. And

Tim Eaton:

so how long was it after your spouse's passed away that you guys started talking

Janette Beier:

right away? I went to his. Place, right? When his wife died, I came to just

Aaron Beier:

so her mom, I are, we stay in touch. And so she found out the day of my wife, Jana's passing. And she let Jeanette know. And then Jeanette called me the following day. And then we just she came up and brought food and brought the kids coloring books. And then we just stayed in touch. After that, and that was In August, and Paul, Jeanette's late husband had passed away in April earlier that year. And so we just stayed in contact and to cut to the end of that story, we got married and we blended our families and we picked up and moved to the mountains to give our kids what we feel is a life that we wanted to give them. Going through trauma, they had all been through trauma, all of our kids lost a parent. At a very young age, we had lost a spouse and we just wanted to go live our dreams. And that was to just have some space, be in nature. We both really reset in nature. That's where we meditate. That's where we get charged up. And so that was something that we sought after and then we moved to the mountains. And that's actually when homeschooling for Jeanette was coming to an end for the first time.

Janette Beier:

Yeah, I'd always intended to homeschool, but what, we blended, he had, kids already in public school, and I didn't want to offer too many changes for them.

Aaron Beier:

Totally.

Janette Beier:

I also was intimidated at the idea of suddenly homeschooling, four new kids all at once.

Tim Eaton:

Yeah, especially when you're blending and it's all new. Was this all in Colorado at the time then?

Janette Beier:

Yeah. And there was a lot happening. And we realized very quickly that we were meant to be a family. We got married very quickly. We dealt with a lot of adversity from people around us. struggling opinions about it. And it was a lot of faithfully moving with what's right for you and compassionately giving space for those who can't see that. And it was really beautiful for us. We did a lot of therapy in home and in offices and the therapists were just really impressed with how we were handling things, but we all went through our first year of grief together. So it was very painful, but also really healing to have so many people in one house that just understood what it felt like.

Aaron Beier:

For sure.

Janette Beier:

I come from a family that's blended of nine. So that probably was to help prepare me for this with the child perspective. So there was a lot of intentionality with one on one bonding and connection while working through the grief while giving space for the kids, maybe struggling with the changes. But even being aware of that, they actually, they did a wonderful job. They just wanted to call us mom and dad from the get go.

Tim Eaton:

Seriously.

Janette Beier:

And the

Tim Eaton:

oldest at the time was eight from the, from both of you guys, that was your oldest.

Aaron Beier:

A lot of intention. And I think that transition as well into homeschooling and why we homeschool is just intention and having a purpose and having a vision and knowing that's your vision, a lot of times when you have an idea or a plan. It doesn't work within society's vision or it doesn't work within your subculture's vision or sometimes even your family dynamics vision. And we were both blessed to have a similar vision, a similar outlook on life. Go through similar experiences. And that bonded us as a family unit even more tightly, right? And it's that whole pressure scenario in a diamond. And that's what we went through as a family. And pop us out, now we're five, almost six years later. And that's what we went through. That's where we're at is now, did you,

Tim Eaton:

like, when you say intention I, which I totally, I think I understand what you're saying with that. What, how did that like manifest itself? Cause like you said, and that it's behind what you did is as a blended family it's behind the decision to homeschool, but what was in your mind when you said that?

Aaron Beier:

Healing was the reason we started with that intention. One of the lessons I learned, so I served a mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and. The one thing that if someone said, what did you learn on your mission was the importance of unity and That carried through in my first marriage. It carried through in my dating It carries through in my career and work and through in my life and it carried through in this Marriage of blending was how do we unify our family? And so that was Kind of the root or how it manifested on my end was that intention had to have a purpose and the purpose was To unify us as a family unit because at the end of the day 50 years from now Hopefully our kids are calling each other. Hopefully we're still talking as a family. Hopefully it's Christmas and the birthdays and weddings and all the things that you think of when you think of a family unit And society's Gotten away from that because family isn't blood only. And I get that especially in our situation, I get that, but family is family and that's who you bond with because that's who you've been put on this earth to be with.

Tim Eaton:

So what are some examples of what you guys have done to intentionally unite? As a family, like you two together. And then the kids, cause now the kids ages range from four to 13. Right.

Janette Beier:

Right. Yeah. There's, that's a good question. This we're very I'm a big list maker. I'm a big planner. So there actually was a lot of practical things that, that we listed out. So when we were first married, we did different things like one on one dates with our new kid to help with the bonding. We we would each of us would focus on one kid for the month. And that would be the kid that we prayed for morning and night and really honed in on that. That was after we tried to do every kid every day. And we're like, this isn't possible. Not that we

Aaron Beier:

didn't still love all of our kids and pray for all of our kids, but there was an intention of this month. I'm focusing on my relationship with this child, knowing that there was four years or six years or eight years or one and a half years that we missed out on. And so we had to split up. Speed track that relationship, which for me meant taking my new three daughters out on little daddy daughter dates that they've never been with me and taking them to little restaurants and spoiling them by letting them get what they wanted and not what I wanted. And going on walks and hikes with other kids That was what they needed,

Janette Beier:

and with the kids, we had a buddy system and every month they rotated a new buddy and that was who they sat by at the dinner table that was if there was chores, that was their friend and their playmate. But we also had to rotate, see assignments for who got to sit by mom and dad because they were all little.

Aaron Beier:

Yeah!

Janette Beier:

Mom and dad's lap. Everyone still wants mom and dad's time by that time. Oh, I

Tim Eaton:

haven't even seen them and they're so cute, man. I just know.

Janette Beier:

Ridiculous. I'm going to tell you, everyone says, Oh my gosh, all of your kids are really beautiful. And I've always been like, everyone says that, but as they're getting older and I'm like, wait, I think everyone also sees what we see. They're all really cute. And they're all small for their age. Like they all look like they could come from this one family. They're all. So

Tim Eaton:

how did they respond to the buddy thing? And the, like, how did they respond to these dates and that kind of

Aaron Beier:

thing? It was hard, the buddy thing and the dates, obviously that's fun, right? Because one of them is one on one time, which what kid with a sibling doesn't want one on one time. Now there's maybe people with one kid listening and maybe there's people who grew up as the only child and they think, No, I didn't want one on one time. That's the last time I wanted. And so you want what you don't have and you have to experience a lot of things in life to know what you don't want and our kids, much like other kids, they thrived in some of the environments and some of them struggled and some of them still have those struggles, but as a family front. We all know that there's a particular kid who struggles more with listening the first time than everyone else. And that's because everyone has been that person's buddy. And everyone's had to help that person with their chore. Or sit by that person at dinner and have that person annoy them and tap them and do the things that kids do. And so everyone's sharing in the joy and in the suffering of that person. Life is hard and personalities are hard. Yeah. That's reality of life.

Janette Beier:

Our big aim in that was we got to where whenever it was like, pick a buddy or be in teams, right? Trying to make cleaning fun. There was always the one person, which early on for us was the new biggest sister that everyone wanted. Then there was the one that no one wanted, which is the pesky brother who doesn't help. No one wanted his team. And it was for a while when we'd pick buddies, it was yay or aww. And then we taught them like, you cannot respond that way. And the goal was that after a long time, there's no aww. And that worked after, I would say after a year that happened. And there, and I will also say one of the really surprising things is there wasn't, it wasn't like we were going against our kid's will and having to do pushback, they really responded like normal siblings who've always known each other. Like they might be like, I don't want to be this person's buddy. Like they would. Any sibling, not like this is your, and you're not my brother. You know what I mean?

Aaron Beier:

And

Janette Beier:

we were careful to not introduce that type of language. And we were like, it's your choice. When you say mom or dad, they all did it before we even married. We didn't push anything, but we didn't even say step. We just you call us their name or mom or dad. And we kind of people around, like when you come in our home, if you're one person's family, you have to, you. You have to treat everyone in this home like one family, and if that's not a comfortable space for you, you can take time before you come.

Tim Eaton:

And what's cool is that your kids were at an age, I feel like, that they were like eight and below. I can see that's, it was more doable, whereas if you had some kids in the youth years already, that would have been a whole new thing. And then you had two more, so did you get, you guys had a set of twins together? Sure.

Aaron Beier:

Yeah, so you fast forward a little bit. We when we bought that house in the mountains, we closed on Valentine's Day and that same day we found out that we were expecting and very soon after that, found out it was twins, which I had hoped for when we were actually cleaning out Jeanette's basement of her house before we moved in together, she was looking at her cribs and supplies and said we don't need two cribs. Maybe we'll have a kid. And I said I'll just keep two just in case. And sure enough, two boys popped out. In September of 2019,

Tim Eaton:

That's interesting you already had a set of twins. And then, obviously that's in your genetics, but what are the odds, what are the odds of

Janette Beier:

Aaron

Tim Eaton:

having twins?

Janette Beier:

No one on my family. From both sides, since forever, genetically as twins. Identical are a fluke. I've known it since I was 12 because I wanted identical twin girls. And I used to say God had to throw me a bone because my

Aaron Beier:

poor husband had cancer

Janette Beier:

for 12 years. He's here's your twin girls you wanted. Because it was rare and I wanted them so badly. And then he, I felt strongly I was going to have another child after my husband passed. It was one of the things that kept me moving forward.

Aaron Beier:

Yeah.

Janette Beier:

So I let him know. When we were dating PS this is something I feel is gonna happen. Not knowing what he'd say.'cause it was like our second date. And he said, and he gave me a high five and was like, done. I'll take as many kids as God will give me But then he said he'd really love twin boys. I said, don't get your hopes up. It's not genetic. I'm probably not gonna have twins again. And now the boys are fraternal, which is a genetic thing. So now I've started the traits. So I've only actually been pregnant three times. And I have nine children.

Tim Eaton:

Wow, man. Holy cow. My wife would be so jealous. We have six kids, but those are all separate births. And she would have loved the two for one. I, on the other hand, I would be scared of twins. Cause man, getting up with two kids and all. Oh, you guys are amazing. But

Janette Beier:

there's two of you. That's true. That sounds hard. There's two of you.

Tim Eaton:

Oh. So I, man, I've got so many questions in my brain. So one, let me ask this one. So do you still do some kind of buddy system in any way?

Janette Beier:

We stopped after a few years. We

Aaron Beier:

stepped back in the buddy system. We still do helpers. And then the kids we observe and make sure that they're rotating who they're teaming up with. And when I say that, when they go off to play, is there one kid that's always playing with? Only one other sibling or is everyone playing together as a group and is the oldest sister playing with the youngest brother and the middle girls as well as the old, the next oldest sister, so we don't have to assign it because now it's just part of their natural cycle of life and we see that happening on this trip. Yeah, we see that even in the homeschooling where a sibling will go to. a brother, an older brother, and then they'll go to a different sister for help on something else because they have that relationship with

Tim Eaton:

them

Aaron Beier:

that they've organically created through that buddy system that we set up and we don't sit at a table when we eat so that Does change the dynamic of who's sitting by mom and dad.

Tim Eaton:

But where did you guys get the idea of doing like a buddy system in this kind of, like you said, the principle of unity and just you guys must've had discussions about, no, let's like to be intentional. You guys must've had some awesome discussions.

Janette Beier:

Yeah. We had some like up all night discussions. It just. Teaching each other about our kids and one of my favorite things about us is we both love to get deep and we're both really like we exist on an emotional plane. So we have these like really nurturing conversations. I don't even, my girlfriends got so jealous. I stopped calling them, but I was like, I don't actually need to call you anymore. Yeah. So I, we just came up with it and it was because of what I said. There was a lot of, I want this one, I don't want this one. And we were like, they need to have a comfort level with each person. And I think we finally started doing it after, it was a few years, and by the way, very quickly they were excited. Every time we were like, new month, new buddy.

Aaron Beier:

I have a list on my phone of who was whose buddy every month, because I don't know in everyone that's out there in podcast land listening, but there's this word that kids learn, it's, they, Pronounce it fair.

Janette Beier:

We

Aaron Beier:

in America. And it's like the kids are going that's not fair. And there I was already there, buddy, and this isn't fair. And, I could pull open the list of who's buddy. And it rotated and it was difficult and I had to come up with a system because out is seven rotate and there had to be a group of three then there was the babies but they didn't need a buddy but then kids still wanted to be their buddy because they wanted to hold the babies and feed the babies and help the babies and so yeah it was a whole thing of tracking so the list is four years long. It started at the end of 18 and it went through December of 22. Yeah. How long we did it. We

Janette Beier:

started to realize they do have a comfort level and there's still ones that they'll prefer but on the whole, they make little subgroups and they, it breaks up all the time and I do think it was because of the early on efforts of. I think what made it successful was there wasn't a push. And we balanced two things. One was really unifying the family and letting that feel normal and comfortable, but very much honoring the families we used to be and not making them feel they've lost that.

Aaron Beier:

We

Janette Beier:

will do the mom and they, when we adopted them, the three girls took on Aaron's name and kept their dad. So they're Coleman buyer. So they'll say, we want a Coleman Byer date and a Byer kids only date with dad. And then the twin boys tend to get split, one on each. Because they

Aaron Beier:

still crave that family dynamic, right? That nucleus of, oh, it was fun when, right? And Isaac he's now seven. He doesn't remember much about those early days of the blending. And he doesn't necessarily crave it. He just has a natural affection towards me where he wants to be with daddy. But he was always a daddy's boy. And so that's that, and coming back to the beginning of the intention is there was intention and it organically shaped into what it became to jump into the next phase of homeschooling was when COVID happened and we asked our kids. Do you want to go to public school or do you want to homeschool? And they each picked what they wanted to do. We had one kid who really wanted to go to a public school. He's twice exceptional in the gifted and talented program. And he wanted to do the school thing. And then all of the girls wanted homeschool with mom. And at that time I was working full time. And so I was still around, but I was definitely more occupied with, My occupation than I was involved in that second round of homeschooling.

Tim Eaton:

Yeah. Tell us so give us the background then. What was your guys first exposure to homeschooling? Either one of you. And then tell us the evolution of where you are now.

Janette Beier:

I don't want people to listen to this and be like one of those. Oh, I don't know how they did the buddy thing and it wouldn't work with my kids

Tim Eaton:

I feel like your guy's situation is so special in that they were that age and it's just like the total lesson of become like a child because they can do that complex thing of blend a family. And if you had kids or, older or adults, you can't do that because you're too prideful. And these children can actually do that, which is so impressive.

Aaron Beier:

It's pride and ego and probably shame. I think those are the things that would make it most difficult. And that's. That's all natural to feel and yes, Jeanette and I didn't have eye to eye on every single thing. Of course. We knew to put all of that aside on the table, have the conversation and come out taking with us what was right for our family at that time. Yeah. We

Janette Beier:

had to realign like the parents we were to the parents we are. Like sometimes we're like, gosh, I, it's a bummer because I feel more militant than I ever imagined I would be. And we felt more playful. And we also have to remember in our heads, we're comparing ourselves to having babies and toddlers. You're a different parent than anyway.

Aaron Beier:

But

Janette Beier:

just allowing things to be different and look different and our energy to run out quicker and to have more expected of us. But yeah, back to your point of The difficult emotions that come with it and the struggle I think part of what helps there not be a struggle is not making kids feel that there has to be a fight like if they are feeling negative feelings, that's safe and okay and one thing we did do is we had something called cookies and conversation, we call one kid at a time and have some cookies, and the tiny ones we'd have like their stuffies talk because kids can talk better through. Yeah. And we would just say, what is it like having a new dad? Or, oh my gosh, you have a brother for the first time and he likes to poke you. What is that? Or you're not the oldest anymore. And just letting them know if you're ever upset. And even as they get older and I tell my kids, you're getting into teenage years. This is what hormones do. Hormones might make you say in your head, I hate my mom because she's not my real mom.

Aaron Beier:

And I

Janette Beier:

say something that I think they would feel too bad saying out loud to say. It's not okay for it to be my fault. It's okay for you to feel it, and please share when you feel these things. Because when we feel ashamed, we don't say it, but we feel it. Then it becomes a burrowing anger that comes out of misbehavior. So

Tim Eaton:

are you guys Brené Brown people?

Janette Beier:

I love Brené Brown. Okay. Shame, more than three times in a sentence, definitely

Aaron Beier:

more Jeanette. Like she'll tell me stuff and I, I don't need to listen to it to know. Oh yeah. There's truth there. And yeah, exactly. It's, and it's her relationship with just that whole concept. And how we've had discussions that I know about. I'm just

Tim Eaton:

like, as we're talking, I love our conversation because as we're talking, I feel like, some listeners could be like when are you going to talk about homeschool? And I'm going, no, if you're missing that, like this whole discussion is because homeschooling to me, the more I have these interviews is. Not the right term and it's a way of living and it's a lifestyle. I do want to go back to that. Like just how you were exposed, the evolution of it, and then what you're doing now, cause you guys are on a awesome road trip that I don't know anything about. So I'm excited to hear about that. So tell us, what was your first exposure? Like how did you get first exposed to it and then how did it evolve to where you are now? I

Janette Beier:

was homeschooled in first through third grade. We lived in a rough area and my mom was nervous about where my siblings were going and there's public school. So she homeschooled us back when it was less common where she would say she was scared that if we didn't do well, the government could take her kids away. There

Aaron Beier:

was

Janette Beier:

very few curriculum and it was very expensive. And she killed it. She just was amazing. So many artistic things that she did. So how many

Tim Eaton:

kids did she homeschool?

Janette Beier:

Four, cause they had nine total, but the baby wasn't born yet. And the other mostly were with their mom.

Aaron Beier:

No way. So

Janette Beier:

she homeschooled until we moved to a nicer area. And then they put us in public school. And so then I, I have kids and my sister had kids just two years before me. And she started saying to me, I'm going to homeschool and so are you and I was like no, no, no, no. I'm obsessed with being a mother. I love everything about it. But what I had imagined in my head, because we all know that your life is exactly as you imagine it in your head. Fine. But I had imagined the husband gone from nine to five and the taking my little kids to kindergarten and just what that schedule would look like. So I really fought for what I would say was like, My free time as a month and my sanity. And she kept trying to tell me all the reasons I would do it. And I kept saying, if I had to, I would, but we have great schools here. And so I finally called my mom. Cause it just kept bugging me a little bit as my. Cute little Scarlet got close to the kindergarten. So anyway, I called my mom and I said mom when you homeschooled. Did you feel like you just lost all of your time and you were just always busy and she paused and she said, no, I felt like I got my kids back and that stopped me I hadn't thought of that perspective because I hadn't sent my kids away yet. And then I shifted. Oh, so how

Tim Eaton:

old are your kids at the time when that conversation happened?

Janette Beier:

Two and four. Oh,

Tim Eaton:

okay. So they were, they had, you hadn't sent any kids to school yet.

Janette Beier:

I was thinking of if and when. Gotcha. So that's where I was starting to even get into like preschool stuff. And then I started thinking of my own home school experience and I actually went through, my mom kept a lot of my school stuff and I found a journal that I kept in fifth grade when I was in public school and the prompt for the day was, who's the best teacher you ever had? And I'd been in public school for two years and I wrote my mom and every reason why she was my best teacher.

Aaron Beier:

And

Janette Beier:

I was like, that says something. I had quite a few teachers by then. And I didn't remember going to school saying I missed homeschool ever. And then I thought about my memories of my childhood and my education. And I'm, I vividly remembered how many stars and stripes were on the flag in first grade, because I was in my living room coloring it while my mom had a song to it while my siblings were doing activities with me.

Aaron Beier:

I

Janette Beier:

just remembered everything about the authors that she taught me. And I couldn't remember what I learned in high school. But I remembered what I learned in first through third grade. And then I also just thought of the people around me and most of my childhood memories, I was surrounded by friends, pretty much all of the main memories in my mind, I was surrounded with friends, but homeschool, I remembered my family only for first through third grade for everything. If I was sick, my sisters played princess and took care of me. And if it was lunchtime, we played restaurant and we all cooked together and we were waiters. And. My mom was just in every scene of my memory and

Tim Eaton:

and you remembered that I just wanted to comment real quick because I'm reading this book right now. It's called Cracking the Learning Code. And it's this guy named JW Wilson and he's a brain researcher and his whole thing about learning is if you're going to retain anything from your learning. It has to be based in what is meaningful to you. And I think you just illustrated that with what you were saying about like that stuff was meaningful to you. Why were you remembering that from first or third grade and not even the stuff you were in high school? You remember the stars and stripes and playing lunch and stuff like that. So anyway, very cool

Janette Beier:

And the fact that you even bring that up is interesting to me, like your feedback is reminding me of that as I'm thinking, what is the good education for my children because we're redoing our curriculum again.

Aaron Beier:

Yeah.

Janette Beier:

I don't actually care about. Government or politics or history. Why do I remember the Stars and Stripes? Because of the cozy setting. Because there was art involved. Because my mom knew what I loved. And I had my snacks next to me. Because I was with family, right? I wasn't distracted by the boy I'm crushing on and is he looking at me? And the girl who's mean to me and am I going to see her at lunch? And the friend who I can't wait to see after school today. It's very socially distracting to be in public school.

Tim Eaton:

Very peer oriented. I'm excited.

Janette Beier:

I'm very social. And there's benefits to that, but for education and for family bonding. There's, that's not a benefit, right?

Aaron Beier:

No.

Janette Beier:

So that, that shifted me and I started homeschooling my little girls and I, those are still the most precious memories of my life. Sadly, when my husband passed, it felt like they all got lumped into the once was. So I have to value that it always was going to be a once was they're older now, right? But it was just this precious time where our homeschool was a lot of field trips, a lot of stuff. And we'd invite friends over to join our preschool. And so I was like, I'm never not doing this. We had great enrichment programs in our district. My kid was in like arts and she got to do a junior Broadway play I was preschooling them at home and I had a whole, I had a friend who sold out her whole preschool, so I just bought all of it and I did everything. Like I was a full preschool mom of three tiny humans. And I really loved it. My college degree is in English and people would say, Oh, good. Like you have a degree. Do people realize that if you can't educate, like ages 12 and under school failed you, you're And 12 and older, pretty much every homeschool parent by middle high school takes advantage of online options. Because

Tim Eaton:

The real question is, do you know how to read? The real question is,

Aaron Beier:

Are you determined? Because if you are a homeschool parent, or you want to be a homeschool parent, You just have to be determined and make that choice. Jeanette took me to the to the beach over in Frankfurt. We went and got some breakfast stuff and sat on the sand and I asked her on the way back. I said, so we're going to be interviewed. One, one thing to think about, cause we haven't talked to each other about this, just wanting it all to be organic. And I'm guessing you can get that. We both talk a lot, but no, I like it, man. You guys are good at this. The question I said was Why homeschool? And for me is there's a few things, but the main thing is purpose is we get to determine what the purpose is. And that allows the next thing, which is freedom from the limitations of what you have to do or what our kid is being forced to learn when they're not interested in it. Now we're on a trip traveling the country and teaching our kids about our nation's history, the good parts of it, the parts that were not so good and that we're ashamed of how that ties into Canadian, history. I talked to some Kiwis last night about their country and what it's like living there. These are all experiences that don't happen. Sitting in a public school at a desk. These are experiences happening, meeting people, traveling, and even if you're not traveling, but you're homeschooling, getting with other people who are homeschooling and doing those groups that Jeanette just talked about puts you in touch with other people that are intentional because you can't be a homeschool parent And not be doing that because you have some amount of intention behind it.

Tim Eaton:

No, it's very proactive. That's for sure. So how long have you guys been on the road?

Janette Beier:

Six months. We have a year of our home being rented and then we'll we'll go from there. It's changing everything. So the homeschool ended when we got married. Like I said, he had kids in public school also.

Tim Eaton:

Wait, what did your husband think of it? Your first husband? What did he think of you doing that?

Janette Beier:

He was very on board. He was really good at sorta we were very different, but we were at opposites attract, and He was good at respecting that I'm a major researcher, major. So by the time I come to a conclusion, you really are going to have a hard time making a point again, not because I'm argumentative, but because if you have a question, I'll go, Oh, here's research. When someone goes, what about socialization?

Aaron Beier:

She's a questioner. Yeah. And. That drives her to the research, right? But at her core, she's a questioner. And that is just her personality. And I think that's a

Tim Eaton:

common characteristics of these homeschool moms and dads, but especially the moms.

Janette Beier:

Anytime you break the mold, it's because you question the mold, right? And when you're comfortable in the mold, why break it?

Aaron Beier:

I'll jump in and T bone because my experience leading up to this with homeschool. Yeah. My late wife, she studied early childhood development at school. That was her major. She wanted to be an elementary school teacher, but she was afraid of the parents. Like she got through the program to the point of you're going to go do an internship in a public school. And she decided I'm going to change my major because I don't, I'm afraid of the parents because of her experience being in public school. And she grew up overseas. She went to international school. She was in Germany, two different times. So she, she had public school experiences in different continents and what her takeaway of all of that was parents are scary. And there's truth to that because they're not pleased with, The education their child is getting. So insert homeschool as an option. So she always dreamed that she would homeschool. No way. Her health didn't really go that way. But our daughter's preschool was Ellie's school and then when she eventually went into kindergarten, we had Darien's school and Darien was learning and doing his things. And then there was Bryn school and that was her doing homeschool in those preschool years. She didn't have enough in her. And really to do homeschool for multiple kids, but she did what she could. And so when she passed away and Jeanette was doing homeschool to the girls, I wasn't coming up going, Oh here's all the reasons why you can't do that. It was like, Oh yeah, that's very normal. That's very good that you do it. I'm glad you do it. I don't think that's going to work with our new dynamic of. What will be seven kids, but at that time there was three kids, four kids in public school and that evolved into, us, us putting our kids back into public school.

Janette Beier:

And you can homeschool seven kids, right? But part of it was there was a lot of changes happening. I only had one kid in kindergarten. It would have been okay for her to try public school, whereas his kids were older, had been in the school longer. Also of his four, our four, there are seven different disabilities. Only one was diagnosed when we got married, but my emotional radar was on and they've all been diagnosed and I was intimidated and thought there's a lot of resources in public school. I don't know how to teach like, I don't, I'm not, I'm their new mom. Like this, maybe it's going to be too much conflict, right? So I

Aaron Beier:

think that was insightful because if you pause in that and you think, why couldn't you do it? It was too much conflict. She was entering a role of a wife. And she went from three to seven and would be three to nine in less than a year. And if you enter the role of now I'm going to be your teacher, your mother, this new adult figure in your life with a new set of personal boundaries and rules that you may not like, that's just a lot of resistance. And so we did have the conversation of, do we, do you still homeschool the kids? Or not. And it was very apparent to me that we needed as much help as we could get to get our ground set. We needed to get our footing. We needed to figure out what was up and what was down. And in all of that, we were selling two houses and buying another one. And so there was just a lot happening. So we did decide to put them back in. Which is cool that

Tim Eaton:

there are options. That's one of the beauties of our system is that there are options and that's good for people to know.

Janette Beier:

And there is no bashing public school, right? One of the best pieces of advice I got from a homeschool podcast, I loved Homeschool IRL. That was one that I listened to. But they said never homeschool out of fear. Don't do anything out of fear and homeschool will not save your children. So there's a lot of fear based reasons that motivate keeping my kids home and safe, but I make certain that's not my determining factor. It's just a nice furniture benefit.

Aaron Beier:

Yeah. Yeah.

Janette Beier:

And the reasons that we don't necessarily let public school isn't that. Why we homeschool and we moved to the best district in Colorado, which already is one of the better states in the country. And we're in a mountain town and it was just everything we wanted school to be. And it was, it's a really good public school. So we were very happy with it. COVID hit and we did the online thing. And that was pretty monstrous to have. Oh my goodness. We had seven.

Aaron Beier:

There was six kids going to school. And, yep, six kids were going to school, and one of them,

Janette Beier:

Four were not, five.

Aaron Beier:

We were taking,

Janette Beier:

The twin girls were in kindergarten, so we had five kids doing the online school, but they're all little, where the parents have to help every step of the way. Yeah. That was a nightmare for everybody.

Aaron Beier:

Yeah.

Janette Beier:

So by that point, we were like, we know we're not doing online. And again, I fought public school. I don't know why I was fighting it. And I was talking to a friend and I was just telling her all the reasons I cannot public school, I can't homeschool all these kids and I miss it. And I loved it, but I've got these disabilities and I've got this kid who doesn't listen well, or this kid who throws fits every two minutes. Like I have two newborn babies, like this is just not feasible. We just were in the throes, by the way of renovating, we renovated our entire house and did an addition while pregnant, while blending. People think we're crazy and I know you,

Tim Eaton:

your guy's capacity is large.

Janette Beier:

Two caregivers getting together. You're used to doing the double load. We do. And it's a nice dynamic. We also know to like take care of each other and remind each other, you need a break, you need space, you need time. We're actually a lot better, believe it or not, with nine kids at romantic time and self care and personal time than before, because we've just learned you have to do it.

Aaron Beier:

Yeah.

Janette Beier:

But I was telling my friend all the reasons I just don't want to. And then as I, she wrote, she replied and said, it's so funny listening to you because I almost feel like you're having a hard time talking yourself out of it. And yeah, and I was like, how was that your takeaway? And then I said, okay, you know what? Anytime I resist something a lot, I need to let go of it and be open and just pause and go, hang on, what's the right answer? And I paused and I was prayerful and it was very clear. And I went from resisting it to so excited, which tends to be when I know something's right. Is I don't begrudge it. I'm like excited to do it. And so I shifted gears. I hit the ground running again with the what's the curriculum. What is it now? What are my options? We did find the good and the beautiful was something we really enjoyed. And we homeschooled for the year. And I, my daughter with sensory processing disorder did throw a fit at every single circle time. It wasn't the cute harmonious that it was with my three littles my ADHD boy burst out and struggle with the group stuff constantly. So at the end of the year we loved everything about homes, about COVID being home though. We did have 10 acres in the mountains, like we had a different situation with people, but we didn't go stir crazy. We just loved being us

Aaron Beier:

and just hanging out, be in a family and just, Hunkering down.

Janette Beier:

So we finished out the year and the house was amazing, by the way, my husband, he, like I said, he's a superintendent in construction. He had a climbing wall that went up to a hammock loft, like all of the kids bedrooms had a trap door that snuck them into the loft.

Aaron Beier:

It was

Janette Beier:

a huge kitchen with an industrial fridge, industrial freezer. We added a 50 foot deck on the second story.

Tim Eaton:

With the COVID homeschooling here in North America, at least it wasn't homeschool really. But you already had experience homeschooling.

Janette Beier:

Yes. And we didn't do the online public school at home that a lot of people did. And yes, because we had experienced, I, yeah, that was the experience that we had with homeschooling. We did do it fully. And it was exhaustive. It was, my, my kindergartner, like no matter what I did, I couldn't teach her anything. I tried every different thing and she just couldn't get the letter a, no matter what I did. So I realized for my ADHD child and my sensory processing disorder child, for whatever reason, with all my skills, I wasn't getting through to them. And I think the schools opened up and they had masks and I did find a special needs slash. Gifted, talented school that was half an hour away. And I enrolled both of them, which was actually really good for them. They had specialists that set them up that they sailed.

Aaron Beier:

So that was dad stepping in going, this isn't working. And I made calls and contacts with the people that were working those schools to be able to get late admission into the, those programs that's where I'm jumping in because up to that point, I had very little. Involvement with the kids homeschooling experiences. And then my new involvement was I'll drive these two to and from school every day and work in the middle. And on the outside of that hour long commute of taking them to and getting home and then going and picking them up.

Tim Eaton:

And Aaron, did you have like background? Had you read any homeschooling literature and have a philosophy it sounds like you're just a natural homeschool dad, I don't think I was like where you were asking things and you were going, no, this is about purpose and freedom. And like where I had to be taught by my wife and like grow into it, but we've been doing it for 16 plus years. So I've been exposed to so much literature. I wrote a dissertation on home education so that's in my story, but my wife was the natural. Questioner and just like unconventional thinking But were you guys into Charlotte Mason or like? TJ ed or something like that or you guys just doing just asking your own questions.

Aaron Beier:

Yeah, so for me That goes back to when I was a kid and people said what do you want to be when you grow up and I? Said I want to be a dad a dad is a lot like there's a lot that goes into What is a dad and everybody that is a dad or has a dad which is everybody Whether that father figure was in your life every day or just was a one time seed giver Dad means different things. Father means different things. And for me, it's it goes into that next step, which is in my core, I'm a developer. I love watching people grow and develop and learning new skills and learning social skills. I'm a soft skills developer guy. That's what I really enjoy doing. That's where I found joy in my career path in construction, developing people, building people, not building things. And so that was just me being an observer and knowing, okay, you have seven kids,, that turns into nine kids. And I've told this to many people, every kid is so different. And when you have a few kids, you say, Oh yeah, my kids are different. But when you have nine kids and there's nine differences, like it's more apparent that everyone is so unique and so different. So when I talked to one kid, it's I have to learn Swahili and I need to know that language and that culture to really connect with them. And I turned to my other child and I need to know French and Russian and German and Spanish and. whatever other language or whatever other personality traits they have, you have to tune in on that. And so for me, it wasn't a hard leap. In fact, I've loved this full timing, parenting, teaching, homeschooling thing. And that does do more of that upfront planning, list making, questioning, getting the curriculum. And then I just jump in and enjoy the ride for what it is. And I'm able to benefit from all of the work that she does up front. So that's my answer for how did I tune in on that? No, I didn't read any books. I didn't listen to podcasts. I just saw a need in my family and said, I'm going to do this. And then Jeanette supported that and was like if you think that's right, run with it, and I ran with it and it was on me, it was on my shoulders to be responsible for Getting those two to and from school, and she jumped in and did the mom things that mom do with making sure that all the other needs are met, right?

Tim Eaton:

And

Aaron Beier:

meanwhile, now she's at home, still homeschooling the other at that time, four children.

Janette Beier:

And to clarify, when he said this isn't working, I'm stepping in. It wasn't working because I was saying it wasn't working and he was helping. It sounded undermining, but that's not what happened.

Tim Eaton:

No I understand. Anyone listening is going I think I get that. There's like a ton of kids and a new situation.

Janette Beier:

And that's why you can't have hard fast rules, right? You can't be answering in public school. There's options and you have to see what your options are. So we ended the year. It was great, but it was exhausting because he was still working, right? So he was in his office. It was keep quiet. And then

Aaron Beier:

I was leaving to go to jobs.

Janette Beier:

Yeah. He was still on site. So

Tim Eaton:

you were doing construction.

Aaron Beier:

At that time I was working as a manager over closeout and warranty. So I did work from home and then I just went to every job that the company had and I closed it out. And I managed any warranty work and I went to site and met with clients and dealt with punch lists and all this stuff. And so I was able to do my own schedule, but very much working at home. But often I would be on the road, gone to a job and then come home before the end of the day. Cool. Right. He

Janette Beier:

was, he, he shifted the superintendent thing. He was gone about 70 hours. The twin

Aaron Beier:

boys were born. I stopped doing that because it was very apparent that my wife is amazing and awesome and can get seven kids off to school. But you add in newborns and yeah I'm breastfeeding and I'm trying to get kids out the door and they didn't eat breakfast and one kid just won't leave because their mitten won't get on. Like that. What do you do? You can't drive your kids to school that at that point. So I knew that I needed to step up and step in as. I need to help get the kids out the door. So when you

Janette Beier:

say, how do your personalities become homeschool parents? One is I like is, like I said, I'm the questioner, the researcher, the planner, and I think on a very emotional level, luckily as like structured as I am, I'm not so type a that. My plan matters more than people like people's experiences. All that matters. I will throw everything out the window if someone is emotionally struggling and we'll start from

Aaron Beier:

scratch.

Janette Beier:

So I'm good at getting the package ready to go. The two things that are really unique about Aaron is. The job that he switched to stay at home doesn't exist anywhere in the construction world. But when he's determined to do something, especially in the name of his family, he gets it done. And he just went around to different people until they said, we'll offer you a position that doesn't exist. Try it. He took a pay cut. Like he's I'll do it. And it ended up working really well. And the other thing is he's very open minded to new things. I'm a vegan. And you better believe that one of the most common questions I had after my husband died was how will you ever find another man who will eat vegan? And people were very concerned. Men don't eat vegan. That's a stereotype. I'm just repeating what people say. Yeah. And Aaron was like, you're a nutritionist? Amazing. Tell me more. And he'd never eaten plant based. He didn't know anything about the stuff that I taught him. But I asked him to read a book, and he's very open minded. He wasn't into yoga or meditation, and he loves it. Yeah, I did the Charlotte Mason research. I knew all about all those things. I presented it to him. So he was good with it. And I think like you said, he loves being a dad. He quit an important job and took a pay cut to just be home more. And so with homeschool, he was home more. So we finished the year. I was like, that was a lot. I'm glad I did it because it helps me see that I filled my little homeschool need that I missed, but it's not the same as when I had three little preschoolers. So it was hard. It was good for them. They love their public school. It's a good school. Then

Tim Eaton:

so that's what year, where are we now? No, that was

Janette Beier:

2020, right? That was COVID year

Tim Eaton:

in the

Janette Beier:

2021. All right. We have this big, beautiful home. We put a lot into it. We're by the way, debt free like I did the Dave Ramsey plan. He did it a little bit. So when we got married, he had a tiny bit of debt and I said, will you please pay that?

Aaron Beier:

I was on the last leg of student loans.

Janette Beier:

I've worked so hard to be debt free by 30, except for a mortgage. Wow. Then we put our, because of that, honestly, that's partly what gave us the leg up. We had two homes that had a lot of equity in them. When we sold them, we had a lot of money to go move to the mountains, which isn't cheap, but that helped us with that. So we'd lived in it for, Two years, the renovations were done for less than a year. And we found out that it was worth more than double what we bought it for two years before. That was when the market went psycho everywhere, especially like Colorado. And I had told Aaron, he asked me once, what's one thing you wish you had that you don't. We like to talk about dreams. Or

Aaron Beier:

choose your own adventure. We

Janette Beier:

have a dream book and we write down K one year, five year, 10 year dreams. And we do check it and it crosses off. Like we do what we dream. It's once you lose someone that important to you, you stop saying someday. and you can't be reckless. Like you have to plan, you have to have finances. But so many reasons people don't do something isn't'cause they actually can't. It's just because it takes a lot of work. Priorities and letting go of other important things. So it's just how important it's to you. So that's how, that's what people thought. We were crazy forgetting. Very fast and running off to the mountain and then selling this beautiful home that was going to be our forever home Because we said hey at this rate We could downsize a little bit still have enough to have a decent house for our family be mortgage free Look at all this extra money we have and the thing when he said what's one thing you'd love to have that you don't I said Travel cuz I love traveling. Yeah, I said, but I'm not having it. That's why we moved to the mountains We said if we can't afford to travel, let's live where we would travel to

Aaron Beier:

Yeah

Janette Beier:

And Aaron said done and he did what Aaron does and he like called realtors and was like you say you want this baby My baby gets my baby wants so You We, oh my goodness, like we listed it and it sold and we could not find a house to live in. And we thought it was a fluke in the market. Struck while the iron's hot, once spring comes it'll fizzle, but there was nowhere to live. So we toyed with it. The idea, there was nowhere even to rent. Aaron was looking online and goes, we can buy like a tour bus, like a team bus and just live on it until a house comes on the market. And we were like, that sounds awful. Unless we drove it to Maine and we were like, maybe we could do that until the market slows down. So by a lot of different. Miracles and me doing my research and my digging, right? It's my planning and his driven nature that keeps us moving he's the dreamer and I'm the realist, right? I like to say he jumps off the cliff and I quickly build a bridge under him and then we all get across. But if he didn't jump, I would never have gone over the cliff. We ended up finding a home that it just, the land is even more beautiful. It backs up to a state park. There's a creek running through it. There's a big meadow yeah, we moved there. It's a little smaller and it's, we said we weren't going to do anything to it, but we did, we paid we did a lot of stuff because we just can't help it. But now we're mortgage free, right? So now we're living that life. And his job that was supposed to be working from home, they found out he is dang good at being a superintendent. So they keep making him do that, even though that's not his job. So now he's gone all the time. And when you have nine children and after COVID, you cannot take multiple children to appointments anymore. Like moms aren't allowed to have multiple kids anymore. I had to cancel doctor appointments constantly. I have kids in therapy still. We have, we've gotten over the hill of grief, but we, it's always there.

Aaron Beier:

There's the disability side.

Janette Beier:

There's after school things we don't even really do after school programs because we just can't.

Aaron Beier:

No, no team sports, gymnastics, swimming.

Janette Beier:

He kept telling his CEO, listen up, he was honest all the time. I have nine kids. I need to be home. And I always thought they're not going to take that seriously in today's day and age, they're going to go. Everyone has kids hire a nanny or your wife can handle it. But he would say it like, no, I'm going home. And they kept pushing him to just do more and more jobs. And they were

Aaron Beier:

just project management role, finishing jobs before they were ready. And

Janette Beier:

we had those conversations where we're not okay with just getting by or surviving. And we've said plenty of people, dad works all day. We're paying the bills and mom does a lot at home. There's a lot of people are fine with that, but we're not fine with fine because we want to be thriving. And it was like, we always say, he tells his boss, my when my wife or I are doing the kids. One at a time, it's really hard. One alone with no help. It is not sustainable, but the two of us together, it's amazing. Like it's

Aaron Beier:

It's easy.

Janette Beier:

Magnified.

Aaron Beier:

It's just Oh yeah. It's not

Janette Beier:

sustainable. Like I can do it, but I'm stressed. I'm not. No, it comes

Tim Eaton:

back to what Aaron was saying about just like the intentional unity and that conscious proactive decision to, to do

Janette Beier:

that. Co workers can tell me all day long, like big deal, your wife's got it, but they're my kids and I miss them. Like I want to see my children.

Aaron Beier:

Yeah. So in January of 23, they put me on a job, a bank to finish. And I had four months before I had that thing done. And in may, I got a call that was, I just finished the job. I was now back to my role of working from home. And it was, Hey, how are you with being adaptable? And we need you to go do this other work for the next three months. And my experience was that wasn't going to be a three month job. It was going to be a six month job for sure. Finishing in The end of November, early December, which rolls into the next year, that in turn flashback and look backwards. That means I've been away from my kids, like from before the sun's up until the end of the day, all January, February, March, and April, it's now summertime and I'm going to be gone all summer, I'm not going to see my kids for a year.

Tim Eaton:

Yeah. You knew what it meant.

Aaron Beier:

And it was like, this is not setting right. This is now not just a problem. It's like a threat. On my family's wellbeing. Yes. That's how it felt. It was just like, this isn't going to work. We need another option.

Tim Eaton:

That wraps up another edition of This Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.