5 - Everyone has gaps in their education. Stop comparing.

Maeve stands up for righteousness when vulgarity nearly slaps her in the face, saving others from a mental picture that they're better off never imagining. Maeve and Mat also put parents minds at ease about educational gaps. We all have them! Let's not let comparison rob our homeschool and parenting joy. 

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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. 

Alright, so episode number

Okay, yeah, we're up to number five. Speaking of five, when I was editing the last podcast, I kind of kept a count and you had five cliches in that one.

So let's see, are you gonna, 

You go for ten this time.

I was thinking maybe you could go for  four kind of wean yourself off. Okay, let's just see what you do. . I said, sometimes we do get some things right.  In this episode, we're going to tell you how I had a chance to stand up for righteousness successfully this weekend.

And we're going to tell you about a saint that called to our family and that you should be asking to pray for your family if you aren't already.  And, oh! A power move that I made with my family's support in the marketing of my book. We're going to tell you all about that. Thank

Very powerful.

 And then finally, why as homeschool parents, we should never compare, never think I'm not doing enough.

Or that our kids are going to have some gaps in their education. These, this is all kind of one lie bundled up into three different threads. So we're going to talk a little bit about that.  So standing up for righteousness this weekend our swimmer had a swim meet and it was a biggie at least seven schools were there.

So lots of people on that swim deck.

swim date. I was homesick with the other kids.

and sometimes we divide and conquer so it's much easier to one parent go out and sit on a Florida steamy pulled it. I mean it was like 90 degrees sunny Oh is horrible,  so we divided and conquered Matt was a little under the weather he was home with the rest of the kids , here's a chance I had now, we've already spoken a little bit about how, , there's no modesty out there, these kids the boys are in their little speedo racers, the girls are in their racers but , what these kids have started doing is they write stuff on their body in black marker  messages to kind of, yeah,

, For example,  eat my bubbles or, , just little silly little fun.

cliches, so to speak.

yes.  Well sometimes kids  push the boundaries with that and they like one kid, he writes, he's a breast stroker and he'll write. I love breast. And it's like, okay, that's kind of iffy.

We see that double entendre you're trying to put, you know, so I'm walking down the pool deck and   you multiply 40 kids on a team by seven teams, the parents, there's hundreds of people out

Right.

This kid walks by and he has written on him in Sharpie marker, something very vulgar. Okay, it says

I don't know if you even want to repeat it. 

well, I think they need to know

I don't think they need a knife. Okay. I mean,  I had this t shirt back in college. Put it that way.  Okay, I didn't get rid of it.  So, props to him for bringing it

no, okay  He had an arrow pointing up  and then an arrow pointing this is on his stomach So an arrow pointing up at his head an arrow pointing down At his groin and in the middle, it said, two seater. 

Gosh.

Oh my gosh, that is horrible. So this kid walks by me and I said, Oh no, no, no, no. To myself.  I let the kid walk by.

I'm like, no, that's not going down on my watch. I walk over to the tent where his team is and I'm looking for a coach, an adult. Okay. I don't see someone looking official. I see a couple of parents, but I'm like, no, I'm not going to a parent with this. , I was like. I'm walking over to the officials.

Okay. This is, this is.

Oh, I'm sure you just beelined it right to

to the official tent, to the USA national official. They have to be there at a swim meet to keep everything, , kosher.  And I went to them. They were on a little break. There wasn't a race

Was he a backstroker? I 

I don't know. Why does that matter?

guess that's the only way that would work.  I'm sorry. Okay. I'm sorry.

you shouldn't have went there. 

I'm just. Okay.

Can I tell the righteousness part? Okay. So I went to the official table and I said, who do I need to talk to an official or a coach? I just saw a kid with something very vulgar written on his body and I repeated what it was. That one official looked at the other, she's like, go tell the main guy.

We walk over to the room where , the main official is. We go in there. I walk right behind that official. Like I'm coming and you know, if she needs my backup,   this guy's going to hear it. So she explains to the main official. He's like, I don't even know what that means, but yeah, you know, take care of it.

I said, well, the kids know what it means and , and there's going to be parents trying to explain it to their young children what it means. And that's not okay with me. And he's like, no, take care of that. Take care of that. So she, me and the other official, well, I, you know, I let the official go at this point.

I just walked behind her to see what was going to happen. She goes right over to there. She's like, I need to talk to a coach. There was no coach around, but a parent,  a team mom, she stood in for the coach and. When the official told her, now this kid was literally standing next to that team. Mom literally,  no, no,  she pulled her to the side  a minute before this kid with that written on him was standing by that mom, the mom gets pulled to the side and she told,  one of your guys has this written on him. 

And when she repeated it, that mom, she goes,  gasps, her jaw drops open, her eyes get wide  she had no idea. It's like, okay, get your blinders off parents.

Exactly. Look a what these kids are doing..parents. 

Exactly. , be present, take initiative, see what's going on. And the official says he needs to wash that off. He needs to wash down and get that off.

And that Boom.

Unfortunately his buddies did it in permanent marker, he didn't know it. He got it.

off. And you know what? Poor kid. He's the butt of the joke because you look at this kid and I can promise you  this kid's never got a day of action in his life. Okay.

gosh, okay, let's not judge.

but that's the problem is he let his friends do that to him.



Oh, they were probably laughing all the way to the  bank on that one. They're like, okay, he has no clue what we just put on him.

right. When I told my child what I had done and this child knows I stand up for the truth and this child is proud of me when I stand up for the truth. 

She

didn't even know what it meant. She's like,  I thought it,  she's like, I saw that. And I thought he meant like the avatar ride or something. 

She's like, I thought he wrote it backwards or something. He was trying the avatar ride at Disney or something.  ...



And for someone who says, Oh, you know, that's too much. Your child is too guarded that she looked at that and she didn't know what it meant. But when I did say, okay, it's very vulgar. And I told her who it was. , She realized and she  then she  put two and two together.

So it's not that she's so Sheltered that she doesn't know it's that her mind is not poisoned

She's not going

yet to go there automatically But we do educate them on this kind of stuff is gonna yeah so righteousness won that day at the pool deck and so did our team  my daughter dropped in every race, she dropped time.

So ding, ding, ding, ding winner all the way that day.

Good call. Yeah.

. And one of the reasons we won that day and every day is because we ask the saints to pray for our children to the Lord. They're up there in heaven with him. And , all you have to do is scroll one Catholic page. On Instagram, go into the comments and you're going to see all these arguments of why do we pray to dead people.

So I'm just going to throw some Bible verses out there real quick, because I'm not here to argue, , should we do this or not? I'm here to tell you how effective it is. So in the burning bush and Jesus quoted this later, he said, I am a God of Jacob and Isaac and Abraham. I am a God of the living.

Another verse says we have a cloud of witnesses in heaven.  If you want to deep dive into that for the truth, that's it. But I'm going to tell you about  a saint who called to our family when we went to Philadelphia.

Great trip. 

Yeah, it was awesome. We had studied, we had done a unit study on Benjamin Franklin and the founding fathers George Washington.

of Independence. Yeah,

 It was winter too is getting cold.

it was very cold.

us Florida people were like, this is amazing. We went in  November  and we took them to the independence hall  to see that. And that is a Highly, highly recommend top trip. You should take  after we studied that the history of our nation and what our founding fathers,  went through and did when we walked into independence hall and we walked into that room, that same room where our nation was founded.

I teared up. It was so patriotic. I, I saw the chair that George Washington sat in. My kids saw the Benjamin Franklin spectacles.  I think Jefferson's walking stick is still there. So amazing. This trip was so good.  I don't know if we've talked about it before, but every time we go to a national park or even a state park, usually they have the junior ranger program,

Yep.

which is fill out this thing, do some activities and you get a junior ranger badge.

you gotta earn it. They don't just give it to you.

Right,  our kids got sworn in for the Junior Ranger. It was so cute. They had their Junior Ranger badge on, and we're walking outside of Independence Hall. And their chests are just puffed up.

of Like they just signed the declaration of independence, they're that into We're part of history. Yeah,

And one of them picks up a piece of trash off the sidewalk and throws it in the trash.  Because that's one of the junior ranger

and keep your

yep, duties, keep it clean. It was just so cute to see them in Philadelphia, we. Went to a mass. We just looked up masses. We went to a mass that was near our air BNB.

Oh, another cool thing. Our air BNB that we stayed at was in.

like little

It was in a little Italy section, so it was on the street that Rocky ran down and want to hit through the market. Yeah, and and then you got to 

Around the stairs,

ran the Rocky stairs.

with Aggression. I didn't even stop. Yeah. Our little, one of our kids followed me. I didn't even wait. I'm like, you're ruining the moment kid. I can't carry you.  I gotta hustle. 

Yeah, the the tour guide is like, , we have where our nation was founded we got Independence Hall We got the Liberty Bell. He's like, this is the most popular stop on is where Rocky ran up those steps. 

He's like, anybody want to do it? Handful of us got off. We did

bus and they were it was

hands up in the air.  But no, it was a cool city definitely for

Oh yeah. And they have the St. Peter and Paul Basilica where we went, we went to see that. Okay. Always in a city you're traveling, look up the basilicas. You're going to show your kids so much history, art, beauty, just by visiting the basilicas. 

 Went to mass at just this little neighborhood church. 

And we're in the back of that.  Someone had to use a bathroom or something and I see on the wall a picture of a saint whom I had never known  Saint Rita of Cassia  and the thing that caught my eye is that her feast day is on one of our daughter's birthday So I said look at that. Oh, wow. Let's look her up.

This  can be a patron saint of yours because you're born on her feast day.  I look it up on the phone Lo and behold, the National Shrine for St. Rita of Cassia is not only near us, not, not an Uber drive away, a literal 20 minute walk away from where we were in that little neighborhood church.

And do you remember though, we had  Google mapped it and we got to the end point and it was in a vacant lot. , how old was that information that you got? Because we're literally, we just walked with all our kids in cold weather 

Two

Well, more than

You were mad. You were

oh, I was, I'm like, you're kidding me right now.

There's nothing around

Well, it was like a block over. We

Right.

it.  So, the National Basilica, this, this thing was amazing. It had relics of her. It had her habit. Oh, let's tell you about St. Rita of Cascia, okay?

She's the patron saint of hopeless causes and yes, , sometimes homeschooling and parenting is a hopeless cause. So yes, pray to her. So pray to her to pray for your children and your family. , this is St. Rita. When she was a young infant. A swarm of white bees flew around her. They knew,  even growing up, she had these little miraculous things happen.

But her parents forced her to marry, even though she wanted to be a nun. They forced her to marry. She was obedient to her parents and she married this jerk. He was alcoholic. He was a abuser.  But she said, this is my calling. She prayed for him.  So fervently that he converted and became a Christian and a good man.

However, because of his  former life of his dealings, he got murdered and stabbed by somebody he had done wrong. Well, her two sons who were kind of grown at this point, maybe 18, 16 ish, let's say young adults, they were gonna.  Avenge their father's death, but st. Rita prayed so fervently , please Lord.

Don't let them commit a mortal sin that they would be  condemned to hell she guess what happened They contracted an illness and died

Whoa.

and she's like, well, thank you Lord that they're in heaven with you. Yep.  She wanted to be an  Nun, and she prayed and prayed and prayed they wouldn't let her join the convent until finally one evening two saints from heaven came down.

One was John the Baptist. I can't remember the other one. And they took her into the convent, but behind locked doors. So when all the other nuns awoke and found her, the woman that they had rejected a few times, they're like, okay, join us then since you're here mystically. Then she even got the stigmata.

She got the crown of thorns stigmata. Okay.  Let's remember her as the patron saint of , hopeless causes. , I feel like she did call to our family to say, Hey, , come and see me in the shrine, she, there was a crypt down there. So.

below the

Yeah. Huh.  And this was also during the year of mercy.

So on top of that, we walk through the doors to get that's one of the things you could do to be wiped clean of, , any past sin, plenary indulgence as we got to walk through one of the doors for a plenary indulgence. So  we, it's Think that she is a great saint for families.

Yeah, really cool.

Okay , let's talk about some other miraculous things that's happened.

Because,

listen,  we dedicate this, our work to the Lord. We want other families to know him and teach their kids the faith. And he's blessing us.  Power move in the marketing of my book now as a person who's unknown. You really want someone who would endorse your book or a few people.

So if you look at anybody who puts out a book, they're going to have people that say, Oh, this book is great. So and so did this great. And it's somebody of notoriety and

trying to get on the Oprah Winfrey Book of the

no, not

Oh, okay.

Oprah's horrible. That's like against now, you know, she, we don't want to do with it, but right. You need something like that.

Okay. What Reese Witherspoon or somebody's book of the month club you want to be on something like that. Yeah. So I've reached out to people in the industry who are doing what I want to do. They're, they're speaking, they're writing books, , they've joined the homeschool movement and are telling people, this is why get your kids out of public schools.

It's terrible. So I've reached out to a handful of people and I haven't really gotten much of a response at all. The one person that did respond to me because I, I emailed them and said, Hey, our values align. I heard you on this podcast. You're talking about exactly what I talk about in my book. They got back with me and I said, well, you know, would you consider taking a look at my book?

They're like, yeah. And now this person is a giant. In the homeschool movement, an expert to the nth degree. Just amazing what this person has done. 

Travels all over the

I'll internationally, okay.  I, when I talked to them and I was going to send my book, I realized this person.

Lives 30 minutes from us  and the Lord just put on my heart invite invite him to dinner So I invite this family to dinner and first my kids when I told them  we're having these people over  And you should have said their face  scrunched up like, huh?

 What the we're having strangers over this is anxiety building for everyone But I showed him my vision  I'm networking here you guys. I need your help with this. I need you guys to be hospitable and kind and  

hospitable and so we don't tell them, it goes downhill quick. No, I'm just kidding. No, we really didn't need to tell them. We just kind of had to reinforce, hey, this is what's going

this is our, yeah. And so they come over, we have great conversation. The kids, they all just play together. And,  it was such a big victory of, 

Oh, put yourself out there.

Yeah.

Right. Putting myself out there. Building a relationship with another homeschool family. That's the, I think that's the key takeaway is that we, but we both definitely said, Oh, we'll have you guys over again or the kids get, let's do a field trip together.

So that was super

definitely win win.

 So one of the things that we laughed about is 

In the homeschool realm, plenty of people know about the dictionary, the  Webster's  1858 or 21 dictionary, because dictionaries nowadays, they  dumb it down. They don't, if you look up patriotism now versus patriotism

in  1821

1821 or, you know, certain things.

 And you can look up this dictionary online  and lots of families do this. , they go by this dictionary and it's a great idea. 

It's back before politics got involved in determining what a word means.

exactly, exactly. So we were talking about it and this family's talking about how they use that dictionary. They pull from it all the time , and at least I knew about the dictionary. I wasn't  completely oblivious to it, but this is where I could have. Actually gotten really discouraged if I would have compared myself, because about two weeks ago, one of our kids  asked, what's a dictionary 

Then we look at each other like, oh goodness, okay. 

Now, okay. To my defense, this kid learns on an abacus and knows what an abacus is.

Yeah, because everybody uses those. Okay,

, that's the beads. Yeah. Even ancient Pharaoh or ancient Egyptians use the abacus as a calculator. Okay. 

ancient Egyptians use an abacus as a calculator? That's the question. 

The abacus is a classic educational tool. Okay. So, so if I would have been tempted to be like, Oh, well, my kid doesn't even know what a dictionary is. No, I mean, you can't, you can't compare because the kid who asked about ,  what's a dictionary, this kid writes  their own books and, you know, does all kinds of stuff.

So 

That's what Google's for, come on.

yeah. .

 I think, I think even encyclopedias have like gone out of existence, haven't they? Do people even use those anymore? Yeah, no, I mean, ,

They're on the back shelf behind the librarian's desk. No one even. Yeah. So there's going to be little gaps here and there in your kid's education. . Because even if You send them to a school where they're gonna be in front of a professor and six times six different professors that are experts in that field There's still gonna be gaps in their education.

No matter what







So let's not compare ourselves.  There's some lies that homeschool moms are going to buy into. It's I'm not doing enough. I'm going to ruin my kid or, they're going to have all these.

Gaps in their education , that's only going to come if we are comparing ourselves, which is never a healthy habit because you're either going to feel insufficient when you don't measure up or you're going to turn around and feel haughty because, Oh, I'm doing it better than somebody.  And neither of those attitudes is what God wants for his sons and daughters.

And do you remember what God told us through the prophet Jeremiah? 

I don't know, because I can't read without my glasses on. 

For I know the plans I have  for  you. It's one of the most

Oh,

right? 

Have been more specific,

declare. Right.  For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans  to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.   So that's what we need to do is focus on his plan for us. Because when we try to imitate what someone else is doing,

Oh, it'll never be good enough.

no.

You're, all of a sudden you're doing way too much, you're trying to go here and there, you're getting burnt out, your mental energy is zapped, and you're counting the days till your next vacation.

Right.

And worst of all, your bones are going to start to rot. Okay? That's biblical. A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.

Is that like arthritis? 

From a life of comparison. Yes. Yes. So one time my dad took my kids to the park and when they came home from the park, they were so exuberant because they had met a family,  a homeschool family. And on top of that, they all had an age doppelganger. All four of my kids had a kid and they were all  athletic.

They were vibing off each other's energy. Even my dad got the mom's number. He's like, look, I got this mom's number for you. So we start hanging out with them, the Clarks, and now there's some of our best friends  we've had. Thanksgiving Easter together. We've had Super Bowls together.

But the first time my friend invited me over.  She's like, hey, you want to come over for math Monday? Okay,  sure heck Yeah,  let's get out of the house and

I come over there whiteboard They have math Monday tech Tuesday wisdom Wednesday I don't remember what they had for Thursday, but that th diphthong that's hard to alliterate with So she had some  and I'm thinking To myself, I'm already like, wow, this lady has it so together better than me.

I don't even know what we're doing in the morning. Half the time, literally let alone hair math Monday, 

let's just make it through Mondays. Gotta think what your day

exactly. So she's showing me around and they have. Montessori manipulatives in every room. It's a three bedroom house in two of the bedrooms. It's wall to wall Montessori and Montessori is a style of learning that says when the hands are engaged, so is the mind. So it's all these cool learning tools learning toys, three ring binders on how to teach it.

They had a little fireplace nook that  had a curtain and she opens it up and there's all these Legos.

Legos. 

These Legos are divided, separated in one gallon bags by color.

Nice

Girl, I'm like, wow. This mom is amazing.  Oh, to the nth. But when she stood in front of her bedroom and said, we can't go in here.

This is where we sleep. My jaw must've hit her shiny floor and I hope she didn't see it.  This is where we sleep. They are so dedicated that they had turned the bedrooms into little classrooms and all four of the kids slept in there with the parents.  And so it's like, if I ever had all my kids sleeping in our bedroom, you might as well just take me to the loony bin.

Cause that's where my mind already done went. Okay.

Yeah. No, thank you. 

Yeah, not so not our wheelhouse,  at all.  If I had to get rid of all my  throw pillows and shelf corals and home decor for math manipulatives, I'll be hugging myself and rocking in a corner. Okay.

Sucking on your thumb. Like staring out into the ocean. Ocean

Okay, yes, so  you just gotta realize , the Lord has given you  certain gifts and He's given other people certain gifts.

And one of the things that keeps me focused is this prayer I got from Lisa Brennick Meyer. She has written a bunch of Bible studies, walking with purpose is her ministry and it's so helpful. The prayer is. Lord, help me get done what's on your to do list and not mine today. And so it's so freeing to just say those words and let God take control of my day as he guides me, listen through the promptings of my heart, my kids enthusiasm or my frustration level.

And it lets me know, am I going in the right direction or do I need to call a dumpster fire on this lesson plan and regroup?  That's how I know when that I'm doing enough.  And just to drive home the point of how much you're doing by homeschooling. When I took my eldest child out of sixth grade at the , at the government school,  I took her out in December 

it was immediately midway through the year. So she had 18 more weeks.

of school. 

I took those same exact classes that she  had, and I put her online learning.  You know how long it took her to finish those 18 weeks of courses?

Probably half the time.

A third. Six weeks.  That she finished her whole entire school year, 720 hours to be exact.

That's in the comfort of your living room. It's six weeks compared to 18 weeks. So that's 12 weeks of wasted time. That's family bonding activities. That are more frequent when you bring them home, we have more time to do hobbies. We have more passions to explore. We had  480 more hours to go on field trips or to sit on a pile of pillows and get lost in a book. 

The point is, I guess there are two points. One. So much time is wasted in school institutions  and two no matter what you're doing as a family Homeschooling forms your child in deeper ways  than the school system will ever be capable of

 Homeschooling forms your child no one's going to look out  for yourself more than you will.



. Or

Or your child. Or your child, no one's gonna love your child and look out for your child more than you will. Having your child home learning with you and developing their talents and passions has so many benefits. You should never think you're not doing enough, ever. It's freeing that just understand you're doing enough for your child.

In the home, that homeschooling is the best thing for her  and for posterity's sake, think about this,  82 percent of grown up millennial people that were homeschooled plan to use homeschooling for at least part of their children's education.  So , you're raising your grandkids parents. .

So think of the generational benefits for your offspring if you decide to, or are already homeschooling.  , here's a couple of action items for you  on social media, mute or unfollow anyone to whom you compare yourself. Even more effective, you could do a complete social media fast for an allotted period of time. 

But I would ask you to go ahead and follow us on social media. At Maeve Jemison, and if you like the vibe we're putting out, please give us a review on the platform that you listen on so that others can hear the message and you can go to maevejemison. com to learn more about us or grab my book, Home is Where the  📍 Truth Is.