Missy Willis | From Unschooling To Exams

Autogenerated Transcript

Jesper Conrad: 00:00
Today we are together with the wonderful Missy Willis, who we had the pleasure of talk with way back in the start of our podcast. Your project and your podcast letting go barefoot. And I was like, oh, there's some people out there we have talked with, I want to talk with again, and you were among them. So here we are.

Missy Willis: 00:21
Well, thank you. Thank you so much for asking me. I love talking to you.

Jesper Conrad: 00:25
Missy, so what have been going on in your life since last time? You're still doing your podcast from time to time and still focused and focused on parenting. Or where are you in your life?

Missy Willis: 00:39
So that was two years ago. And at the time, my youngest was still pretty fully immersed in sort of homeschool experiences and activities. She has since graduated, moved on to doing what we call dual enrollment here, which is where she takes classes at the community college. So she can get high school credit, college credit simultaneously. And my son, who he's 23 now, he is he finished getting his personal trainer's license. So he's moved on to doing that and he's starting kind of developing those skills. And he's even moving towards more entrepreneurial type stuff there while he's simultaneously in college. So I'm telling you about them because their activities directly impact my activities as they have over the last, you know, 20 years of us doing this homeschooling thing. And so I've just found lots of projects to get involved in. We've moved. We moved from our home of 21 years and we downsized a little bit and moved a little further out of the city into a smaller town, different county, which was been great. This was kind of on the back burner for a while. Living in the city that we were in, the taxes just kept going up, going up, going up. And we were like, you know, and we really wanted to update our house, but then it was just cost prohibitive at that point. And we were like, maybe it's time. So we did. It was a big deal. I mean, for a while I resisted it because I loved our house and that's where I raised my children. So of course I see their little, I just see them all over the place, right? But because they're older and thankfully they were able to provide some comfort to me, even like mom, it's good. We've we've loved this house. We this house has served us well and we're okay. And to the point where my son, one day, when we were at our new house, it was the first Christmas last year, and we were driving around doing stuff, and he's like, So can we rate on a scale of one to 10 how much we actually miss the other house? And for him, it was like barely anything. And that was so surprising to me because I felt like as a mom, I was protecting them by protecting this house. And yet it's it was it just meant something different to me. And that's something I think is so important to remember as parents is that just because we feel it a certain way, does that mean that they will? And and they're old enough, obviously, to have an opinion and they were old enough to have opinion as a kid, kids as well. So yeah, my youngest was like, We'll never leave this house. This is where I'm gonna live after you're gone. When she was like nine years old. But of course, by the time she got to be, you know, 16, that was a totally different perspective. So so we moved, that was a big deal, and then I have started taking up tutoring again. I'm working with kids in the community. I just really missed working with families and children regularly. And as in the homeschooling world, I had a lot of opportunity to do that. We got to run activities and lead classes and organize events, and I'm just not needed in that capacity anymore with my children. So I was like, I'm bored. I had to start finding something to do. And then, you know, I write all the time too. So I've got another project I'm working on with a longtime friend that's another writing project. So that's that's how I'm keeping busy.

Jesper Conrad: 03:56
Nice. Can we talk about maybe it wasn't fearful for you, but I will present it as the fear of the step, the time that comes when you move from homeschooling towards day one to start in college or university. The whole have I done it good enough? Is it now all my fails will be seen? I have ruined my children's lives. How was you on that fear level? If that's the truth.

Missy Willis: 04:26
No, that's a great question because you're right. It is one of those moments where it's like, okay, it's sink or swim, and whatever we've done up to this point, you know. I think a lot of parents feel that way, whether you, whether kids go to school, public school, private school, or even homeschooling, that there's just this sense of like, did I give them everything they needed? Did I do all the things? But I think because we were able to, so my oldest sort of projected this out. He kind of planned things out. We knew what was coming and we also knew what was expected. So we were able to sort of backfill. So it was like, if you want to do this, you have to do ABC. If you want to do this, you know, so we knew kind of what was needed. And so he was able to do the very specific classes andor the studies that he needed in order to achieve that next step. Thankfully, because of the state that we're in, our homeschooling laws are really relaxed and it's they give you quite a bit of freedom to homeschool as you see fit. And you do have the ultimate say in what you feel like your child is capable of doing. So it's not like we have to give them some sort of test that says now you've passed high school. It's more what we feel like they deserve as far as a transcript looks like. And because he was taking a lot of classes locally through different programs that were available, we were able just to use those. So it wasn't even really like I had to create anything. It was more like, well, you took that. So we can, you know, that's on the list. And we took that. So so there, there's definitely, you know, things that were done that he was able to complete that gave him that satisfaction and that understanding and also gave me that too. But also being with them as much as I have been, I just know what they're capable of, you know, and I know what kind of I just I just know that when they've set their mind to something, they're gonna do it. And I'm just a lot of times I'm just set up, I'm just the cheerleader. I'm like, go, go, go, you know, this is what you want. I'll do whatever I can to support you. And if you need my help, let me know. But I will also kind of take a back seat. I don't want to, I don't want to try to drive anything. So now my daughter's doing, like I said, she was nervous. I will say that with one of the classes, she was like, Oh, I don't know, I don't know. I'm like, take it step by step, you know, if you feel like you need more deeper diving into a particular topic or skills that you need to develop, there's so many ways to go about it. And they've decided to do everything virtually too, which was kind of surprising to me. I expected them to want to go on site, but then again, they're very practical people. So they were like, why would I drive 30 minutes to drive 30 minutes when I'm taking a 45-minute class and I could just stay in my room and then I'm done?

Jesper Conrad: 07:02
Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 07:02
Well, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's funny actually how our story is just aligned right now. So you moved and we just moved today, and you did a big fish and big move, and we did a casual nomadic one, and now you're talking about that transition, and and we're actually in it as well, not with all of ours, because our youngest is only 13, so he's still an actual homeschool child, child, even. It's I think it's a lot, it's it's like high school and the first year of college, kind of. You need to have that education in order to be accepted into university. It's really hard to get in without that. So you need the formal papers, and they need to be you can't, I can't just decide that they're not if they want to do university, and they do, so they suddenly, not suddenly, they've decided they wanted to do university, and now suddenly two of them, actually, three of them, the oldest one as well. So we have a 26-year-old, she's doing that university preparation course, and so are our 19 and 17-year-olds, and it's just such a huge change. It's such a huge change. I and it happened. I've been working to make it happen, helping them to find a way to get in after being homeschooled, as homeschooling is not normal, or you know, there's just no process for it in our country because no one really does it. We knew we wanted this, and then suddenly we made it. Suddenly there was like this loophole, or this, you know, we just suddenly there was a crack in all the walls we usually have been uh banging into trying to get in. So now suddenly they're studying, and they're studying for exams, and we have exam dates, and we have curriculum, and we have the pressure, and we have to you know plan out things, sit three hours a day, and it's come we you know, I'm ordering school books on Amazon.

Jesper Conrad: 09:15
It's just it.

Cecilie Conrad: 09:17
I mean, I was a whole an unschooler two months ago, and I'm still an unschooler, I think, but you know you know, that's just just really strange.

Jesper Conrad: 09:26
I I think it's really interesting to see a brain that has been focused on learning and doing exactly what it wanted, saying to our daughter saying to herself, okay, so I need to understand this math here to get in. I've never been interested in it. And now she has three months to read up the whole curriculum from uh nine years, and she's like, Okay, if that's what it takes, I will do it. And seeing her brain go into that year is interesting, but it's also interesting to see this, it's a different kind of tired you get, and also the brain also gets fulfilled in another way. There's something about math that is interesting for the brain to puzzle with and work with, and there's an another part of the brain that is interesting to work with when you work with animals. It's just like different muscles that need to be trained. I find it interesting to see them go like all of a sudden, okay, now now I'm done. Now, and then the brain just needs to relax for some hours. Yeah.

Missy Willis: 10:37
Yeah, I I've for sure seen what I believe to be the direct result of being able to follow your interest, learn at a pace that makes sense for you, without comparing yourself constantly to 20 plus other kids. There's a sense of understanding about themselves that maybe they would have gotten if they were in the public school or traditional school setting, but it just feels like there's a lot of less extra stuff to work through. And then they just understand what they need to do. And then they also don't have that burnout. So the fact that they didn't have to do the K through 12 curriculum, be up every day for somebody else's schedule and not be able to rest when they wanted to, and all those things. Their desire to do these classes and to do this coursework is so much more exciting. You know, they're just like, let's do this, you know, I'm ready. So it's like their brain is so much more open to and ready for. And they also see the point of it. You know, it's not like just do it because it's more like I'm doing it because. So they have a reason for doing classes to get to the next step. And the reality is we do have a system set up across, you know, many countries where it's like, in order to do B, you have to do A, ensure there's ways to circumvent those sorts of things. And, you know, so I wasn't sure if my son was going to pursue the four-year degree. And and my whole thing from the very beginning is always choose what makes sense for you and you're able to pivot and modify when needed, you know. And I think we put such a timeline on everything, you know, it's like by 18, you have to do this, and by 20, you have to do this. And I just I pulled it back and it's like, let's just slow it down a little bit. And and some people may argue that it is good for kids in order to be within their sort of peer groups around the same doing kind of the same things. But I kind of pushed back on that a little bit because I'm like, but I don't want the peer group to be the driving force. I want their internal being the driving force, you know. So now that he's pursuing a four-year degree, he's technically, you know, a year or so behind his same-age peers. But in my mind, he's very comfortable because he's built all these different skills that he knows what works for him and what doesn't, what lights him up and what doesn't. And he's also saved money, you know. I mean, he was investing at 17. And so this like it's fascinating to me because I'm like, I wish somebody, I wish I would have known to do that at 17, or somebody would have been like, hey, take your money and put it in something. Because, you know, now he's got this understanding of finances in a way that I did not have at that age. And he is just very solid in kind of the direction he wants to go. And I really appreciate that for him.

Jesper Conrad: 13:24
Yeah, Missy, I have a question, which is I can't remember how homeschooled, unschooled in a curriculum you your version of homeschooling was. And actually, very late compared to how you see it being pushed into school's flow of what they need to learn when. It is like something happens around 14, 15, 16, that when puberty hit, and after the whole hormone bump had been thrown and like they're settling down, then it's like their brain wakes up in a new way.

Missy Willis: 14:11
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I I for sure saw that. It was a very clear, like I almost noticed it in photographs, even just how they're it's almost like their faces changed, you know. They're just the way they present themselves, the way they they look. It it's sort of like from one year to the next, you can see this. And so my son was about 15 when he was like, I'm ready for something a little bit more. And my daughter was probably about 16. And she and and she's always been very creative. So she was always drawing, drawing, drawing. But it it is, it's it's just clear that they want something different and a little bit more. And I think you're right. I think there is something about the brain at that age where they're just like trying to like all this experiences they've had up to that point, now they're trying to level it up a little bit and trying to apply it all.

Jesper Conrad: 15:04
When I look at it and I look at how we're doing schools, then I get very grateful for the rest that we're able to give our preteens or pre-pupesant teenagers that they have time to be children. Yes. And then the whole hormone bump is thrown into the mix and they go into puberty, and it is wild years for some of them. There's a lot of emotions and new things happening in the body that they need to take uh to figure out. And when they land after that, then it's like the brain is hungry after something, and that makes me very grateful to homeschool. But I can also see that if you have a child in school and they need to live through this period, and with all the social life and peer orientation that goes on in the schools, then there's not a lot of time for the actual brain work that would need to be done in those two or three years, where if you don't have a schedule, you're not together with 28 other people most of the day, then you can actually do math mathematics like our daughter does now three or four hours a day. She started like shown in because she really wanted to understand it. And for our son, it was other things he went into, and I can see now our youngest he is on the not the height of puberty hitting, but it is hitting. It has been difficult for him, and now he is slowly landing, and the landing will take longer time because he it is just uh physic uh physical. He it will take time, he will grow and everything. But I can already see the lot uh the desire to do and change and have aspirations for what you want to do in life is coming. This front shift from being a child to be a young adult. It's interesting to see.

Missy Willis: 17:15
Yeah, it's really amazing. And it's um, and it's exactly like you were saying, that the the time that they have in order to really go through those changes and transition is, I think, one of the biggest travity travesties of our our experience here is that we've taken their time, we've stolen their time. And it's you know, I've it's there, I'll see, because I used to teach, I was trained as a teacher and have friends who were trained as teachers and we would share stories. And, you know, one of my friends, she started homeschooling before I did and introduced me to home schooling. And uh, you know, one of the things that she had said was, I just feel like that we've we've stolen children's full potential because we've told them what they should do and and we've told them what they should do with their time. And then I think when we we've taken the time like we have, we've also taken their the flexibility that they have to pursue different interests. And I I mean, I think you know, we we all have influences in our lives, depending on where we live, our family, you know, our cultures. And I think that those influences are never gonna go anywhere. But there's that internal, I just keep going back to that internal clock or internal voice that really got to be ignited during the younger years, and and then they got to be really true to themselves through their teenage years in a way that might have been trickier if they were immersed in the thousand children school in our in our city. So I'm I'm very happy for that. I know my son, and this is the other piece of it, and maybe you guys have experienced this too, since you have older children, but he's been able to like see the world from different perspectives with all the different people he's interacted with. And he's told me thank you several times. And he's just so grateful. And I'm like, oh, that like makes me teary thinking about it because you go through those phases as a mom, as a parent in general, where you're wondering, Am I doing it wrong? Did I did I did I make a bad mistake? Should I have should I've put them in school? Did I steal these opportunities from them by making this decision? And and I will say we made it as a family. Like, I mean, sure, I insta like I started it, and every year we sort of re-evaluated, and then we were like, Are we happy with what we're doing? Do we want to keep going? And the kids were like, Yes, and then we would reevaluate again. And there was at one point, well, one of them really did think that maybe school would be fun, but then the realization was you have to be up at this time and you don't get to come home when you want to, and you have to stay until this time, and then it was like, never mind.

Jesper Conrad: 20:00
So yeah, I have this thought, which is and it has happened inside the last couple of years, and it has been more profound since I turned 50 last winter, and it is I actually in some ways feel not wiser, but that I come back to some of the clean-spirited values I had when I was a teen. I remember being very strong on some opinions about how to treat animals and you shouldn't litter, and a lot of stuff around when I was 11, 12, 13, 14. And then it went down the rabbit hole of being a young boy partying and having a lot of fun. And and I took my values and pushed them aside. And I don't know if it's the age thing or just me maturing uh slow or whatever, but after I've turned 50, I'm like, I I see that I'm in some sense more the boy that I was before I got my values skewed by young adult party and trying to be like everyone else's lives. How do you feel about growing older?

Missy Willis: 21:25
I turned 50 three years ago, and it was one of those where it's you know, you hear the number and it sounds older than it is. So for me, it was like, okay, 50 is just a number, you know, age is all in your mind. Thankfully, and I I use this as my my guide, my grandmother lived to be 100 years old. She died in 2019, and she was actually doing really well up until like three weeks, four weeks before she passed. We had our 100th birthday party and she died a month later. So it was just like downhill quick. But anyway, all that to say I think of her and I'm like, you know, she used to always say she was gonna live to 100. So it's like she put it in her own mind and that sort of mind ever matter thing, you know, with like, oh, you're aging. It's like, no, just put put your mind to whatever, whatever it is you want to do. But I will say, the this time for me is such a reflection, a reflecting time because of the fact that my kids are older. And I've always kind of been a in my head sort of person. I've spent like I always joke and say I'm never alone because I don't get bored really easily at all. I can just sit here and think about stuff and plan and organize and consider and you know, run through philosophy and all things. But I I appreciate the fact that I can age, I feel, gracefully at this point in life. And, you know, I I don't feel like I have very many regrets in the choices that I made with what we did as a family. There's a lot of pressure in our society, I think, for women to have it all. And and that means for some people, full-time career, full-time family. And to me, I just see that as a recipe for burnout because I just feel like you can't give your all to everything. And so you have to make some choices and sacrifices here and there. But what's been interesting, and I've talked to several homeschool moms actually who are at this age range, it's like they spent their earlier years raising their families, and now they're spending their older years kind of doing work that they love. So it's almost like a backwards recipe than what's a lot of other people have done, where they spent their earlier years being in career, and now their children are grown and moved, and now they're taking a step back from their career. So, you know, there's obviously choices, everybody makes the decisions that work for them. But for me at this point, it's been just really nice to have the flexibility to do work that I love and I care about, and that I also get to see my children kind of launching and doing what makes them happy.

Jesper Conrad: 24:02
I like it.

Cecilie Conrad: 24:04
Can I circle back to I was just thinking about when you said you said two things about how your kids are choosing to do their education online instead of showing up in some building? And then you said something about peers and same-age peers and learning with them. I was just thinking, actually, it's fun when you're 17 to be around other teenagers. It's not an mom is not enough, you know, and and aunts and uncles and neighbors. It's nice to have a group of other young people between whatever, 10 and 20, 25, even. Doesn't have to be the same age, but younger people between childhood and family life, let's say. Maybe even before university, before mid-20s. I see that they need that, or they do enjoy it a lot, especially if it's a big group, there's someone to pick from so you can find your favorites. I see that, but I do not see that they would need to learn with them. So if they put their mind on learning a new language, or we have one who's diving into math right now, or whatever it is, I do not see that they need the learning to happen in that context. And I think there's just so much of this school-based mindset where we mix that up. Even recently, I spoke to a woman who has one child out of school, two in school, and one is one of the two in school is on her way out of school, and she said, but then she was in school, and I picked her up, and she actually wanted to stay because she was playing with her friends, and and she didn't want to go home. So now I have this doubt. Maybe I should keep her in school. And I'm thinking, well, you were trying to pick her up while she was playing with her friends, it was the playing that was fun, not the school part. When the kids say they love school, what they do love is usually mostly their friends. They love spending time with their friends outside of school or on social media platforms, they text each other during the class. It's not about learning together. A lot, especially young people. I mean, they if you need to sit down and learn something, it's like I don't like to walk through a museum with my friends unless they are as interested as I am. Because I want to chat with my friends. I enjoy sitting at a cafe with my friend or go on a random walk on the beach with a friend. But if I'm there to learn something or to take in specific artists, something like that, I actually'd rather, well, I like to do it with my kids, but otherwise I'd rather be alone. Don't distract me. So it's this just this confused idea, I think. And even with now your kids are doing, I don't know, higher education. It's not basic schooling. They choose to do something that's more, I don't know, academic of some sort. Do they need to do it around other kids? I don't think so.

Missy Willis: 27:21
I don't I agree with you. I think it's a distraction for a lot of children, you know, and I think it's kind of this one size fits all. Like everybody come into a room, we're gonna tell you information, and then you're gonna take it in and study it. So they have to take it by themselves home and study it generally anyway, unless they choose to work together in small groups. But, you know, I think that's so important to highlight because it does take time to take in new information and to study it and repeat it in a way that works for you. And you're absolutely right that all the times that I've talked to kids over the years, it's like we joke about the one of the neighbors that we grew up with or that my children grew up with, and he'd come home from school, we're like, What'd you do at school today? What was your favorite part? Lunch and recess.

Cecilie Conrad: 28:07
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Missy Willis: 28:09
Walking there and walking back as well. Yeah, walking home, seeing so, and we we spent a lot of time like cultivating the community aspect of of our homeschool experience. And my children had, you know, friends that they did sports with and friends that they did outings with, and you know, it was kind of if they just developed that over time. So that you're right. I mean, they would spend day like hours together, you know, playing or exploring or being together, playing sports, whatever. And then when they were ready to be, you know, needed to sit still or read a book or whatever, they would come home and do that.

Jesper Conrad: 28:47
About cultivating community. Before we started recording, you asked about the world school village, which we had just finished. The whole goal of that is to cultivate community, create a village for people who travel either full-time or want to step into it, or just want to immerse themselves in social life for a month. We just finished it three days ago. My brain is still slowly trying to figure out what I've learned from it. Uh, but to explain the idea, then it was pretty simple. It has grew out, grown out of other things we have dipped our toes in, where we have been on some world school pub up hubs that was a week where a lot of traveling families met in the same city for a week, and there was an itinerary, and people were there, and a lot of great friendship created. But we just thought it was a little stressful with just one week, and our kids they really wanted to spend longer time together with these people. So we decided to take a city that showed to be even more fantastic than we could have dreamt of, dreamt of. Aragona in Spain. It's an old Roman city. It was one of the headquarters of the Roman Empire. So much history, so much beauty. And it's right next to a beach, and it's still hot here in this period. And it's in Catalonia where they are still keeping their local culture alive because they speak another language than the rest of Spain. So it has just been like overwhelming. But basically, they we ended up inviting a lot of people, 35 or 40 families signed up, and primarily families with teens. So we have had, I think, 70 teens together during this month. And it has been a lot of fun, a lot of talking, a lot of late nights, because apparently. You know what, Missy, I heard myself almost in the voice of my mom say, Yeah, is it really more fun after 12? Yes, it is.

Missy Willis: 31:02
Oh my god, yes, but he was such an old man. Oh, yeah. You hear that old voice come out.

Cecilie Conrad: 31:06
You're like, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. Yes, it is actually more fun after midnight.

Jesper Conrad: 31:12
Yeah, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 31:13
Okay, you asked the question, you got the answer. Yes, it is more fun at three in the morning.

Jesper Conrad: 31:18
But it it has been really good and we have enjoyed it a lot, and now we are slowing down with just taking a month where we're only four or five families, so still a lot of social life. But I think that it is something we have wanted in our life. Also, when we look back at when we were stationary, then we use a lot of time and energy on driving to our people. Because when you live, you buy a house on a street, maybe your next door neighbors are not your people. You can be polite and eat at dinner, but if they're not your people, they're not your people. So we we ended up with like a lot of logistics in Copenhagen.

Cecilie Conrad: 32:02
But that is also due to the fact that home education is very rare.

Jesper Conrad: 32:07
Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 32:07
Where we come to have to drive. But we say long distances. We're speaking to an American.

Jesper Conrad: 32:14
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 32:15
Nothing is okay in Denmark.

Missy Willis: 32:16
Our country is like your backyard. Well, and I was gonna say, when you say long distance to you, like what does that mean? Is that like you know, five miles or not even an hour. What is that?

Cecilie Conrad: 32:28
Less than an hour. Most of my friends lived within an hour, and I could even bike to most of them within an hour. It wasn't that bad.

Jesper Conrad: 32:35
No, no, no.

Cecilie Conrad: 32:36
But it was chasing friends. That was, but I think for most homeschoolers, actually, that's the main thing, right? The main problem is where are the other people? Because most of the other people are in the mainstream life, and we're just living a different life.

Jesper Conrad: 32:50
Yeah, and it made me think about my own process of going from that that went to work to dad that stays at home, which is I realized that part of my social battery is filled and was filled by going to work, talking with Collee. But the fun thing then is it maybe wasn't filled my social battery with the quality dialogues I really wanted, because I'm not a big fan of football or news or anything like that. So a lot of the chats I had with people at the office were for me a little uninteresting. So now I get to choose them, but I also recognize that when you are at home, and it must be I've never been a stay-at-home mom, there is this how do you fill your social battery? How do you find those people? Because the life has not this built-in pseudo social life that work and school has. What you do as a as a homeschool mom to get the dialogues, the talks you needed.

Missy Willis: 34:03
Well, so I feel like I could talk to anybody, and I have so you know, one thing that I've talked to a lot of parents about is to ensure they are understanding of their needs. Like you just said, what do you need in terms of being introverted, extroverted, or kind of in the middle, and then pay attention to what your children need because sometimes they don't align, and mom might have to go out of the kids to get what she needs if she's much more social, etc. So I really was thankfully the friends that my children made over time ended up being parents that I became friends with. So that was hugely important. And so that while the kids played, the parents talked, you know, and sometimes we would like have play cards or, you know, have tea together or just sit and dream up ideas. And one of my friends was really into creative stuff, and so she and I coordinated a yearbook for our co-op. So we took photos of the kids and then we turned it into a photo album for the families to purchase at the end of the year so that we made sure we had representation of everyone and all of our activities. So I've always found something to keep my mind busy and interested in and connected with people, a lot of times through my children. So that just worked out that way. It wasn't intentional, wasn't planned out like, oh, I'll be friends with this person, that person. It was more just a natural development of friendship that happened over time. And then, of course, with the co-ops that we were involved in. Do you all did y'all do co-ops or have that?

Cecilie Conrad: 35:38
Probably not, because you were saying it's way too small where we come from. I mean, we will talk about it a little bit. I think also so now it's seven and a half years since we left Denmark starting the full-time nomadic life. So actually, I wouldn't be able to say how exactly. I think they do co-ops now. Yeah, they do something like that. But back when we were home educating and living stationary in Copenhagen, there were very few families doing it. It was a very powerful community of families. We were very close. We were all free thinkers in a way. We were we were all out-of-the-box thinkers, and we all had this power, this core idea that we I want to do it the things my way. I'm not doing things because other people do it this way or because that's how it's always been done. But it wasn't the same choice people made. We were all very different, but we had a lot of respect for those differences, and we got together to be social. It was always just to be social because all the other stuff we could do on our own. So we didn't do co-ops because people did not want that kind of structured cooperation of home educating life because we were so we're such a bunch of anarchists, basically. No one wanted any rules to be set for them of any sort or any pre-booking of their calendars, or was so fun. We had a union for home educators in Denmark. We were like five people on the board, and we were all actually anarchists, and it was just this, you know, how do we even set up a meeting? How do we agree on how to talk about things? Because none of us are going to comply to any rules, not even rules we ourselves decide created, yeah. We're going to break them. It was right. Well, we had a lot of fun doing it. So that was the vibe 10 years ago when we were part of it, and I think that has changed a lot.

Jesper Conrad: 37:50
Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 37:51
So we're not, we can't even say how it looks now. I all I can say is what from what from hearsay, it's different now.

Jesper Conrad: 38:01
It is a growing community, which is wonderful.

Cecilie Conrad: 38:04
Way bigger community, but it's also a community where a lot of people in the movement are thinking doing homeschooling because they think the school is not doing its job well enough, and they're basically just trying to do the school's job better at home.

Missy Willis: 38:19
So it's not like so they're doing more academic stuff, it's very academic-heavy.

Cecilie Conrad: 38:24
Yeah, and with the same kind of structure that the parents decide there's a curriculum, there's this struct play dates, and you know, the whole if you're in a co-op, you have to show up every time. If you don't, you'll be kicked out. It's completely like a structure of the backbone of a school situation. And I'm sounding very judgmental. Maybe I even am judgmental, but actually, I think homeschooling is very often a better choice than not homeschooling anyway. So, and and if they do what makes them happy, then they should totally do it. I just think it's a little bit sad when you're stepping out of a system only to copy it. Yeah, maybe just take that moment of stepping out to think about how do I want to structure this or do I want to structure it at all?

Missy Willis: 39:13
So I mean sometimes those people eventually get there because they realize you can't run that sort of a system in your home with multiple age kids when you're just one person, you know. I think the overwhelm eventually causes them to like sit and think about how they want to restructure stuff. I mean, I had two kids, and there were times where I was like, How am I supposed to get your needs met and your needs met when y'all both want me at the same time? So yeah, I can only imagine what it'd be like.

Cecilie Conrad: 39:39
It's actually been the main thing for me and still is to this day where the youngest is almost 14. Stretching myself in so many different directions, and now even being nomadic. Now we have that layer on top. It's not just the question of someone needs silence, another one wants to listen to a podcast and do watercolor, a third one wants to discuss something. That's very often the problem of the homeschooling mom that you just have to be five different people at the same time. And yes, she can't.

Missy Willis: 40:15
Yes, especially when they have different activities and things to do. And I joked and said that homeschooling was literally making food for everybody because breakfast, you woke up and now you want breakfast. You woke up and now you want breakfast, and then I'm getting ready to start something, and then the other one's like, hey, when's lunch? And you're just like, ah, just forget it. We're not doing what I had set out to do. But yeah, it you're I think is a great point to bring up because some people do romanticize it to the point of like just bring them home and everything will work out. And I'm like, you gotta remember you need support, like psychological support, but also literal physical support in order to make sure you have enough hands for everybody.

Jesper Conrad: 40:52
Yeah, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 40:53
We need the village, and actually, good hack, teach them to make breakfast themselves, at least one because they wake up at so many different times. And for my kids, also, they all well, that's a lie. One of them is that very efficient, but the rest of them, they have such elaborate breakfasts in very different directions, they're making very different meals for breakfast, but it's all it's not just cornflakes milk, end of story. It's like a half-hour project, and not the same. It's not like, oh, could you double today and make for me as well? Because they don't want the same thing. And I had a meltdown, I remember, maybe six or seven years ago. I was like, shit, I just can't keep supporting this, it's thriving me insane. I'm spending two and a half hours every morning supporting your breakfast project. It's like a wedding meal. I mean, can we just have corn flakes or can you do it yourself? So I started actually doing my morning runs. And the deal was that was when we lived in a bus. So that was a very, very small space we were all sharing. And I told them, I'm going for a run, and when I come back, you're all done eating. I just don't want to be part of this. I'm leaving mom's out.

Jesper Conrad: 42:14
Yeah, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 42:14
That works, it's a good happy just leave, let them figure it out themselves, the morning thing at least.

Jesper Conrad: 42:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also eating together, it's such a good time.

Cecilie Conrad: 42:23
It's great to share meals, but maybe cooking all day long.

Jesper Conrad: 42:28
It's not this easy.

Missy Willis: 42:29
When we ran into that, my husband ended up working from home and he actually loved to cook, which was wonderful because he was really into doing the dinner meals, but he liked to tinker. So his meals took a long time because he would do this and then he would start to grill, and then and then and I was so used to efficiency. Like we eat, we get up, we do something, we eat, get up, do something. So, but I always joked and said, Well, I'll take breakfast, lunch, snacks, and shopping, and you take dinner, and then I could just be done. So that was great for me because I was able to just do whatever I needed to do with the kids or run off on my own or or whatever. So I knew meals were taken care of. But you really do have to think about all those things, and it's not, it doesn't just happen. Like somebody has to take the lead or at least bring everybody to the table to have a conversation about it because you're right. Otherwise, you're just never doing anything, but cooking and cleaning.

Cecilie Conrad: 43:22
Cooking cleaning, and actually on that note, take everyone to the table and talk about it. That's another experience I've had having more than one child. We have a fairly big family now. We also both of our daughters have boyfriends, so sometimes we have that in the matrix that we're yeah, it's like an ebb and flow size family. But sometimes we're a lot of people, and you think you can sit everyone down and then you can discuss let's say the plan of the week. So when are we going to the museum? When are we seeing the cathedral? When are we doing the big shop? Can we coordinate a cleanup? Something like that. But actually, that whole family meeting situation never worked for us. I don't think we've had one sit-down family meeting, all five of us, six, seven, eight of us, to have a good conversation that ended up with actual decisions. What happens in our families, I have to do one by one, talk to them about the options, talk to them about their needs, because they don't all speak up. Some of them just want the meeting over and done with, and then you're like, whatever, I'm out. But then when the actual thing happens, and that can even be the adults. Oh, I didn't sign up for this, you know.

Jesper Conrad: 44:34
No, but the underlying thing is also that sometimes one of them can want to be polite to and say, Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. And then when they think about it, sometimes some people process fast, from some people process with their feelings and take more time. The the good or bad, it's fine.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:53
I'm just I think it's another misunderstanding that's out there for some families, it just works. They can just sit down, there's a good list of things they have to decide on, they get it all done, everyone's discussing, and it takes maybe an hour, and all the decisions are made for the week, and it's great, or for the whatever decision that for our family, and that never worked. But the way everyone gets the vote and the voice is that basically I have a conversation with everyone about whatever's up, and then at the end of the day, I make the decisions. Okay, then we do it this way, and everyone's been heard.

Missy Willis: 45:30
And I think it that is that way, because from what it sounds like, you I mean, you do have those conversations with your kids, you know, you're open to hearing their opinion about things, and you're not just gonna say, all right, everybody has to make a decision, it's a democracy where you get a one person, one vote, you know, who the highest vote wins. But and so, again, I mean, even just with two kids, we ran into that. It was like, how do people think we can educate 25 kids in a classroom when I can't get four people to agree on dinner? Yes, you know, you it's just not a sensible system.

Jesper Conrad: 46:03
So Missy, you mentioned that you are in the process of or starting up a new writing project. What is it you want to explore? What is it that you're looking into, and how far ahead are you?

Missy Willis: 46:21
So this project came about from a friend of mine. I met her before children, and I worked, I don't know if we talked about this last time or not, but so I ended up working one of my first jobs out of college was at the Duke University Medical Center ADHD study. So they had a multi, multi-site study that was sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health. And I had a psychology degree, and my psychology professor, who was my advisor, found out about this job and got me connected. And so I was one of the research assistants and behavioral people that was hired to help the study go go forth. And so I met her, and that study opened my eyes to the world of pharmacology and psychology and psychiatry and so many things and family dynamics, and it really kind of impressed upon me how important it is for the family unit to be able to communicate well with one another and how often families lose sort of control of their lives because of the different ways their children are in the community, whether it's through the medical system or social services or the schooling system. And it helped me kind of, I guess, narrow down my drive to understand the family system better. So, anyway, all that to say, she and I reconnected recently and she ended up going the behavioral consultant route in the public school system and helped develop programs for children with autism in the schools where she lived. And then, of course, I went the homeschool route. So we thought it would be together. We thought it would be fun to come together and create sort of a guide in a similar vein that we did that I did the guide with Ann, but for children who are uniquely wired. And by that, we are saying kids who have been diagnosed and or are in the system or who aren't diagnosed, but who tend to march to the beat of their own drum. And by that we mean they don't necessarily learn the way that the standard school model wants them to, but they haven't been diagnosed either, and or the parents don't want them to be. So we're trying to put together just some really supportive pieces of information based on research, based on our own experiences of how to support their children and also to give them the language to speak in those different settings. Because I mean, let's face it, if you're if you haven't studied that world and you have a child that all of a sudden becomes diagnosed with ADHD or learning disability and they're in the school system, it's overwhelming. You know, it's a lot to take in. Some parents just feel really lost. And so our goal is to try to help parents in that setting and out of that situation, have the have the tools and the and the language, and to also from my perspective and my input is to see learning differently than what the school system says, and also that homeschooling is an option. So I'm sort of the homeschool self-directed, you know, look at the bigger picture voice. And she's kind of the here's the system that I've been in, and here's what we have seen worked. And so it's it's a it's gonna, it's challenging, I will tell you. I've been I've been a bit challenged on it because not that it's not that I can't do it, it's more that some of the stuff, it's hard because working with the kids that I've worked with recently, they're kids who go to private school or public school, but they've been tested and or diagnosed recently with like a learning disability or dyslexia. And while all of that, you know, I believe is is reality for some children, it's the expectation for them to keep up with everybody in that classroom setting that I feel like is just so hard because if they could just be in a different setting, then those issues would probably not be as pronounced.

Jesper Conrad: 50:25
But it sounds like you're working on a book that also can help the parents to get a language that they can use when in dialogue with the authorities, because when you don't have a language about it, then there is the risk that you just lay down flat and say, Yes, give give me the drugs, and I will put my kid in school, and they will just try to keep up with that level they need to be on, uh, according to this. Where uh to open the door for them and say, Yes, there are other opportunities.

Missy Willis: 51:02
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, yeah. So we're hoping to get that done and be ready in 2026, kind of the beginning of the year. That's our goal.

Jesper Conrad: 51:12
Oh, that's soon. That's soon, yeah.

Missy Willis: 51:14
That's yeah, we've been working on it for several months now, and we're we're keeping it we're as as we did with the other one. It's I want to keep it manageable because there are so many books available, right? I mean, parents can get online, they can watch things on YouTube. I mean, there's amazing resources available. But what we found is that it's so overwhelming. And so we're trying to just really just very nuts and bolts it, but also give them templates and actual checklists and things that they can utilize. They could just print it out and take it to a meeting with a with a you know teacher or administrator or even their doctor and and have things that are available that aren't that don't require hours and hours and hours of research on their part. Because a lot of times, as you know, I mean, you get busy as a family, it's hard to do that. And then if you have a child who has a lot of um additional things to take into consideration, especially if they're in the system, you know, it can it can get overwhelming quick.

Jesper Conrad: 52:13
Oh yes.

Cecilie Conrad: 52:14
Yeah, and then maybe you don't act, I mean you have you have the the real life just reality of cooking the meals and talking to the kids and holding the laundry and whatever, doing your jobs of various sorts, reading piles of books about a new problem your pet family apparently has. It's not necessarily doable.

Jesper Conrad: 52:36
If people want to get to know when the book is coming out, can they sign up to your newsletter? Where will they find you if they want to know more about what's coming?

Missy Willis: 52:49
Yeah, so I haven't really even shared any of this on my social media yet on Let Them Go Barefoot because wanting to get a little further along with it, but I will be sharing it soon. And I do have a Substack newsletter, which you can find a link to that on my Instagram page on Let Them Go Barefoot. So that's where I'll be sharing information and I'll send it in a Substack newsletter and I'll also just share information and I'll start sharing the page itself. So who I'm working with, she started her own that she started an Instagram page for this project. And so we're just kind of starting all of that and getting it kind of ready to go. So I'll start pushing it out a little closer to the time of us of being ready for uh for it to be in the world. But thank you for asking.

Cecilie Conrad: 53:34
Well, we could talk again in about, I don't know, six months. Well, yeah, yeah, wait a minute for a while and then tell me how it went. Yeah.

Missy Willis: 53:41
I know I am looking forward to it. It's it's definitely it's it's it's stretching me. Like I said, I mean, I'm having to dive back into things that I hadn't really thought about in a while. And uh and and also it's just really interesting how it's kind of come together given that I've been working with kids now who've been in the classroom setting again and the things that I'm seeing and stuff that's kind of you know been there before in my mind, but now it's being reinforced. And so it's um it I think it'll be timely, and I'm hoping people will get something out of it.

Jesper Conrad: 54:11
Absolutely. And the challenging part of it is uh interesting because going from, and it's a natural journey when you take and move yourself away from the norm. Sometimes you start by being against the norm to find the power in yourself to dare taking the steps. So, so I've been from I my journey has been from being that's weird, my dear wife. Why do you want to homeschool? That's some weird shit. What's going on?

Cecilie Conrad: 54:43
The first word you said was completely crazy.

Jesper Conrad: 54:46
Yeah, something like that. To let's burn the schools down, period.

Cecilie Conrad: 54:51
Now we're somewhere in between.

Jesper Conrad: 54:53
So now I'm like, I really want to change the world. I cannot open make a change for for unschoolers. It's parents, it's uh dads out there. We need to we need to get everyone on board of taking more control of their own life and make the difference. And a lot of people there, it is it is like plus 90% of people have their kids in schools. Yeah. So of course, of course, we need to be able to help them and the ones who have children who don't learn in the standardized school way. They need a helping hand to not be burned out by the system.

Cecilie Conrad: 55:37
Okay, I feel like we're opening a new conversation, but I just feel like saying everyone is learning in the standardized school system. It's devastating what some of them are learning. Learning to be helpless, yeah, learning that they're hopeless, learning that they have no power over their lives. I mean, it's horrible.

Jesper Conrad: 55:58
Yeah, the starting.

Missy Willis: 55:60
We call we call that the hidden curriculum. Exactly.

Jesper Conrad: 56:03
Oh, that's oh wow. I like that.

Missy Willis: 56:07
Yeah, yeah, it's called the hidden curriculum. It's what's being taught that's not being taught.

Jesper Conrad: 56:11
We had a really interesting episode with a woman who had written a book about world schoolers, and she talked about the emotional curriculum, as a lot of homeschoolers and world schoolers here talked with, more than asking or more than answering about which kind of subjects they wanted their kids to learn. It was to me emotional curriculum they answered her with. And I like that. So can you please, before we hang up, share where people can find you?

Missy Willis: 56:45
Yes. So Instagram is the best place. That's where I spend the most of my time, although it's been very minimal in the last six months or so. But Instagram let them go barefoot, and it's the L E T Hypostrophe EM, go barefoot. And then on there, there are links to other things to my website and also to download our ebook and also to get to Substack. So that's the best location.

Jesper Conrad: 57:10
Perfect. All right. We will share it and also put it in the show notes. Mizzy, thanks a lot for your time. It was a pleasure talking with you again. And I look forward to hearing more about the book.

Missy Willis: 57:21
Yeah, so good to see you.