On this episode of The Bespoke Parenting Podcast, IWF Visiting Fellow Heather Hunter sat in for Julie Gunlock and spoke to Chris Stigall, co-host of the parenting podcast “Making the Leap.” They discussed his journey as a dad navigating the pandemic and how the school closures forced their family to make important life decisions regarding education choices for their three children. Heather talked to Chris about the massive migration of families leaving woke states during the pandemic so that they could have better choices for raising their children. He talked about his podcast that he co-hosts with his wife Christine, a former public school teacher, and how the overall experience has been fruitful in bonding their family more than ever.
TRANSCRIPT
Heather Hunter:
I’m Heather Hunter, a visiting fellow at Independent Women’s Forum, sitting in for Julie Gunlock on this episode of the Bespoke Parenting Podcast. The Bespoke Parenting Podcast is about and for parents who are tired of being told what to do. Well, today, I have an amazing dad from the parent movement today, and his name is Chris Stigall. Chris is a Philly radio host and co-host of a new podcast called Making The Leap. Hi, Chris.
Chris Stigall:
Heather, how are you doing? Thanks for having me today.
Heather Hunter:
Great, thank you. Thank you. Chris and I both work in the radio biz, so I know a podcast isn’t a stretch in your career, but this is a new experience for you. And not just talking about the news and what’s in the newspapers, but you and your wife Christine have created a podcast, the parenting podcast. It’s similar. This is a parenting podcast as well, but a lot of parents have a lot to say about what they went through during the pandemic. And you guys came together, parents of three teenagers, and your lives were changed by the pandemic and by what the COVID closures had done, and you made some important life decisions. And what were those decisions, and how did this podcast come of those decisions?
Chris Stigall:
Well, thanks for the opportunity to share it. I know my story’s probably not terribly different than so many of your audience who went through the same thing, and you too. COVID was life altering for our family and the community that we called home when the kids’ school was shut down, and as that went on and on, and seemingly with no end. My wife, who was a former public school teacher, and our kids who have always been in public school, when they are kept out of it for this protracted period of time, and as we began to learn more about what COVID was and wasn’t, we were all seeing what was obviously detrimental to the children. Kids were just suffering and struggling at home, being locked away, forced not to socialize, staying behind these computer terminals. It was a great detriment. My wife started to take on other kids in our home because parents still had to go to work and didn’t know what to do with their kids who were forced to stay home.
And so my wife kind of became this weird one room schoolhouse with our kids and a few others, trying to guide them through laptop learning. And all of a sudden, for the first time in our lives, beyond the politics of what was going on in school, we were looking at one another going, what is going on? How did this happen? This feels so wrong. And that’s when Christine really started, for the first time, so many others across the country, attending school board meetings and really trying to figure out who’s making these decisions and why. She started to speak up at school board meetings, and she sort of inadvertently, in our community, became a real champion for other parents, other moms and dads who wanted their kids back in school. And then in no time, you know the politics, because we talk about it a lot on the radio, with critical race theory coming on strong at the same time, a lot of gender dysphoria stuff coming on at the same time as curriculum, it just became genuinely disturbing what we were seeing. Something that felt very comfortable and normal suddenly became really jarring.
And so ultimately, we ended up relocating. I mean, we left our community. There were other issues. Our church was closed at the same time. And so to go from this place where kids are in public school or in church, we love our community to everything closed down and we had no options and we felt a real tug, we said, we got to go, we get out of here. And we enrolled our daughter… Our sons are older. They’re about done with school. But our daughter who was just entering middle school, we began to explore private Christian education. That was our decision to go that route. And boy, we learned a whole new… I’m happy to talk more about it. We learned a whole new world, and that was when some folks, and I’d love to tell you who they are, reached out to us to produce a new podcast about our story.
Heather Hunter:
Yeah, well, absolutely. So, did you go the homeschool route or did you do the private Christian school route? Or what direction did you go on that?
Chris Stigall:
We did. We ultimately ended up enrolling her in a… We first found a private Christian school that was brand new, Heather. I mean, it was literally being built as COVID was a thing and we decided we were going to move our daughter. It was a small… I mean, literally, our daughter would’ve been the 10th to enroll. And we were really nervous about that. Ultimately, we ended up, as I said, moving her into an established Christian school that had a larger student population. But in doing that, we learned sort of the differences in Christian education. I mean, obviously there are what they call kingdom education, there’s classical Christian education, then there’s non-Christian education too, parochial, private, three day a week, homeschooling pods. We’ve learned all about this just through our exploration.
And when the Herzog Foundation, which is the Christian Education Foundation that’s in Missouri, committed to developing and helping Christian schools grow and fundraise and administer themselves, they reached out to Christine and me to start telling our story and interview other people who are going through it too. And through that process, I’ve learned about all these different… That’s what’s so cool. The one size fits all approach to public education is so wrongheaded. And look, I’d love for everybody to get a faith-based education, but if that’s not your bag, fine. The point is there’s just too much to you readily available as an option for your kids. We don’t have to go this one size fits all route.
Heather Hunter:
Well, I love… The Herzog Foundation has some great resources for parents as well on their website as well. And as somebody who’s now a homeschool mom, it’s wonderful to constantly find all these new avenues of where to find information. And then now you have your podcast too, which is really important. These parenting podcasts are really important for parents to share with each other and create this great community among each other, what we’re going through and what we’re experiencing and what we’re kind of feeling, but also what we’ve discovered at the same time. And that’s, I think, the fun part about doing a podcast, and sharing what we’ve actually found, the information that we have found through all this research.
Chris Stigall:
We hear that most of all, Heather, that doing this podcast, the notes that we get, people that are on the bubble. This is… And I don’t know, your kids are younger, so maybe this was a decision from the jump for you. For people like us who’d kind of just been going through the motions as we all, a lot of us in our community do, you put the kids on the bus, you send them away, they come home. How was your day? You go to this sports event. There was this kind of established pattern that we all fell into, and that was what was considered normal. So, to break that mold and to jump into something entirely different, it’s intimidating for a lot of people. And the one question we hear most is, what about the sports? What about the activities? What about the socialization? I know you homeschoolers hear that. And the fact of the matter is, when you talk to people that have been doing it for a long period of time, it really calms all that down.
That is normal to millions of people who are already doing it. And to hear them tell their story of, “Yeah, this works, and it’s perfectly fine. And our kids aren’t mutants and weirdos. They’re better for it.” But it’s weird when you’re conditioned that normal is public school, get on the bus, eight hours a day, they’re with strangers and not with you-
Heather Hunter:
[inaudible 00:08:02] You must comply. And this is… So, you actually realize how you’ve been trained to just constantly believe that you’re supposed to do these things. And you were a public school kid, your wife was a public school kid, I was a public school kid, my parents were a public… My mom worked for the school board, my dad was a public school history teacher, and so public school was just kind of normal. This is what you do. But then we started to realize that it had changed since we were kids. And I don’t know whether it’s social media or whether it is just the pace of news or the internet itself has made social contagions to be so much faster in changing how people actually view trends that are happening socially. And it just, everybody’s out to kind of make this star of themselves or they’re out to force on somebody an idea. And if you don’t, we’ll get a mob to come after you on social media.
Or if you’re, let’s say in the school board fights, suddenly they’re making lists of parents who are questioning what’s going on at the school board meetings. They happened in Loudoun County where they suddenly realize that all these parents are suddenly being kind of discovered, and then they’re making… They’re on this little Excel spreadsheet of, oh, we got to watch out for this parent. It’s like, what is going on here?
Chris Stigall:
Yeah. And when we started to hear the DOJ was being petitioned to start surveilling school board meetings, for heaven’s sakes, watch out for the parents who would dare rise up and criticize the school boards, that was the next… I mean, I don’t know about you, but that got next level chilling, and that was really kind of the moment that I got white hot about it and said, if this is becoming a matter for the DOJ… I learned… Heather, I don’t know if you knew this before it became a news cycle event. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a national school board association. I’d never heard of such a thing, and that your state is working in… Well, your school board is working with your state school board association who reports and works with the National School Board Association, and then these people are lobbying the White House and the DOJ to monitor… What an insidious bunch of garbage. I was naive. I thought, oh, your school boards, your local town people. Hey, that’s John. He’s on the school board.
Heather Hunter:
Yeah, they work for you.
Chris Stigall:
Yeah.
Heather Hunter:
I mean, it must be interesting from a teacher perspective, for your wife to have gone through being, suddenly turning into this school board mom movement, but also being a school teacher. I mean, she must have just been taken aback in the system that she worked in, in the public school system. When she came home and she was telling you what was going on, what was she saying? What was she just… Was she just aghast at what she was experiencing as a teacher herself?
Chris Stigall:
Yeah, she got out of it about, I don’t know, maybe 10 years ago. So, she put in 10 years and she stopped to stay home with the kids about 10 years ago. So, things were certainly starting to go that way. She learned right away. I remember as a younger mom, we would talk about the union school board, or the union school meetings at the beginning of the year. And she would come home and she’d say, “Well, I have to sign this thing that says I’ve got to pay the union dues because they say if I get in legal trouble, this or that.” So, she kind of instinctively, and I speak for both of us, I don’t mean to speak disparagingly of her, we were both really pretty naive to the politics of school. She went in with a very wide eyed, as most teachers do. They love kids, they want to teach kids, and it’s very pure of heart.
And I think most school teachers are very pure of heart, but they quickly learn, sadly, that today, it’s now become this orthodoxy, that no, no, no, this isn’t about teaching kids. This is about indoctrinating kids, and you will comply and you will teach the kids this. And by the way, you’ll get your head right about it if you don’t agree. And so a lot of good men and women are now finding themselves in this weird spot because teachers get paid a pretty… In places like Missouri and Pennsylvania, for instance, there’s great teacher retirement thing out there. They’re not rolling in dough, but the teacher retirement’s a great deal in most states. And so if you can hang on and put in your time, you’re kind of set up. It’s a great pension plan on the way out the door. And so there are a lot of men and women asking themselves right now, do I hang around this garbage for the pension or not? But there’s a real conscience crisis, conscience of crisis going on right now, I think with a lot of people in public education who teach.
And a lot of them are leaving and a lot of them are joining private schools and Christian schools, and taking much less money, but feeling much more satisfied [inaudible 00:13:06] them too, by the way, in the podcast.
Heather Hunter:
Yeah, that’s wonderful. I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of… There’s people who’ve kind of left the profession, because now you’re talking about all these teacher shortages, and they’re kind of debating, should I stay for the retirement and such? But there are some teachers that I’ve said… When they’ve been trying to find their different avenue, maybe getting out of the public school education system, I said, there’s so many homeschool pods, there’s so many… Even Outschool is an incredible website and resource for homeschool parents. I mean, I was doing art class. There was a teacher who was teaching my kids how to draw some pumpkins and kitties. And she’s kindergarten, so… But it was actually teaching her how to draw. And so it was maybe 20 minute class, but it was wonderful. They were great with the kids. You could do dance class with them. You could even learn… You could do math with them. I mean, there’s all sorts of resources for parents to do, but also teachers to go find other places to go as well.
Chris Stigall:
Can I tell you one of the great stories about that, Heather? We just wrapped up an episode, which we’ll be airing, I think soon, in the next few weeks. A woman who happens to be a friend of my wife’s, they went through college together, they became teachers, public school teachers. She was an art teacher. She has three kids, and they ultimately ended up putting all three kids in a private Christian education as well. One, she got terribly sick, unfortunately with cancer, which she’s come through, but her husband was kind of the sole income in the home. And here, she’s battling cancer and she’s got three kids in private school. They’re on a razor’s edge financially. She took her art degree and she started teaching art in her home to her kids, and then a few other kids. And now she is running a full blown art school for home school kids in her house. While her kids are at the Christian school, she’s teaching homeschool kids art and making a really great living doing it. Isn’t that amazing?
Heather Hunter:
That is incredible. There is so much entrepreneurship that is in the homeschool world. And I mean, I am just blown away. I’m trying to do this homeschool thing, but I’m blown away by what some of these moms are doing. Some of these moms are having their kids learn how to fly a plane at 13. And so they’re taking plane lessons. There’s this one mother who’s in DC who… She calls it roam schooling. So, she does her lessons by roaming around DC. Like, “Okay, we’re going to learn art today at the National Art Gallery. Okay, we’re going to learn about science today at the Air and Space Museum. Okay, we’re going to go…” And she just teaches them by roaming. But also, her kid’s 11 and he’s actually designing his own computers. He’s actually creating an entire computer. And I’m like, oh my gosh, these kids are incredible. And they talk about social skills. These kids are beyond in social skills. They’re incredible.
Chris Stigall:
This is your show, and I don’t mean to interview you, but I am curious, and maybe we’ll have you on our podcast, are you finding homeschooling satisfying, challenging, frightening, intimidating? How would you describe your experience with it so far? And how old are your kids?
Heather Hunter:
Well, mine, I have a pre-K, and then I have a kindergartner, so four and five. So, I just started the homeschooling in August, but then I did some pre-K prep in June and July. And I do have a neighbor who helps me a little bit with a few days a week to help with some of the math and language arts while I’m working, trying to get some stuff done. And then I can do some homeschooling after she does about three hours sometimes. And then I’ll do hours afterwards in the afternoon when I have time. And sometimes, we’ll be even sitting in bed before I’m about to go to sleep, and it’ll be seven o’clock at night and I’m doing a language arts lesson with her, or I’m doing a math lesson.
Chris Stigall:
Wonderful.
Heather Hunter:
Yeah, so the thing about being a working mom is like, you got to do it when you get time, but that’s the thing.
Chris Stigall:
[inaudible 00:17:28] conversation. We just talked to another mom who said the same thing. There is no rule. Who says it has to be eight to four or whatever. She said, do it on the weekends. Do it at night if you got to work. I mean, we just had this conversation. I’m so glad you said that.
Heather Hunter:
Well, and so let’s say on Monday, I know I’m going to have a really crazy Monday and I’m super busy, so I’m going to do lessons on Sunday. And then I know Fridays are always wrapping up the week and it’s always crazy, so then I do lessons on Saturday, and so I kind of make up for that time, or I’ll even spread it out throughout the day with lessons like, okay, I may not do math today, but I’ll load up tomorrow with extra. So, yeah, it’s fun. But I think it’s fun because I will… I don’t want… This is about you, so I don’t want to do [inaudible 00:18:24], but I think it’s fun.
Chris Stigall:
It’s really important. It’s instructive for people that are thinking about it. So, thank you.
Heather Hunter:
But I think it’s fun in that… Thanksgiving’s coming… Well, this podcast will probably air after Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving, I have a whole lesson planned for that. We’re going to make a video explaining Thanksgiving so we can show to her grandfather when he comes to visit for Thanksgiving. I already have the outfits of the pilgrims. And so I have a boat, a cardboard boat. So, we’re going to show that it’s the Mayflower. And so we’re going to do them leaving England going to America. And so we’re going to explain that whole why they left and everything, and then they’re going to talk to Squanto.
But anyway, it’s going to be what the whole Thanksgiving experience was about, and so they actually learn it and so they know the history of it and they understand and they can act it out. And we’ll exchange corn. And it’s-
Chris Stigall:
Brilliant.
Heather Hunter:
I’m very giving a very simple example of what’s going on, but I mean, you can get as creative as you want. And so even talking about science, talking about lightning, the girls are fascinated by weather, and so I had them do a whole weather girl lesson. We watched a bunch of videos about Benjamin Franklin, then I did a lesson on electricity and lightning, and then we also did all these lessons with them. And then I had them be a weather girl and explain to me about the lightning and then the rain outside and what they were seeing and explain the clouds.
Chris Stigall:
Are these your own ideas or did you borrow them from somebody else?
Heather Hunter:
These, I’ve listened to some moms talk about their various ideas, but really, sky’s the limit on what you can do as a homeschooling parent. And it’s fun because then you can go, oh my gosh, I need to… They ask you a question about, “Mom, what is this?” or “Explain to me this.” And my daughters are so curious. And so then I make notes, okay. I’m like, okay, now this is another lesson. How can I get some props for this? How can I-
Chris Stigall:
And wouldn’t it break your heart? I mean, that kind of excitement to learn, that’s what you hear so much about homeschool parents who’ve made this leap transition from public school to what you’re doing. I hear this time and again, they like learning. They’re excited to learn versus that attitude of, ugh school. It really is remarkable, the difference you can make by just shifting it the way you have. That’s awesome. I love it.
Heather Hunter:
It’s fun. Well, I wanted to ask you. You said you relocated, and I think that that is a very common thing, actually, that people experienced during the pandemic, and that people started to look for elsewhere from wherever they were. And I wanted to get your thoughts on why you relocated, and also how you found… It’s a huge parent leap to actually take your family, teenagers, and change them to a different school system and also a different area. I mean, what was that? What were those conversations with your wife? Because you’re thinking finances. You’re thinking, is this the right neighborhood? There’s a lot of factors in that discussion.
Chris Stigall:
Yeah, it was tough. I won’t lie, it was… Our sons are senior and junior in high school, and then our daughter, as I said, she’s in middle school. So, the boys, we didn’t move into a private school situation. We talked to them about it. We feel pretty grounded, pretty well established. We think they’re great critical thinkers. They’re very attuned to the politics of the day. Not that I raised them in steeped in any particular politics, but they’re very aware of our values and we’ve raised them in the church. And so when they go to school and they hear things that are counter to what they know and learn from our family and our home, they can point it out. So, we felt very confident that our sons have figured out how to navigate this world. We just felt like why expose our youngest to this? Why make her work that hard if she doesn’t have to?
We can do better for her. And I will say the only regret I have is that we weren’t smarter about this sooner for all three of the kids. But having said that, yeah, we decided to pick up, and I was blessed to work for a company that said, “Look, we don’t want you to quit doing the show, so why don’t you just move to where you’d like to move and continue to do the show for us.” And in this new age, of course, everybody’s working remotely. So, something that I would’ve thought unthinkable five years ago even now became possible. So, I was able to move to the center of the country. In fact, we live… My kids are most upset with me that we moved to a place that doesn’t even have internet. Now, that was that. More than school or anything else, they were really ticked at me about things like Xbox and stuff like that.
Heather Hunter:
I know. House on the Prairie, Dad, thanks.
Chris Stigall:
So, I’m still catching hell for that. But other than that, what I think they’ve enjoyed is a much smaller community all the way around, again, a community that reflects a little closer to our values. I think in time, that’ll change too. By the way, as far as public school goes, I would probably, if I had it to do all over again, even in the small community I live, I would still put the kids in a private school. So, there’s no escaping it. I think the message is we didn’t escape it. We traded and borrowed some time. But if I were starting all over again with brand new babies, whether I’m on the prairie or whether I’m in New York City, boy, I think taking control of your kids’ education, as you have, from the jump is the only way to go. I don’t care where you live. And then you don’t have to worry so much about the culture infecting your kids because you’re in the driver’s seat.
Heather Hunter:
Yeah. And how are your kids transitioning with… How does it feel? Do they feel like they’re now [inaudible 00:24:44]?
Chris Stigall:
Heather, I have to say, my daughter has just been remarkable. The boys are pretty malleable. They miss their friends. Obviously being teenagers and pulling them out of everything they knew that was familiar, it’s a little different for them. They’re all great. But my daughter, this move we made with my daughter in private Christian education, she’s a different girl. We actually welcomed her on one of our podcasts. We asked her if she wanted to come on and we just interviewed her. We didn’t set her up, we didn’t prep her. I just said, “I want you to come on and I want you to talk about what it was to be a K through five public school girl who’s now entering the sixth grade in a private Christian school. I want you to talk about it, warts and all.” And she did.
And it’s the episode we’ve gotten more comments on than any other, because I think parents worry a lot about taking a kid, particularly at that tender age, that middle school teenage age, and then throwing them in something new. Will I ruin their life? And she’s such a great advocate for it. She knew instinctively it wasn’t working. And one of the things you hear her say right away in this new school setting, Heather, is, “I didn’t realize how little I was being challenged.” Effectively she would say things like… I’m paraphrasing for her. She would say things to me that were, in essence, “I could have been so much more challenged. I’m being pushed to think critically. I’m being pushed to ask questions and challenge presentations as opposed to just accepting presentations.” She’s recognizing that right away without any prompting. And then of course for us, from a values perspective, there’s a biblical element to her every day that is important to us, and certainly never something that she was encouraged to explore or maybe even entertain in a public school setting.
Heather Hunter:
So, she wants a career one day, apparently. Is that the-
Chris Stigall:
Right. Right. [inaudible 00:27:22] her life. But she has some older mentor girls in the high school of this school that she’s befriended and have ministered to her about this and talked with her about it, and this stuff that she’s coming to on her own, Heather, I’d like to say that we are great parents and we would’ve gotten her there on our own, but I’m not so sure. She’s really critically thinking on her own. I’m so proud of her.
Heather Hunter:
That’s so mature. That’s very mature. I love that.
Chris Stigall:
She’s not alone though. There’s a school full of them like her, and I think a lot of parents would say they’ve experienced the same thing if they’ve done it too.
Heather Hunter:
Well, they say that you are your kid’s influence, but you’re not their only influence, and so who you surround your kids with is very important. And I feel like we were kind of just letting the public schools decide what was going to be around our kids. And while these are other ordinary kids as well in the public schools, there’s just a different mindset. I remember even when I was in high school… I mean, when I was in high school, in public school, I remember kids just constantly being troublemakers, and they would just yell from the back of the class, make fun of the teacher, and I would have to go after school to do lessons with my math teacher because I couldn’t… They just kept interrupting constantly. And I realized at one point, I’m probably only one of three kids who actually want to go to college in this class.
And so you have to actively want to be educated or just hang out with other kids who don’t really have a focus and care. And the public schools shouldn’t be that way. There should be an opportunity for everybody to find their way and to find prosperous careers and everything. But unfortunately, we’re letting kids just do whatever they want in classes, and it’s causing harm on other kids and not be able to understand the material, not being able to actually focus so that they could be more knowledgeable of what they’re trying to learn. And also, they’re now subtracting real learning and they’re adding all sorts of propaganda and politics on top of it that now, as a parent you’re like, okay, I thought I was having you spend time learning, but now you’re teaching my kid new pronouns that don’t even exist, or at least didn’t exist in the English language two years ago.
Chris Stigall:
Yeah, that’s just it. It’s gone from being distracting and maybe not the most effective to now almost subversive. And I’m not suggesting that that’s all teachers. I don’t even know that it’s most teachers, but you see these awful videos and some emails and communique where teachers are saying things like, “Yeah, this is just between us.” I mean, I’ve had calls on my radio show, people that are… One [inaudible 00:30:26] it floored me. And this is near a community where I’ve moved, by the way, to my point about you can’t move away and run away from it, because it’s everywhere. Guy called me and said that his son, who’s a seventh grader, has been effectively convinced at school that he’s now a girl. And he found out that the teacher and the counselor were actively exchanging, and the principal, were actively exchanging communication about it. “Keep it from dad though, because it’ll blow his top. Your secret safe with us kind of a thing.”
Heather Hunter:
Well, hey, we should put more money into mental health programs so we could have more counselors like that. I mean, I really think that… What’s sad is that there are kids who do need help, and yet-
Chris Stigall:
Of course.
Heather Hunter:
Yet this is just poisoning.
Chris Stigall:
But to keep [inaudible 00:31:09] parents, to work against you at home, “No, no, no. We’ll handle it here in the school and mom and dad don’t need to know,” that’s… We used to teach people that you shouldn’t get in the back of the van and talk to strangers, and now there’s weird mentality of, “Keep mom and dad out of it, it’s just between us.” I don’t think so.
Heather Hunter:
Very creepy.
Chris Stigall:
Really.
Heather Hunter:
Gosh. Well, thank you so much, Chris, for making time today to talk to me and to share your experience with your new podcast, with your wife. How’s your wife doing this podcast? Do you feel like it’s making your family a bit closer and actually be able to talk to each other about what you’re thinking? Because you do… It’s interesting when you talk to each other on a daily basis in the kitchen or just throughout the house, there’s moments where you’re just sharing what’s going on, but then when you actually have a sit down conversation with each other, I imagine there’s things that you go, oh my gosh, wow, I didn’t know she thought about that that way.
Chris Stigall:
I really am so proud of her. This is not a comfortable place for her. Public speaking is not her thing. She loved to teach and she was comfortable in front of seventh graders, but it just killed her to stand before adults. So, for her to summon the courage to stand up in front of a school board meeting a couple of years ago and… Then when we were approached, it really wasn’t about me. They didn’t want me. I mean, they said, “We don’t want fathead who talks for a living, we want the mom who’s never lived this before to talk about it.” So, I’m along for the ride. It really is her show and it’s her perspective, and she does it with a much more delicate hand than I do. I mean, I’m in the opinion business. Her gift is really talking to people who are really struggling, because as comfortable as I am to talk about it right now, I do recognize, and she’s helped me recognize, and you’re comfortable with it, but there are millions of people who think they’d like to do it, but think it’s still weird, right?
They’re not comfortable with it or they’re scared of it, for whatever reason. And so her gift has really been, I think, reaching out. And I hear it, I see it, people that approach us in the community or in church who say, “I listened to the podcast, and thank you.” I mean, when I heard the other day, just last week, “We decided to move our kids into a private Christian education after listening to your podcast…”
Heather Hunter:
Wow.
Chris Stigall:
You just can’t… I hope that’s what people take from it. It’s not meant to judge or condemn, or force or push or shove, but encourage to make the leap.
Heather Hunter:
Helping people find, okay, you do have other options, and it’s going to forever change their child’s experience if they do find better options for their kids. That’s definitely one thing that… I don’t know whether it was just because, as we were talking about earlier, people being so complacent in the public school system that people just were numb to the idea of any other options, and thankfully-
Chris Stigall:
It’s hard. You know better than anybody, it’s a challenge. It’s worth it, and you only have a finite amount of time. It’s hard what you’re doing. I know you say it’s worth it, but it is hard, to be honest, right? It’s be a lot easier to put them on a bus, I suppose, for you.
Heather Hunter:
It’s so challenging for parents, I think, to figure out, okay, how do I make this work? Because if you’re a full-time parent, and especially two people on two, it’s a two income economy, how do you make it work? And so I think a lot of people struggle with that. And I think some of the migration of people was to figure out a way that they could afford to have options, and also to find remote… When I see Elon Musk bashing on remote working as just a bunch of people in pajamas, I love Elon Musk, but Elon is completely wrong about that because I think the parent movement is very much a remote working movement, or at least having a hybrid of certain flexible hours or something that allows them to have choices.
And so sometimes you might need to move to an area that’s more affordable so that way you can give your husband or wife, whoever wants to take on more of the education with your kids, or sometimes you figure out, okay, maybe we’ll be on the weekends like an Uber driver so I can pay for the kids private education. So, parents are like, okay, how can I find flexibility, max flexibility, so I can make my kids’ lives better in their education.
Chris Stigall:
Well, homeschool pods, I mean, I know you’ve probably heard about those. I just learned about those doing this podcast. I didn’t know what homeschool pods were, but it’s parents like you that are meeting up in your communities and sharing some of the responsibilities there or sort of making little mini one room schoolhouses, if you will. There’s so much entrepreneurism and creativity out there.
Heather Hunter:
There’s even homeschool sheds. You know how there’s a she shed? Now, there’s the homeschool shed.
Chris Stigall:
Awesome.
Heather Hunter:
And it’s terrific. I see these moms in these YouTube videos like walking around showing their homeschool shed, and I’m like, this is incredible. So, it’s a whole family effort and it’s beautiful, and I love it, how families are coming together and seizing their children’s education. And I think it’s making families closer. I think it’s making a better community and the future for us all. And I hope we can improve the public school education system because no man’s an island. We need public school kids to also have the same chance as well in having a good education.
Chris Stigall:
And I think this competitive model that’s being built in the marketplace, I think force them to get better.
Heather Hunter:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, especially with enrollment dramatically down in so many areas, they need to figure out what’s going on in these schools and fix it. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Chris. It’s been such a pleasure to have you on, and I highly recommend you check out the Making The Leap podcast with Chris and his wife Christine. It’s a terrific podcast. And Chris, thank you so much for coming on today.
Chris Stigall:
Thank you, Heather. God bless.
Heather Hunter:
Thank you. Well, this is Heather Hunter with the Bespoke Parenting Podcast. Thank you for listening, and we’ll be back for another episode soon. Thank you.
