Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Homeschooling

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Starting point is 00:01:27 Hi, my name is Steph and I'm from Louisville, Kentucky. I was homeschooled with the infamous ABEKA program, and the most guilty part of my experience was not just religious indoctrination. I was cut off from other people my age, and this made my parents the only adults in my life. This sort of deified them and made it difficult to do anything against their wishes. I also feel like I had basically no real education, which caused great struggles for me in college, but my parents always reported my grades as perfect 4.0. My name is Megan and I'm from Fairfax, Virginia. As a licensed teacher, I think that the cultiest thing about homeschooling is that I had to

Starting point is 00:02:05 go to years of college, pass multiple tests, and continue to have professional development to maintain a license just to be able to teach kids, but homeschool parents can just DIY their child's education with no professional expertise. Hey culties, this is Mika from Texas. I am a homeschool graduate and abuse survivor. The cultiest thing about homeschooling is that it is completely unregulated and in 48 out of 50 states, a convicted sex offender can homeschool their children legally. And a lot of times homeschooling is used as a cover for all kinds of abuse, isolation, medical neglect, and these kids don't come into contact

Starting point is 00:02:43 with any mandated reporters. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern-day cults we all follow. I'm your host Amanda Montell, author of the books Cultish, the Language of Fanaticism, and the forthcoming The Age of Magical Overthinking. Every week on the show you're gonna hear about a different modern-day fanatical group that puts the cults in culture. Today we're talking about the cult of homeschooling. To try and answer the big question, this group sounds like a cult, but is it really? Thank you to our sponsor, Squarespace. Start with a free trial at squarespace.com.

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Starting point is 00:04:14 to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash Colt. Shop the Skims T-shirt shop at skims.com, now available in sizes XXS to 4X. Plus, get free shipping on orders over $75. If you haven't yet, be sure to let them know I sent you. After you place your order, select podcast in the survey and select my show in the drop-down menu that follows. Oh buddy, finally talking about homeschooling. I swear to God, we could dedicate every single last episode of Sounds Like a Cult to some kind of schooling or

Starting point is 00:04:45 pocket of the education system and we would still be able to make a weekly show. I mean, we've already done med school, Montessori schools, Catholic schools, performing arts schools, and still we've yet to do like prep schools. We've gotten so many requests lately or over the past year really for the Cult of Public School teachers, charter schools. The cult of schooling could just be like a whole spin off of this show. So yeah, today we're finally getting to homeschooling. It's a space that is just simply ripe for exploitation and ideology and us versus them dynamics and you know, manipulating people's vulnerabilities. Sorry, I am recording this episode early in the morning and I'm feeling like a funky little chicken. Which

Starting point is 00:05:33 brings me to a little disclaimer I wanted to make just for anyone who's new to the show. I wanted to just get it out there because this is a delicate subject matter homeschooling. We're talking about kids, we're talking about unregulated systems that can foster abuse. It's terrible. I just wanted to say that this is an opinion show. It's a show that does encourage us all to have thought-provoking discussions about the ways that cultishness shows up in contemporary society in places that you might not think to look. But if you would like a more journalistic take on the subject matter, I am going to link some resources in our show notes. I'm also going to quote some of these resources as I kind of like set up the topic before we get into our interview with my very special

Starting point is 00:06:17 guest host today, who is a friend of mine who grew up homeschooling, but her experience was totally defying of the stereotypes of homeschoolers, which I think was a really helpful perspective for me. So that was a great conversation. Stay tuned. But yeah, check out our show notes because that's where you can click on a fantastic fresh air episode about the problematic status of homeschooling in America at the moment. There, you can find the only current organization that lobbies on behalf of homeschooling in America at the moment. There you can find the only current organization that lobbies on behalf of homeschooled kids. And for increases in homeschool regulation, that's called the Coalition for Responsible Home Education doing the Lord's work. I am

Starting point is 00:06:57 not doing the Lord's work. I am doing a chatty podcasters work. My expertise is not in homeschooling. I wrote a book about cult language. I do do journalism in my writing career where I spend weeks, if not months at a time, crafting pieces about language and culture and stuff because we oftentimes get suggestions for subject matters that people care a lot about that do tread into more serious waters. And that's certainly the homeschooling topic, but we're still gonna bring our Sounds Like a Cult treatment to it. So I'm gonna give you some fast facts,

Starting point is 00:07:34 set up the topic, have a culty little convo with my friend who grew up in homeschooling. And then, yeah, if you wanna like continue your learning about the subject, or if you feel validated by the notion of calling homeschooling a cult and you're like, yes, please, someone help me understand that my experience growing up in this world was fucked. Then yeah, I'm going to link some resources.

Starting point is 00:07:59 Just wanted to get that out there, little disclaimer. So thanks for listening. Sorry, I've been doing voices lately. It's again, it's early in the morning. I am loopy doopy. Okay, but let me set the scene for why I've always known that homeschooling was a topic worth covering on Sounds Like a Cult. First of all, according to that Fresh Air episode that I referenced, which is titled Homeschooling is Surging but Lacks Regulation Can Leave Kids Vulnerable to Abuse, homeschooling is the fastest growing form of education in the United States at the moment, surpassing

Starting point is 00:08:37 both private and public schools in growth rate. Now originally homeschooling was totally dominated by Christian conservatives, but that's changing. Now it's becoming more and more diverse in terms of parents' motivations and backgrounds. Here's some stats. According to a Washington Post piece titled Homeschooling's Rise from Fringe to Fast-Growing Form of Education, the National Center for Education Statistics found that as of 2023, between 1.9 million and 2.7 million kids are homeschooled. That's an estimation. And guess which state has the most homeschooled kids? Yes, you guessed it absolutely right. It is Florida. According to the Washington Post, that's partly because its elected officials have grown friendlier

Starting point is 00:09:22 to home education as they saddle public schools with politically charged restrictions on what can be taught about race and gender. So that's one extreme, and that's very scary. Again, though, there are plenty of reasons why you might want to homeschool your kid. I want to say thank you so much to all of the listeners who called in with their cult of homeschooling tidbits that are sprinkled throughout this episode. When we posted a memo for those call ins, I was reading through the comments and someone was like, I actually think the cultiest thing about homeschooling is how vehement the anti-homeschoolers are.

Starting point is 00:10:00 So, you know, with any sort of like fraught, impassioned, ideological subject, like how we should be educating our kids, people tend to get really polarized. And so I can see how, you know, some might totally write off all homeschooling as like abusive potentially. But look, I mean, living in society now, speaking of cults, who doesn't dream of like scooping up all their friends who either have kids or want to have kids soon and thinking, you know what, let's just uh, let's move to the woods. Let's start a compound. We can all raise each other's kids.

Starting point is 00:10:34 We'll teach them how to fuckin' use a loom and spin their own yarn and like hand dye their own tea towels like a frickin' tradwife and it'll just be all hunky dory for the rest of time. It's a desirable fantasy when the present feels painful as it currently does. So yeah, a lot of reasons to homeschool your kids that not just these like religious fanatics might find appealing. For example, what if your kid is horribly bullied in school? What if there's some kind of fundamental disagreement with teachers? A disagreement with what's being taught. I remember my parents growing up were horrified by the low quality of science education in the public school system where I grew up. And I mean,

Starting point is 00:11:15 Lord knows they were not going to homeschool me. But, you know, the public schools do, like, for sure, leave a little something to be desired here and there. But this Washington Post also cites you know state homeschooling monetary incentives which exist. For example in Florida a homeschooling education incentive expanded by Ron DeSantis, insert vomit sound, could give homeschooling parents $8,000 per child per year. Also school shootings. This is America. School's a scary place. Then of course it must be acknowledged that anti-vaxxers might not like the vaccination requirements of the school. Not great, but you know, certainly a thing. And then on the more reasonable end, a school might not be

Starting point is 00:11:57 sufficiently accommodating to a child with special needs, and that could very well be a reason to homeschool. A quote from this Washington Post piece said, home education's rise has coincided with the fracturing of a nation unable to agree on the results of the last presidential election or how to fight a pandemic that has killed more than a million people. So it's not like homeschooling is on the rise

Starting point is 00:12:20 for a very positive inspirational reason. It's on the rise because an institution that is supposed to provide us with reliability and care, we've lost trust in it. And those conditions are really how most cults in America have begun. This WashPo piece said one Hillsborough County school board member named Lynn Gray, who's taught at both parochial, public, and homeschooling co-ops, said that quote, her experience left her worried about many homeschooled kids academic preparation and lack of exposure to diverse points of view. So people on the ground who are close to homeschooling, they're worried

Starting point is 00:13:00 because so many parents don't have formal education or understanding of what it means to be a teacher or how to teach kids. So that brings me to a discussion of regulation. I learned from this fresh air lesson that regulation varies enormously across states when it comes to homeschooling with some requiring no notification or oversight and others requiring registration and assessments. This lack of regulation, it raises some concerns, haha, as you could imagine, for potential child abuse to go undetected.

Starting point is 00:13:31 I heard about this totally heartbreaking case, the case of Roman Lopez, this 11-year-old boy in Michigan who was abused and eventually killed while being homeschooled. Michigan is a no notice state, meaning there are no requirements for homeschooling, which some argue contributed to the lack of intervention in Roman's case. You can hear more about this in the Fresh Air episode, but this case just highlights the serious potential dangers of lax regulation in homeschooling. Now, get this, you think we could all agree, maybe, on putting measures in place to make sure kids are learning and not being abused. But of course, there's hella disagreement and backlash. In response to attempts at increasing regulation,

Starting point is 00:14:18 homeschooling advocacy groups like the Homeschool Legal Defense Association or the HSLBA often oppose efforts to increase regulation. They argue that it imposes on parental rights and freedom. But you know, as diversity increases in the homeschool world, there are just gonna continue to be these disagreements and we're gonna have to figure it out. Like, I certainly don't know what those solutions are gonna look like, but this is America and this happens. We're a society where a lot of different people with a lot of different views eventually have to come together and compromise on policy, but people get really bent out of shape and

Starting point is 00:14:56 these in a twist when it comes to educating their kids. This is just a hell of a fraught space. Now, before we get into our interview and we're gonna talk about the following subject matter a whole lot more with our guests, we cannot have a cult of homeschooling episode without addressing two sub-sex. One, something called unschooling. And the second is the extreme religious sect, the IBLP,

Starting point is 00:15:22 which might ring a bell because we talked about it in our Cult of Reality TV families episode where our special guests hosts were Jill and Derek Dillard. Jill's original last name was Dugger. So the Duggers are a member slash were a member of this extreme religious sect, which promotes homeschooling in a way that is quite disturbing. promotes homeschooling in a way that is quite disturbing. So, unschooling. Unschooling is a homeschooling method that is also, surprise surprise, gaining traction in the United States. This approach is supposed to, allegedly, empower children to steer their own educational journey without fixed curriculum, tests, or even direct teacher oversight. It encourages children to explore their creativity and interests autonomously.

Starting point is 00:16:15 So it's like a fancy fun version of neglect. Yeah, on the real, all this freedom, it's chaos for a child. Again, we're going to talk way more about it with my special guest. But yeah, a lot of unschooled kids, shocker I know, come away without basic knowledge such as, I don't know, their times tables or knowing where Canada is. But yeah, there's like a whole culture that's been formed around unschooling. There are these specialized camps like the not back to school camp where they'll foster these environments where teenagers have like way too much freedom, including unconventional sleeping arrangements and basically no restrictions on behavior. This world is pretty uninclusive, as you might imagine.

Starting point is 00:17:08 A lot of these programs caution against attendance by young people who have mental health conditions or allergies because there's just no infrastructure. It's like a fucking free for all. So that's one subsect of the homeschooling umbrella. Then on the way far other extreme, the sort of opposite of having no restrictions, you have the IBLP, the Institute in Basic Life Principles. So this religious higher up at the IBLP named Bill Gothard founded something called the Advanced Training Institute, which is like the IBLP's homeschooling branch. The Advanced Training Institute, ATI,

Starting point is 00:17:47 promotes a strict hierarchical worldview. The whole thing aligns with the quiverful movement, LOL, my favorite religious sect name. Quiverful sounds charming and quaint, it's not. This group advocates for basically is having many children as you possibly can as a divine mandate. Oh no, I see your ATI and I raise you my IUD. Anyway, ATI emphasizes strict control over women's appearances, including long hair without styling products. Okay. It is a look. Laura Ingalls Wildercore,

Starting point is 00:18:22 we do stan head coverings in church modest dress codes and the curriculum Dismisses the idea of higher education for women steering them toward traditional roles instead. It's tradwife energy God doesn't want you to go to college that vibe so basically homeschooling is like a painter's palette where every shade of painters palette where every shade of wacky or mistrustful of institutions can like dab on there and sometimes they mix and Sometimes it turns out an ugly fart color I don't know if this analogy is making sense. The point is the homeschool Community is culty from every direction no matter how you slice it and with that

Starting point is 00:19:04 I am very excited to welcome a friend of mine to guest host the rest of this episode with me. Please welcome homeschool survivor and current internet content creator, Justina Sharp. ["School Bells"] ["Phone Ringing"] Hi, Sounds like a cult. My name is Gabrielle and I'm calling from Chicago. I think the cultiest thing about homeschooling is the fact that it isolates you from other

Starting point is 00:19:33 children and typical school experiences. When I was homeschooled, a lot of the families would try to get you to convert to their religion or attend religious events with them. And to me, that was extremely culty. Hi, my name is Aron. I'm calling from Arkansas. And to me, the cultiest thing about homeschooling is the social cost on childhood development.

Starting point is 00:19:55 I was homeschooled until the age of 10. I only had three siblings and a group of up to 10 religious homeschoolers in the area who were my friends. When I entered public school at age 11, I did not know anything about socializing or how to make friends, and I suffered extreme anxiety, social phobia. Essentially, the exit cost was huge.

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Starting point is 00:21:11 Code Cult at checkout to get 25% off your first order. That's stickergiant.com slash cult. Code Cult for 25% off custom stickers and labels. Squarespace, if you dare not to know, is an all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs, podcasters, fashion designers, writers, to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or you're managing a growing brand, Squarespace truly makes it easy

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Starting point is 00:22:13 And when you're ready to launch, go to https colon slash slash www.squarespace.com slash colt to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Justina, could you introduce yourself and how you're connected to the cult of homeschooling? Yes. Okay. So my name is Justina and I am now an influencer, actress, all those fun internet things. But previously I was homeschooled from fourth grade until I graduated high school when I was 16. Wild. I was just mentioning before we started recording that you are the only homeschooled

Starting point is 00:22:45 person that I currently know to my knowledge, because there might be some in our midst going stealth. And you were saying how when people tell you that you don't seem homeschooled, you take that as a compliment. Can you elaborate? Yeah. I mean, first of all, yeah, there are homeschoolers everywhere. And I feel like there's a certain threshold that you like, as long as you stay on one side of it it then you don't have to tell people. I think that the homeschooler that most people believe in when they hear the word homeschool is not a real person. It's like a weird cartoon in their minds and I don't want to be that. That is completely fair. What are those like cartoonish qualities that come to mind for you that you'd like to dispel once and for all?

Starting point is 00:23:26 I think the most succinct is the opening scene of the original Mean Girls. Right. With the homeschooled kids. Your mother's Mean Girls. Yes, my mother's Mean Girls. Remember that in the fucking trailer, the first trailer that they dropped,

Starting point is 00:23:41 they were like, this is not your mother's Mean Girls. I'm like, who's the mother? Who's mother? Who's mother? Who's mother? Anyway, the original Mean Girls opening scene, they have those homeschooled kids in their overalls talking about, I think like shooting dinosaurs and homosexuals.

Starting point is 00:23:53 That is what people think all homeschoolers are. And here's the thing, you know, different strokes for different folks. I'm sure there's at least one kid out here in this world that is that kid. Majority of us are not. And so that's why. I don't know if it's necessarily a compliment, but I'm like, yes, I do not seem like that.

Starting point is 00:24:08 Okay. You don't fit the stereotypes. Fair enough. Okay. So speaking of stereotypes, growing up, I knew precisely two people who had been homeschooled up until the point that they joined our arts magnet high school. These two twins who were definitely known as weird, gorgeous, blonde, freckly. They looked like they had survived fundamentalist Mormonism. That was the look that they were serving. They might have. They were homeschooled kids coming to your school. Exactly. And they came to our Arts High School and they were these two little pristine cherubic white girlies who entered the cosmetology program. So they were like learning to do hair. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:24:50 Do you know that they weren't fundamentalist moments? Because everything you're saying. No, I don't know. I don't know that. Okay. But they low key looked like people who just gotten out of a cult. And you know, I think there is a stereotype that homeschooling is culty. And I was wondering from your perspective, what elements of that impression are true and justified versus unjustified? Yeah. I mean, that's totally fair. First of all, I think that there needs to be an understanding of like homeschooling is like just a verb. Everyone can do it differently. And I think that's like one of the good things and one of the bad things in terms of like when you

Starting point is 00:25:27 think about like what's culty about it, speaking only from my experience, which was definitely on the more like, I'll say liberal side of the spectrum. What is culty about it is the inherent premise of like you are taking children out of the standardized setting for whatever reason and can kind of create their world in a way that a lot of parents can't at this point in time. And then sometimes, like with anything, that can be really scary and quite frankly dangerous and neglectful, not in my personal experience, sorry mom, but I have seen it happen. And then also it can be wonderful and magical and like it can be all the things that like mommy bloggers on Instagram are trying to convince you of.

Starting point is 00:26:08 Those can be real. It doesn't make it not culty, but it can be real. Totally. Oh my God. This is the nuance we're looking for on this episode. It sounds like a cult. So I want to hear all about like your personal story, but you mentioned the breadth of reasons why someone might choose to homeschool their kids.

Starting point is 00:26:26 My impression is that religion is one of the main ones, but honestly, in this world, in this society, in this economy, in this culture, I can totally relate to and have myself contemplated the desire to want to like save the children from like, I don't know, anything from like the flaws of the schooling system in general. And those flaws are only becoming more apparent with late stage capitalism and class disparity and the rest. And also just like a fundamental mistrust of society and kids are mean and you know, so could you talk about some of the broad reasons why someone might choose to homeschool their kids from your perspective? Yeah, absolutely. So obviously religion is huge. I was not religiously homeschooled and most my homeschooled friends weren't because of the simple fact that if you

Starting point is 00:27:18 are choosing to homeschool your child for religious reasons, you most likely want to keep them within the religious sect. You want to keep them in the community so they're not going to interact with kids like me or hedonistic ways of just being homeschooled. Yes. So I'd say religion. Most recently, the one that I have encountered is this sort of like, it's not religion and it's not just the school thing. It's some secret third thing that people can't really articulate where they're just like, people always say, I want to spend time with my kid. And it's just this like, yes, I've heard that. Secret third thing that people can't really articulate where they're just like, people always say, I want to spend time with my kid. And it's just this like, yes, I've heard that third thing that kind of encompasses everything. Like they, they want to homeschool

Starting point is 00:27:51 their kid because they want to spend more time with their kid. And I would say a lot of the parents when I was growing up, that was what they would probably have told you if they were saying like, they were like, oh, I want to spend more time with my kid, which you know, can go in a myriad directions. Right. I've heard that before from, I don't know, mommy YouTubers that I've seen in the ether being like, why would I give my kid away to someone else for eight hours a day? I miss their upbringing. I can see where they're coming from, but at the same time, it does create this sort of cultish atmosphere. And I hope people don't take offense to it when I say that. I mean, it can create this sense of insularity when the only people that a family is interacting with all day long are each

Starting point is 00:28:38 other. Yeah. And I think it's also sort of a weird, privileged dog whistle because it implies a lot of times that other people don't want to spend time with their kids or don't like their kids. Yeah. Ironically, none of those reasons are the reason I was homeschooled. Yeah. Okay. So let's let's make this about me. Yeah. No, let's please make this about me. Yeah. So I was in a charter Montezori school, which I know is another cult adjacent you've spoken about in the past. And I will say this, I think that systems like Montezori are wonderful for small children. I have great memories of my time in my Montezori

Starting point is 00:29:10 program, but it got to a point where my mom went to a parent-teacher conference and they effectively told her I had finished. So my mother, for context, my mother is from Germany. They have very strict education standards. They're very specific. Children are learning. And she sat down. Children are learning. Yes, indeed. You taught me the most incredible German word that is a lexical gap in English and I wrote it down. Can you remind to just teach the class?

Starting point is 00:29:37 Because actually it's a cornerstone of my education that my mother really built in. It's allgemeinwissen. Allgemeinwissen. And it's just learning about lots of things and bringing them all together and connecting them and understanding how those connections shape the world around you. Can you use it in a sense? Oh, goodness. Would it be correct to say like Gia Tolentino's work is a great representation of the genre of allgemeinwissen. Like it's, yeah, yeah. I mean, it would be like, it's hard because it's just one of those things that just exists.

Starting point is 00:30:07 Okay. It just kind of exists. But yeah. So my mother went to this PTA meeting with my father, I'm sure, but he's not a main character in the story. They basically were like, well, we love Justina. She's so smart. She's reading at an eighth grade level.

Starting point is 00:30:20 She's done everything. And that is because the Montezori principles as they were being applied in my school at the time were sort of free led education. You worked through a curriculum that was assigned to you and I had simply finished mine. And so I was spending my days. Okay, Matilda. Literally spending my days reading all kinds of things,

Starting point is 00:30:39 specifically books about Elizabeth I. I was really fixated at that point. And my mom was like, well, that's unacceptable because why is she coming here every day if you aren't teaching her anymore? Like you're teaching all these other kids and they're like, well, because the other kids aren't done, which to be completely fair to my fourth grade teachers makes perfect logistical sense. And I was also very young already for my grade because I have since found out as an adult that here in the United States, people often put their child in an additional year of preschool or kindergarten in order to sort of like age manipulate the education system.

Starting point is 00:31:08 My parents did not do that. They packed me and my October birthday off. They said, go learn. Right. And so my mom said, well, fine, we will homeschool her. Why that was the leap, we may never know, but that is what happened. Yeah, no, I can, I can easily see that because I think another issue that I've heard some parents take with the education system is that it's really flattening in a way, but also hierarchical in that, like, how damaging to have a program titled gifted and talented, you know, for some kids. And that's one tier. And then there's maybe like a middle average tier, and then there's a bottom tier. And it's horrible for your self-esteem and everyone's needs are not being met.

Starting point is 00:31:48 And I mean, I certainly don't know the solution to all of this, but I think some parents see all of that going on and are like, you know what, I'm out. Exactly. And I think that people, at least parents like my mother, we were just very privileged to be in a position where that was a decision she could make because I'm sure lots of people have had that same experience where they're sitting there and someone's telling them their kid is great. We love them. They're wonderful. They're a gift to the classroom, but we can't do any more than what we're doing. And there are people who do not have the option that my mother had where she could say, okay, well,

Starting point is 00:32:20 we're going to take the summer. And in the fall, I was homeschooled. And I was homeschooled through a charter school. What does that mean? That's such a good question. What is a charter school? I certainly don't know the structural differences between a charter school and a regular school. I do know that as a homeschooler, the majority of people that I knew who were homeschooled

Starting point is 00:32:44 and not unschooled, which is a separate thing we can talk about later. Yes. Um, but the majority of people I knew who were homeschooled were homeschooled through a charter school program. So we were assigned an educational specialist and we were given access to the funding that the state of California designates for every student. Okay. So we were given access to that money to spend on educational resources through my educational specialist. It's pretty confusing.

Starting point is 00:33:09 It's very confusing. And as a product of that system, I still don't completely understand it. Okay. But I do know that it meant that in theory, I had educational oversight from a professional teacher. My educational specialist was a teacher, not just like some lady.

Starting point is 00:33:26 Got you. And she was supposed to work in tandem with my mother to ensure that I was consistently meeting educational standards and goals. Understood. So this is kind of sounding like the sort of regulated, responsible California version of homeschooling, which as I'm understanding is not everybody's experience.

Starting point is 00:33:44 So then what did your day to day look like? Because when I imagine, again, from a position of ignorance, the average day of a homeschool kid, I think of like the Duggars or some of these mommy vloggers that I see on YouTube that are evangelical. And it's like a kitchen table with like six blonde children sitting around it, learning about creationism for three hours and then going to like hoe in the yard. It would have been absolutely shocking

Starting point is 00:34:15 to walk into my dining room and see six blonde children. But a little joke for those of you who find out what I look like. So in my house, homeschooling was simply the absence of physically going to school. And that was pretty much it. Because we got up consistently at 8 a.m. We were expected to start school at 9 a.m. And we worked through a curriculum. So I was expected every single day to fulfill math to some degree, science, English, history, all of those things. The biggest difference being that I had the flexibility in my day that if there was something

Starting point is 00:34:46 else that we wanted to do, we could work around it. So I, as a child, volunteered at a horse stable and did four-age things all the time. Every hour God sent, I was able to go kind of really pursue my interests and passions. And that's a youth program. And that's a youth program. That you're still involved with. That you're still involved with. That I'm still involved with. You know, we could do art classes in the middle of the day

Starting point is 00:35:08 with the adjustment being that I was still expected to do my history or my math or whatever, but I could do it at four o'clock if art class was at 1.30. But I was still expected to do it every single day. And I think that that was like, as I got older, a consistency that I did not necessarily see around me and my friends. So I don't think that that was like, as I got older, a consistency that I did not necessarily see around me and my friends. So I don't think that that's, I don't know if that's necessarily the standard

Starting point is 00:35:30 for all homeschooled families. Got you. And by we, you mean you and your brother? Yes, my brother and I. So was your mom home all day? Yes. So my mother worked from home from the time she'd started working from home a little bit before she began homeschooling me, but consistently was at home all the way through my entire education. Got you. And you were, were you at the dining table? Yes. Occasionally we were at the couch occasionally, you know, I did something really crazy and did it my bunk bed, but I was consistently doing schoolwork and my mother, this is something that I think is so wonderful about the way that I was homeschooled. My mother knew her limits and she knew her interests.

Starting point is 00:36:07 So there were certain subjects, math, that she made sure I had tutors for. There were certain things that if there was something she didn't necessarily know a lot about or was like even confused because we had curriculum that was shaped by outside powers that be. It wasn't my mom going, okay, this is the history you're gonna learn today because my mother is not a history teacher. But it got to a point in the curriculum where both of us were like, what is this?

Starting point is 00:36:32 Libraries, other teachers, other tutors. She was very consistent in making sure that I was educated. I wasn't just at home playing school. I love this because it's very much like, German lady does high end homeschool experience for children. Yes.

Starting point is 00:36:49 Like that's what it's sorry. I keep doing this German accent. It's so funny because my mom doesn't have an accent. So this is like extra funny. No, this is like extra funny because my mother has no accent whatsoever and you would be shocked to meet her and then you see her name written and you're like, what is happening? But no, this is great. This is satisfying.

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Starting point is 00:40:22 It sounds like a cult. I'm Madeline Bracken calling in from Boston, Massachusetts. I think the cultiest thing about homeschooling is the fact that the parent isn't really a trained professional, so they can't pick up on learning disabilities and might just play it off as like, oh, my child's just a little different than others.

Starting point is 00:40:37 I had a girl who transferred to my public school after being homeschooled her whole life. And off the bat, she got diagnosed with dyslexia, ADHD, and a few other things. And I remember talking to her and she was like, I cannot believe I had all of these learning disabilities because my whole life, my parents just told me that this was normal and this was just how I was.

Starting point is 00:40:56 Hi, I'm Bethany calling from North Carolina and I was homeschooled my whole life. First, the blatant indoctrination within all of the curriculum. Second, the separation in activitiesctrination within all of the curriculum. Second, the separation in activities and extracurriculars from other kids. And third, the inability for most kids to pick where they go to school because most parents just put them in homeschooling and don't let them go anywhere else. Hi, my name is Emory and I'm calling from Lewiston, Maine. In my personal

Starting point is 00:41:21 experience, the cultiest thing about homeschooling is the alienation that you feel, just because you didn't have the same experiences or learn the same thing as everyone else once you get out of it. So when all of my friends were trading Pokemon cards and learning about science, I was memorizing the 66 books of the Bible and watching Veggie Tales with my siblings.

Starting point is 00:41:44 Okay, so did it feel like you were different growing up? Did it feel like you were in a cult of any kind? Oh, absolutely. I think that there's this thing when you're a child about being homeschooled that is so fun because especially for me because I had gone to school, I knew what I was not doing. Like I was like, I woke up every day and I was like, I don't have to to go and you guys do and so there's some very like sort of delicious satisfaction as a child smug Literally, I think it's so insane though when people are on camera now because now we have so much more access to like watch other People than we did when I was homeschooled

Starting point is 00:42:16 But I've seen so many homeschool parents be like well They can go back to school anytime they want your kid is most likely never going to want to go back to school. Because why would they? People have these beautiful homeschooling setups with jungle gyms and trampolines in the backyard. And I'm like, your local public school 305 does not have a trampoline in the backyard. And they don't get to get up and walk around and get snacked. Why would they want that? Okay. So that is funny too, because another, now I'm learning maybe inaccurate stereotype that I've held about homeschool kids, is that they're kind of like these trashy evangelicals,

Starting point is 00:42:54 but now I'm hearing like, these are some rich kids maybe a little bit. There are, it's, you know, it's a huge range. Like I would say it's all of those things. We were definitely not like, what I would describe as like rich. What I would describe as is just like a way to cover like, no, we were not. And my parents made a lot of sacrifices to homeschool my brother and I, both of them.

Starting point is 00:43:12 And you know, my mom in some very sort of like direct ways and that she was home with us every single day. And my dad in that he worked extra triple double whatever to support that so that we could be at home. Right. And you know, there's little rewards along the way. Like my dad loves to talk about how because we were homeschooled, his work schedule was insane when I was a kid. But when he came home, we were home. And so we could hang out. We could do things on Mondays when everyone else was in school. So the time that he had, he got to have with us. But like, you know, my parents did a lot of those things versus like, yeah, there are most certainly rich kids.

Starting point is 00:43:48 There are here in LA, acting kids, working kids. Those kids, they're also homeschooled. And they're in a completely different space. And then there are, yes, absolutely the kids who, and I have met quite a few, who are homeschooled for reasons that are just beyond me. And sometimes, you know, I have met people where I'm like, in most instances, there is probably a school

Starting point is 00:44:11 that would like fit your beliefs. You've just chosen to not be in the school for some reason. And I will meet people when they're like, well, there's no school that teaches what we teach. And I'm like, think about why, think about why. Because there are Catholic schools. So, right. If there's not a school teaching what you teach at all,

Starting point is 00:44:25 anywhere in this world, why? Right. Maybe it's because it's not meant to be taught. Maybe we should think about that. Yeah, no, okay, so let's get into the tea because I want the hot goss. Can you talk to me about your interactions with homeschool kids that were beyond you

Starting point is 00:44:40 where you were just like, damn, that's a little scary and a little culty. What were your observations there? Yeah. So I mean, you know, we can take it all with a grain of salt, but I will say, so I was homeschooled from the fourth grade, like I said, until I graduated when I was 16. I was consistently educated with curriculum and with a system and very much held to a standard of, I could have been put into a school at any point and I would not have been behind. Would you have been put into a school at any point, and I would not have been behind.

Starting point is 00:45:05 Would you have been comfortable socializing? Is that a- Yeah, no, that's a totally valid question. I think I would have because I was, like I said, I was really involved in my youth program in 4-H. I spent a lot of time with other kids. And that's not to say that I didn't deal with loneliness and isolation because I most certainly did.

Starting point is 00:45:23 And I think now as an adult, I reflect on certain experiences I had and think, wow, like that was, that was a little too lonely at those certain points. But I think that that's just sort of one of the trade-offs you make for the homeschooling, unfortunately. But what I can say about that is I was consistently or almost consistently the only kid I knew who was educated to that degree because that's not to say other kids weren't being educated, but the kids that I regularly interacted with were unschooled. So I was throughout my entire childhood and well into my teens, I was regularly made fun

Starting point is 00:46:00 of for doing schoolwork. Can you please explain to the fucking class what is unschooling? Yes, and if you are someone who unschools your child and I am incorrect, you are welcome to tell me. These are just my observations of unschooling. Many of the parents that I knew had chosen to completely remove their child from the standardized educational system through a variety of different ways, the most popular of which was through some mechanism that I still don't understand, registering themselves as a private school with the state of California, at which point you are

Starting point is 00:46:35 completely responsible for the education of the children in your private school. And, you know, people unschool for lots of different reasons, but the one that we ran into most often was the belief that their children would simply learn from the world around them. Just teenagers loose with no supervision which is also why when I tell people that I was homeschooled I immediately follow it up with not the way that you're thinking. Dude, I first heard of unschooling. This word cracks me up from my best friend who nannied for celebrities when she first moved to LA, which is like a job that a lot of people land at

Starting point is 00:47:19 when they first moved to this town, young women that is. And I'm allowed to spill this tea. She nannied for Alanis Morissette. That doesn't surprise me at all. I didn't even Twitch. I was like, yeah. No, you didn't even Twitch. I knew where we were going.

Starting point is 00:47:32 Who is a culty gal? I mean, Jagged Little Pill, we absolutely stan, but you know, she is one of those like woo-woo types. She unschooled her kids. And my best friend had to tolerate as a nanny the repercussions of that. No, it was not like a word in their vocabulary. Growing up with a lot of unschooled kids, I fundamentally like think that homeschooling has its place, not as many places as it is, but it has its place. That's a good way to put it. Unschooling in my mind is just never the right answer for the problem you

Starting point is 00:48:06 are trying to solve. And I say that because every single instance of unschooling I saw resulted in a kid who constantly had questions and never got any answers because children are inherently curious and passionate and joyful and they want to learn things. Maybe not always the things you're trying to teach them. Like I never wanted to learn algebra, you know, I'll cop to it. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't give them the opportunities to learn and put those things in front of them. And in my observation, unschooling consistently was this thing where children were left to their own devices. And then the children's enjoyment of that was held up as like proof that it was working

Starting point is 00:48:48 But yeah, if you leave a 14 year old unsupervised Regularly with a bunch of other 14 year olds to do whatever they want and they're accountable to no one and no systems sure They're having a good time when they're 14 But it's a little more awkward when you're 18 and you don't have a legitimate high school diploma. You can barely read and you have no functional skills whatsoever because you have been exclusively amongst other people exactly like you who are also lacking those skills. Yeah, it's very Lord of the Flies. It's extraordinarily Lord of the Flies. And I also think that unfortunately unschooling in my observation led to sort of like

Starting point is 00:49:27 a death of innocence. Right, well I was gonna say it sounds like it could lead to hedonism, did you ever hear of this reality show that I think aired for a season or two called Kid Nation? Yes. It was kind of like what you're describing, it's like the social experiment where you put like a group of 11 to 16 year olds

Starting point is 00:49:46 all in a house and see what they'll do. And right, like they're probably having a grand old time, but they're operating on pure base instincts. Children need structure. In a way, I think people join cults as adults because they're craving the structure of their childhood. It feels good to have someone tell you what to do from time to time.

Starting point is 00:50:04 Like in Fleabag, they're like, tell me what to do. Tell me who to be. I quote that monologue all the time. Me too. And I think that what happened, at least in my experience, was I was the homeschooled kid, which was weird. In my spaces, I was like, when you get that kid in a traditional school setting, who's way too into school and everyone is uncomfortable around them. That was me in the homeschooled situation, which is insane, which is crazy. When I think about the kid that I was, I was so just weird, a strange child in a fun way, like a fun, quirky way. And then to these other kids, I was this buttoned up, no fun vibe killer because I was like, sorry, I have to leave because I do need to finish my essay on the book that I got to pick about the subject that I'm really interested

Starting point is 00:50:49 in. Right. But to these other kids, I was in many ways representing something that they had been taught was an enemy, which was standardized education. And their parents consistently, there was this thing that we heard where they were like, their parents would treat schoolwork as the devil. Sashism. Yes. It was oppression. I remember my mother was told that she was oppressing me, which is

Starting point is 00:51:10 just there's so many layers to this. But it was that she was oppressing me by forcing me to work through a curriculum and to learn in a standardized way. And when I think about how whimsical our use of the term standardized was is absolutely insane to me. Wow. This is like a cultish conversation that I didn't necessarily think we'd be having. I thought we were about to like roast evangelicalism for an hour. But it's fascinating because I think modern life is very confusing. Education is a cult bucket that comes up on this podcast all the time because it's a ripe category for cultish ideology and influence. And I think like, you know, there are flaws

Starting point is 00:51:53 with the standardized schooling system, but what makes unschooling and certain segments of homeschooling culty is the extreme us versus them radicalization of like, there are flaws there, so we need to go drastically in the other direction. And that like attempt at correcting an issue causes sometimes actually a bigger issue. It's something we see in cultish behavior,

Starting point is 00:52:18 whether you're in spirituality or schooling. Absolutely, and I think to some degree, it endangers children in some of the same ways we've seen in like these very big examples of homeschooling gone wrong, like, you know, the the duggars. Yeah, the IBLP. Yeah, we see these things where it's like they're being taught things that are literally not true, that are just not attached to reality. And in unschooling, something similar is happening. But the thing that they're being taught is actually about human interaction. And these children are being placed into environments that are just not appropriate for anyone.

Starting point is 00:52:51 Like there are situations that I observed I was never part of because my mother always knew where I was. And what I was doing and who I was with, side effect of being homeschooled is I was the original like observed child that they're all talking about now. I'm like, oh, okay, you guys are scared of the internet. My mom was there.

Starting point is 00:53:07 But there were situations that I observed that now as an adult, I would not want to be in because you had these kids who were constantly, I would almost say searching for the next big moment, the next dramatic thing. And in a school environment, that sort of chase is contained by structure. Yeah. It's, you know, yeah, kids are mean. Sure, kids are mean in school. And I've seen some horrible instances of bullying and all of those things.

Starting point is 00:53:32 Kids who don't have any adult telling them that they're wrong and that they need to stop and that they're going too far or have no real understanding of what too far is, go so far beyond. And there were things that were happening when we were 13, 14, 15 that I remember at the time seemed strange to me. And there were things that I was like, I know I don't want to get involved in this. I don't want to be around this. I wouldn't speak to another person that way. Now as an adult, especially as an adult now who works with children, I reflect on that. And I think how horrible and damaging. And I don't know the

Starting point is 00:54:01 extent to which some of those parents understood what their children were involved in. But I think that that's part of the problem because you're saying, I want my child out of the school system so that I can be the one to observe them. But then you kind of leave them to the devices of not just themselves, but all these other kids. Yeah. And there's a big difference between a 10 year old and a 16 year old, but we were all there together. Scary. Kids are in a way the ultimate radicals. Like kids go so fucking hard. Yeah. You know, like when I see kids,

Starting point is 00:54:32 I'm not around kids ever, but like when I see, when I think of kids. And we have the idea of children in your mind. When you think of the youth. No, actually I do babysit one of my closest friends, one and a half year old daughter. She's my best friend, but like she goes fucking hard. Like her emotions are so extreme.

Starting point is 00:54:52 It puts a kid in a position where like they could be susceptible to delusion, cultish belief, cultish behavior, especially when they're only around other kids who are operating in those emotional extremes. Oh, absolutely. And I think often something that has come up in conversation about my homeschooling experience as an adult now is that I was spared the worst of our experiences by the fact that I had outside forces that I was accountable to.

Starting point is 00:55:19 So I had my parents, I am an oldest sister and I carry that with me everywhere. I have to be perfect. And I also had this like my youth program that I was involved with has very strict code of conduct that you learn from like nine. And I was like, I don't want to say I lived in fear of it, but I was constantly thinking I was like, is this the right thing to be doing based on the sort of like outside structure that I had been offered? And so there were moments I remember being 14, 15 walking out of like social interactions, which is such a crazy thing to say when you think about the fact that we were meeting up in like park days. And we had a homeschooling conference that was like the hotbed of crazy things happening that we would talk about for the next year.

Starting point is 00:55:59 Wait, wait, tell me about the homeschooling conference. So the happily I will tell you about the homeschooling conference because it was the social highlight of the year. There was this big conference held at a hotel in my hometown of Sacramento, and it was hosted by a large homeschooling organization that I think is maybe defunct now, fingers crossed. And the idea was they would gather all these families together and we would have educational workshops for adults about different types of homeschooling. It wasn't any one specific type, different types of homeschooling ranging from religious to I'd say radical. Unschooling was always very present at this

Starting point is 00:56:33 conference and the people who make money off of other people unschooling their children because that is an entire industry. Who makes money off unschooling? There are people who do unschooling curriculum. We'll all just take a moment for that oxymoron. But there are people who make a lot of money. There's a lot of money in the homeschooler space period. And there are people who make money off of unschooling by like selling books about unschooling, selling excursions to send your unschooled child on that quite frankly sound a lot to

Starting point is 00:57:00 me like the very youth programs that Paris Hilton is protesting right now. The trouble team. I was about to say it's giving trouble teens. It's all connected. The type of people who make money off of children being neglected are everywhere. And at this conference, there were also educational tracks for teenagers and there were educational tracks for pre-teens. They were very ahead of the game on that and for kids. So the kids ones would be just, you know, we're going to make playDoh and as an activity and for three days, you would go to different workshops at different times. The teen ones would start to get a little racier only because they were topics that I do think

Starting point is 00:57:32 it's very important that we talk to teenagers about. Like there was like a sex ed workshop, but by nature of the fact that you were taking kids who were never in a classroom any other time in their lives and trying to sit them down and educate them about something, it often became like a joke that was then quite frankly inflicted on the larger public. So if you just happen to be staying at this hotel while we were all there, I'm sorry to you.

Starting point is 00:57:52 I was never part of the pranks, but you have a bunch of teenagers who quite frankly are very privileged. There is a degree of privilege that is not always necessarily about money, but the privilege also of always getting to be at home, always knowing everything's going to be okay. And you're getting them all together for this one time of year, and you're having parties, you're having unsupervised hotel rooms, you're having drugs, you're having just any vice you can think of children being exposed to, being introduced. And you have a lot of kids coming from very different backgrounds. Like I was coming in with parents who instilled in me an ability to walk out of

Starting point is 00:58:28 a room or an ability to say, I don't want to be part of this. I'm leaving, but I don't feel like that was a super common experience. And I do feel like there were a lot of things that happened, unfortunately, where people were like, Oh, I'm taking my kid to the homeschooling conference. And they're thinking like you are at the beginning of this episode of sort of like a meek shelter child who is isolated and would just be really excited to like sit together and like eat lunch and that was

Starting point is 00:58:50 not what was happening. I like lived euphoria. Yeah, no, I was gonna say it sounds like a lot of these kids are just set up to have no boundaries. None. Which can be really damaging for your adulthood. Physical boundaries, mental boundaries, emotional boundaries, they were not present. And it became normalized because you wanted to be part of the group because this was your only opportunity to be part of a group. And I often reflect on something my best friend who was homeschooled with me at the time, he talks about a lot is that if it was like a solar system, I was just like the planet at the end of the line. I guess I was Pluto. I was Pluto in that like I was there and I was

Starting point is 00:59:29 around and they all recognized me, but I was very isolated from it because I was homeschooled because I was constantly trying to leave. He was like you were constantly leaving things and I was like, yeah, oddly I was uncomfortable with that social aspect. Right. And at the time that made me weird and that made me stick out. It's fascinating to hear about these dynamics. So then I want to talk about the Venn diagram of how the cult of homeschooling slash unschooling as a kind of subsect of homeschooling, I would say. What other cultish communities does it overlap with? Because it overlaps with evangelicalism for sure.

Starting point is 01:00:01 You mentioned like religion is one of the key reasons why people homeschool their kids. It overlaps with the troubled teen industry as you were mentioning. You know there are whole fucking cult leader ass motherfuckers trying to profit off of the neglect or abuse of kids like you said but then this very insidious we're actually educating them type of way. And then there's like the kind of anti-vax, anti-establishment, we don't trust the government or the healthcare system thing. What other culty communities in American culture right now would you say have overlap with homeschooling? Absolutely all of them, because in every single culty community, be it religion, politics, the troubled teen industry, all of them, Hollywood.

Starting point is 01:00:40 Hollywood, there is a buy-in to remove children from structure. Hollywood is a big one. At that very same homeschooling conference, there is a very famous charter school here in LA who profit specifically off of graduating those kids you see on TV when they're like, oh, they graduated high school at 13. There's a school that makes their money doing that. So here in Los Angeles, there are people who profit off of child actors. And basically anywhere where there are people with extreme beliefs, there is motivation to start with the youngest people they can. And homeschooling is an excellent tool for that. Often people ask me, you know, Oh, would you homeschool your kid?

Starting point is 01:01:19 And I ask that people reflect when they're thinking about homeschooling at all. Are you doing this for your child? Which is what I would say my mother was really strong motivated to do it for me. It's not that she wanted to sit at home all day with her 10 year old talking about Queen Elizabeth the first. Are you doing this for your child or are you doing this for yourself? Great, great thought exercise. Couple more questions and then we're going to play a culty game. Cults,

Starting point is 01:01:45 especially when you grow up in them tend to sort of haunt you for the rest of your life. How do you think homeschooled kids are haunted by the cult beyond their childhood? Yeah, I mean, it absolutely depends on the faction of homeschooling that you are part of. For me specifically, there are certain, I call them gray areas, where every once in a while, it doesn't happen that often anymore, but every once in a while there will be something that is specifically a reference that people learned in school,

Starting point is 01:02:17 or even I'd say every once in a while, like a social cue that very much is born out of being in a public school system, and I just don't have it. It's just not there for me. And it's just like that piece is entirely missing. And I think that a very big way that I specifically was haunted by it is that I graduated high school very young. I had no understanding of how the college system in the United States worked.

Starting point is 01:02:39 At all. My mother, as aforementioned, is from Germany. My dad comes from a military family where that is sort of the path after high school. And I had no understanding of how to get into college or what was required of college. I did not know any of the prep things they teach you in high school. So this is like my dad who spent his teenagers in like a real everyone can agree cult compound.

Starting point is 01:02:58 And so that for me was going to college and not knowing just the things that I think you probably take for granted if you went through public school, like the formatting of how to write essays. was going to college and not knowing just the things that I think you probably take for granted if you went through public school, like the formatting of how to write essays. I had a college professor my very first year, she asked us to write a five page essay on the gold rush,

Starting point is 01:03:15 I don't know, California history. I turned in five pages, double-sided, single-spaced, nine point font on the topic, because I thought that that's what had been asked of me. She called me in her office hours and said, "'Why is there so much?' "'I will never forget.'" And I did not understand at all what she was asking.

Starting point is 01:03:32 So for, I would say, all four years that I was in college, through my college journey, the homeschooling haunted me, not in that I didn't know things. I was actually probably most often more deeply educated than a lot of my peers were, because I'd had that opportunity. I didn't know how to do the things in between. You just weren't, you just didn't fit in. I just didn't fit in, which is impressive because I went to a community college, which

Starting point is 01:03:52 is full of people who do not fit in other spaces. When I think of my homeschooling journey, I think I got out easy because I got out with a lot of opportunities and a lot of education. And I would say, you know, my mom's sacrifice paid off in a very concrete way. I think the ways in which I've seen some of my other friends be haunted by the cult have unfortunately been much more severe consequences that I don't think anyone should put on their children, which range from the fact that a lot of my friends, not naming names,

Starting point is 01:04:20 don't have real high school diplomas. If you were to look at their diploma, you would realize they were made on Microsoft Word. A lot of my friends are lacking in basic education skills and that has no reflection on their intelligence, but they did not learn things they should have learned. And now as an adult, it's very difficult, especially in this country, to ask for help with that. There's no way to get that support. And that probably interferes with how they get a job. I mean, yes, the jobs they can get or also just their ability now that we are adults and not teenagers who don't have consequences anymore to understand the impact that their

Starting point is 01:04:54 actions have. And I say friends and I'm most of them are not my friends, but they I would say the people I grew up with. Yeah. A lot of them have a very difficult time understanding the consequences of their actions because they didn't have a single consequence until the day they turned 18. Damn. So who would you say are the cult leaders here? Is it the parents, people I can't even imagine who are recruiting and preying on these families?

Starting point is 01:05:17 I think homeschooling is such a big umbrella topic that I really think it would depend on what kind of homeschooling you're doing because we you know, we've all seen the Duggars. I keep pulling back to them because they're such a great example of what that sort of that structure looks like. They have a very concrete cult leader. Yes. And they have very concrete figures, which is Bill Gothard of the IBLP. Yes.

Starting point is 01:05:37 Listen to that Cult of Reality TV families episode if you haven't already because you will learn all about that. That man is a very concrete figure as opposed to I'd say the environment in which I, because as previously mentioned, I was not part of it. The environment in which I was homeschooled and my unschooled peers, it's much more murky, it's much more shadowy. I would say that the people you look to for assistance,

Starting point is 01:05:59 in my case, my mom was working with my educational specialist who shout out to her for nothing because quite frankly, a lot of the problems that I just described that I faced as an adult were her responsibility and she fell down on the job about it. But then in the unschooling space, there were very, these transitional people who would just come out of the woodwork because they saw an opportunity. There are grifters everywhere and they would see an opportunity to take these parents who in some instances had the money and in other instances did not and take advantage of

Starting point is 01:06:31 them. And in some more insidious situations, take advantage of their children because you had these children who didn't even have the fire alarms that we teach kids in school of like, Hey, if a stranger talks to you, run away from them. Stranger danger. Stranger danger. Like the things that we just teach kids that, you know, on a larger scale, people are like, oh, those don't work. They're not protecting the kids. Well, these kids didn't even have that. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:06:51 And so it, yeah, it's like, it's like, yeah, who's your cult leader? Depends on, you know, depends on the day, depends on your play group, depends on which homeschooling conference you're at. Right. I would say in a lot of ways, the parents, in the unschooling space that I was raised in,

Starting point is 01:07:03 the parents are not the cult leaders. The parents are, are whatever, like the third in command. Yeah. Because you know, in a cult, ways, the parents in the unschooling space that I was raised in, the parents are not the cult leaders, the parents are, are whatever, like the third in command. Cause you know, in a cult there's like, you've got the cult leader, you have the second in command who's actually executing. And then you have that third person who's just like really believed in the mission of the cult and are maybe doing things that go against their profound values, but that, you know, they're doing it for the cult. Cause they believe in it. And I think that that's sort of like, unfortunately at the core of a lot of the downside of homeschooling, there's a corruption

Starting point is 01:07:28 of innocence for everyone. And that's not to say it doesn't work out. That's not to say that occasionally I've had in my life some wonderful opportunities because I was homeschooled. But I do think that when it goes bad, it goes bad. People have a belief that they wanna uphold. Yeah. For me, I go, would I homeschool a child? Probably not. I know myself. I love kids. That's why I don't have any. And so I would not homeschool a child, but I don't regret being homeschooled. And I feel like

Starting point is 01:07:58 a lot of other people I've met are not of that same mind. They either don't want to talk about being homeschooled because of their experience or the way that they feel it reflects on them. Or they have become these sort of extreme right wing, anti-vax, anti-establishment conspiracy theorists. And they're like, yeah, we should homeschool our kids. And I'm like, no, not like that. Wow, so there's a lot of shame and silence

Starting point is 01:08:21 and radicalization, That's wild. ["Sky's Got a Sky"] ["Sky's Got a Sky"] ["Sky's Got a Sky"] ["Sky's Got a Sky"] ["Sky's Got a Sky"] Hi, sounds like a cult. My name is Raelle and I'm calling from Victoria, BC, Canada. Myself and all of my siblings were homeschooled

Starting point is 01:08:40 from K through 12. And I think that the cultiest thing about homeschooling is how religious fundamentalists can use it to indoctrinate children, teaching them only what that specific group believes to be true and completely leaving out large chunks of history and scientific fact and theory. Amongst those I personally know, this also led to disproportionate levels of abuse as there were very few adults outside of the group who could notice or report concerning behavior. Furthermore, in my experience, very few of us who are homeschooled the whole way through are provided with a level of education

Starting point is 01:09:18 that allows us any access to higher education or gainful employment outside of entry level jobs. Hey, sounds like a cult pod. This is James from Pontiac, Michigan. And I think the cultiest thing about homeschooling are the fricking homeschool co-ops. I swear those are mini cult groups in themselves. Hi there. Sounds like a cult.

Starting point is 01:09:38 My name is Laura and I'm coming from Australia. The cultiest thing about homeschooling that I've found is in my experience everyone I know who chooses to pull their kids out and homeschool them is motivated by fear. Sometimes they're more upfront about that fear other times they'll be a bit cagey about it but the more questions you ask there's always some sort of fear. It's always fear of the government, fear of vaccinations, fear of society, fear of the LGBTQI plus community. There's always some sort of fear that's motivated them pulling their kids out.

Starting point is 01:10:08 That's what I find the cultiest. Okay, so now I wanna shift gears, lighten the mood and play a little game. I have been waiting for this. So as I mentioned, there are cult buckets that keep coming up on this show. Evangelicalism is one, wellness is one, so is school. Education is just like such a culty space.

Starting point is 01:10:26 So we're just gonna play a little round of what's cultier, cult of schooling edition. So I'm gonna name two categories of like types of school and you're just gonna, according to your opinion, say which one is cultier. Okay, I think I'm ready for this. Okay, what's cultier, homeschooling or Catholic school? Oh, goodness.

Starting point is 01:10:46 No right or wrong answer. Catholic school. Okay, why? I say Catholic school only because homeschooling has a lot of varieties and every Catholic school I've heard of has the same type of crazy things happening. Absolutely fair. Homeschooling or Hollywood Onset tutoring? Homeschooling. Mm-hmm. Home schooling or Hollywood Onset Tutoring? Home schooling.

Starting point is 01:11:06 Because Hollywood Onset Tutoring is in many cases pretty heavily supervised because the studios don't want to be liable for a kid not meeting the standards of the state. Very fucking go. Okay. What's cultier? Home schooling or Waldorf schools? Waldorf schools. Oh, tell me why. What's cultier homeschooling or Waldorf schools? Waldorf schools.

Starting point is 01:11:25 Tell me why. So for a brief stint, I was involved with a Waldorf homeschooling group because my mother is very artistic and growing up we loved art and Waldorf schools I think are a beautiful experience for young children. But in my experience, the older you get, a lot of the people I met were very extreme in the way that they policed their children's media intake to the extent of not just, okay, no pop culture, but it would be no books. I met high schoolers who could not read and not in like a, oh, that's funny, you missed the word, you can't read. In a very serious way, they were limited

Starting point is 01:12:00 in their abilities to read. And obviously that's not the standard for everyone, but I do believe that the way that Waldorf schooling is very specific, it goes in one direction and I think puts a lot of pressure on the parents that if you don't do it in the one direction everyone else is doing it, you are a bad parent. And so it puts pressure on you to limit your child. Cultie as hell. Homeschooling or wilderness schools, like the troubled teen understory. Oh, this is a tough one because they can be the same thing. So I guess in that case, Hell homeschooling or wilderness schools like the troubled teen understory. Oh This is a tough one because they can be the same thing So I guess in that case I would say that wilderness schools are immediately more culty With the caveat that everyone should always do a lot of research on the people that they are giving their children to because yeah

Starting point is 01:12:39 Those wilderness programs and homeschool programs overlap and in some instances are the exact same program being billed and advertised in two different ways. Oh God, so scary out there. Okay, last one. What's cultier homeschooling or performing art schools? Theater kids. Performing art schools. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha'm sure everyone's a star. But the way that you guys talk about the spring musicals, I know it's out of hand. I know I know just screaming rent down the hallways. Like the

Starting point is 01:13:16 Hare Krishnas. I don't even you you have been in a cult since day one. And if it makes you happy, I'm happy for you. But didn't even need to hesitate. No, that is so fucking hysterical because we spend this whole hour like roasting, homeschooling, but really like no one's in more of a cult than me. Cult of recovering theater kids. Okay. So now I'm going to ask the ultimate question, the most important question of every episode of Sounds Like a Cult, Justina. Out of our three cult categories, live your life, watch your back,

Starting point is 01:13:47 and get the fuck out. Which one do you think the cult of homeschooling falls into? I've done a lot of thinking about this since the age of nine. And I think it is a watch your back. Oh, it's not a get the fuck out. It is not a get the fuck out because I think there are kids like me in this world and for their benefit, I say it is just to watch your back and hopefully your parents will do the same.

Starting point is 01:14:11 Low key after this discussion, I think it's a little bit of a get the fuck out just because that's fair. There were people who had a great time in Jonestown and didn't die. Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing, right? I think that's like in every one of these conversations, that's the sort of thing you need to hold at the center of it is that I

Starting point is 01:14:28 was given a lot of wonderful opportunities and I have some great memories and you know, on my behalf, I did get to go to college and I got to learn so many great things. And I understand how to have a passion, which I think is something that I deeply credit homeschooling with. And I deeply credit performing arts school for the same thing. Exactly. There you go. But I also have to acknowledge that that is not going to be the truth for everyone. So yeah, so that's part of it is like, watch your back. Hopefully your parents will also watch your back. Mine did. And that's why I can sit here and have

Starting point is 01:14:58 this conversation with you and not feel like I need to hide the fact that I was homeschooled. But also I'm not trying to like, be like, oh, everyone should homeschool their child, which we're entering a new wave of my particular cult. I mean, theater kids have always been theater kids, but with the advent of the mommy blogger, we're entering a completely new era for my cult. And so, tradwife era. I just hope that people listen to this and yeah, think about my question from earlier. Are you homeschooling your child for your child

Starting point is 01:15:26 or are you homeschooling your child for yourself? Amazing. Okay, if folks wanna keep up with you and your work and your cult, where can they do that? I can be found everywhere. You just shout into a void. Justina and I appear, but also more swiftly on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Starting point is 01:15:44 Gorgeous. Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. Stick around for a new cult next week, but in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty. Ah! Ah!

Starting point is 01:15:54 Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Sounds Like a Cult is hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and edited by Jordan Moore of the PodCabin. Our theme music is by Casey Cold.

Starting point is 01:16:07 This episode was made with production help from Katie Epperson. Our intern is Reese Oliver. Thank you as well to our partner, All Things Comedy. And if you like the show, please feel free to check out my books, Word Slut, A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, and the forthcoming, The Age of Magicalinking, notes on modern irrationality. If you're a fan of Sounds Like a Cult, I would really appreciate it if you leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Starting point is 01:16:40 Come and join me for the cultiest event of the season. Oh hey! It sounds like a cult host Amanda here to invite you this April to New York, Boston, and Philly where I'm putting on a culty variety show that you are not gonna want to miss. This show, Cult Gathering Extravaganza, features guest appearances from the cult followed podcasters behind Normal Gossip, Petty Crimes, Love Letters, and Strange Customs, plus drag burlesque performances, a musical guest, exclusive merch, a meet and greet, and more, and this just in, for the New York event,

Starting point is 01:17:14 use the code cultmagic, no spaces, at checkout for 10% off your ticket. A copy of my new book is also included in the price. It's going to be a hootenanny. Recruit your friends. Ticket links can be found at the link in our Instagram bio at Sounds Like a CultPod or on our website soundslikeacult.com.

Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Homeschooling

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