Today we have the pleasure of introducing Keith Phillips.

Keith is a former US army helicopter pilot who, along with his wife Becky and their six children, is dedicated to building productive families and enduring christian legacies.

He introduces bunkies small do it yourself linked log cabin kits to America, promoting family unity through shared, meaningful work.

Keith believes in the power of family and community, with work as the cornerstone and advocates for living a life of biblical producerism.

Welcome, Keith.

Hi.

Good to be here.

All right.

We are so glad that you are joining us today.

Thank you so much.

And, you know, for people who are listening, it's one of those days we actually restarted three times, which is very unusual for our podcast.

And we have some excitement in the house, so apologize in advance.

But Keith, this is going to be such a wonderful conversation.

We've been waiting for a conversation like this where we get to bring not only someone who really wants to help our families in many different ways, but are also homeschooling and can really have that conversation with us of how we build this dream of bringing our kids home, bringing education home, and really making it work for families.

So thank you for joining us today.

Oh, you're welcome.

Glad to do it.

Wonderful.

Well, one of the things that we would like to start with is why, what is your passion?

What made you and your wife decide to bring the education home for your children to homeschool them?

And how do you really incorporate that into family life and what you want for your children?

So we both started out, I would say, like, even when my oldest was three or four years old, we were very much dedicated to never homeschooling.

And I apologize.

I'm in the wind here.

The camera's going to shake.

We had to redo some things today because of the sunspots and the Internet and things.

So, yeah, when my oldest was about four years old, we were basically dedicated to not homeschooling, probably not private school, probably just public school.

Both of us are public school.

And my wife was invited to an event at which she saw three recently graduated students who went through all twelve years in homeschool.

And it was a particular homeschool curriculum.

It was classical type of education.

And she was rather shocked at how eloquent they were, how easily they conversed with adults, how they just really looked set up to go into the world.

And they were enjoyable to be around, just very enjoyable to be around, very knowledgeable.

And as they talked about their education, she not only said, whatever those guys are on, I want my kids on it, too.

She said, whatever they got, I want to get it.

And so the motivation that initially she had and then I've had and been able to see to some extent, is not only getting a good education for your children, but redeeming your own education.

Because, let's face it, most of our educations were something short of what we might have wanted them to be.

And so that, I guess, answers the first part of the question.

The second part of the question, how are we doing it?

How are we integrating education into family life?

Would that be maybe a way to question.

We have a lot that is formal.

We have school time every day.

We essentially have a one room schoolhouse.

We do a thing that we got from somebody.

I said we that becky got from somebody of morning time.

Okay, so they are going to read something, they're going to look at a piece of art, things like that, right?

And when they get to the other sort of, you know, subjects, they try to do those together.

So the thing we're doing for math right now actually has kind of all the kids doing the same thing, but at different levels, they're discussing the same ideas.

And it's pretty incredible that you can have a six year old and a 16 year old at the same table discussing math, and they're discussing it from a classical aspect.

So they're talking about the fact that a point is that which has no mass, no, that takes up no space, that has no length, width or height, and then how that means that a point is nothing and yet everything is made of points.

It gets us to the idea of everything being created of nothing.

These are the kind of conversations that we're having, and we're having them from ages six to 16 at the dining room table.

And then myself, I actually, we do meet once a week, and some of those groups are not really.

Or they're somewhat age segregated.

In the older levels it is per year.

And so one day per week, they're spending five or 6 hours with kids on age.

And I was the sort of tutor director of that thing.

And it was really, really neat.

We were.

We were reading, you know, classic greek literature.

We were reading histories and just seeing those things integrate together.

So we've seen the family integrate.

We've seen the family integrate in their education.

We've seen that that education integrate with theology.

We've seen it integrate with business.

And those are the kind of things that you really can't do in any other setup.

And it also happens to be the setup most people in most of history have done.

And in the modern era, we're the weird ones that think that people from different cultures, different beliefs, different backgrounds and different personalities need to be stamped out through, essentially a homogenizing machine to meet standards.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

That's something that we kind of actually talk about, about how it used to be that the homeschool kids were the weird ones out and were.

Didn't fit in.

And now it's really the public education kids that are the weird ones that are taught weird things and don't fit in with society all that very well.

So that shifting narrative based on that, trying to create a homogenous society instead of well educated children who can work throughout the world.

And so I totally understand and love the approach that you're taking and what you're saying.

So, yeah, that's really important.

And one of the things that you were saying was that the fact that you can have the multi ages at the same table right in the classroom, it's so hard to get the experience from older and younger because they're all basically the same age.

But when you can use your older children and your younger children to help each other learn, and like you said, how that deeper conversation, it's amazing what the youngers can learn so quickly.

So that is an amazing thing to do.

It's wild.

Children are not unfollowed russoian sponges, but they are sponges.

And it's incredible what they will pick up if you put a buffet of good things before them.

However, if you give them a buffet which includes candy, 99.9% of the time, kids are going to eat the candy.

And so there is a sense in which we want to limit a lot of what's there, but we're giving them so much of that which is true and good and beautiful that it's not like they don't have a feast.

They do.

It's just a feast without, you know, pasteurized, homogenized, genetically modified garbage.

Right, exactly.

Yeah.

No, and it's great because we've also had nutrition experts on our podcast, and we talk about that connection between good nutrition and the learning brain.

If they don't have the nutrition and the good stuff in them, then they aren't going to learn.

Right.

And then we also talk about the garbage that they feed our children at school with, with all of the sugar, even, like, just their regular white milk has more, has like three times the amount of sugar that the.

That the American Medical society says that a pregnant woman should have during a day.

So just one thing of milk has more sugar than a pregnant woman needs for a whole day.

And they give that to our kids in school, along with all the other processed garbage.

So, you know, that's.

That's.

That's totally way off the subject.

But, yes, you know, it's all right.

Yeah.

So.

And then when you get to feed your kids at home, not only are you feeding them, hopefully better food, but you're feeding them better information and teaching them how to get that information as well.

And, like, you were talking about the greek literature and thought, philosophy and theology and personality.

It's like, those are some fabulous things that most people don't understand.

And when they do, it's usually almost too late to really figure out how to incorporate in their life without turning their life upside down.

So if you can start building those understandings and habits in the children, then they have a lot less trauma to try and figure out and fix as adults.

Very much so, yeah.

So, bunkies.

Let's talk about bunkies and do it yourself log linked cabin kits.

So you use that as a method to bring your family together through work.

Let's talk about that a little bit.

Yeah.

So it happens in multiple ways.

I mean, so we marketed, I market, ostensibly, these cabinet kits to the us market.

It's a canadian company, bunky life.

David and Carrie Frazier started back in 2017.

And for them, it was a way for her parents to be able to stay with them while they were having a pretty traumatic time in life.

And she was in and out of the hospital a lot, had a very small house, three kids, two bedrooms.

And so it was rough.

They were able to have a place for them to stay very quickly and affordably.

And then other people started wanting them to, and eventually they had a factory and started cranking them out.

It's still a small business, small factory for us.

We saw that, and we saw business opportunity with expanding our short term rental business.

We live in the middle of nowhere, as you see behind me, but it's.

It's a.

It's right by national forest and a bunch of wineries.

And it's a place in the middle of nowhere that people do want to go.

And so we're able to monetize that.

And our property now pays us to live here as opposed to the other way around.

So it.

For us, it's.

It.

Initially, the spark was like, that's what I want to do with it.

And then, you know, when I really got to talking to David, he thought, well, you understand, you're an american, but you understand it.

We've had a hard time breaking the US market.

Maybe you can go speak american to these people, you know, because David's just not bilingual.

He only speaks canadian, not american.

So we were working with him, teaching him how to speak american and marketing these to the US.

But what's been great is I, at the same time, I've been transitioning from somewhat more traditional as I was working for a larger company.

So now I'm fully, you know, self employed.

And our means of sustainment is.

Is independent of any large corporation, and it's directly tied to what we do, so it's not mediated by anyone anymore.

And the thing itself, in terms of producing mostly video content and some writing stuff, the kids are involved in that directly.

And then we really can't produce much content unless we build something to produce the content with.

And we wanted to have more short term, I can't speak short term rentals on the property anyway.

And then we've also wanted to add kind of a caretaker's house, guest house to the property.

And so we just built that.

We're still working on some of the accoutrements for it.

If I can get the electrician and plumber to come out and finish with, do what they need to do, we'll be.

We'll be done pretty quick.

Yeah, but this has allowed us to have some pretty big projects that the children are involved in.

And so, you know, my biggest thing on, on, you know, teaching children to work, there, there are points of which we expressly talk about.

Work is valuable.

Work is commanded by God.

Genesis 215 says that God took the man that he had made and put him in the garden to work it and keep it.

That means produce and protect, cultivate and weed.

You know, I mean, so that's what we're called to do.

When we don't do it, we feel bad, right?

We're not healthy humans.

And I have a thesis which is kind of the backbone of a podcast series that we started called the Stay at work home.

And that's that working is an essential part of being a family, and that's been mostly taken away from us, and it's been taken away because we have been sold this idea that the good life is when you're not working.

So the good life is the things you work for.

Going to Disney World, the weekend, television time to not be productive.

And in actuality, it's a recipe for social disintegration, which follows family disintegration.

And the family disintegration has been ongoing for some time now, and also now the social disintegration is well on its way.

So back especially before World War two, but especially after World War two in the United States, you had this promise that you could go to work for a large company and move to the suburbs, leave the farm, go to the suburbs, have a 40 hours work week, which is incredibly short by historical standards, and you would have more time set aside for recreation than any generation in human history.

And it was true.

They did.

And then they raised a dysfunctional generation.

And you had the 1960s.

And so we often look at the 1960s as, like, the generation that went wrong.

It wasn't them, because they were set up for what happened, right?

So they had this nice pleasant valley Sunday upbringing, and when most of them started getting old enough to think critically, they said, something's wrong here.

We're missing something.

And so, particularly since then, we've had a lot of people, I would say Gen Xers and especially millennials, where it's like, why is it that somebody might go on Amazon and buy an artisan podcast microphone?

I don't have an artisan podcast microphone.

I just have a podcast microphone.

But if you attach the word artisan to it, you're attaching a person and their labor to it.

And they want that authenticity, that there was an unmediated relationship between people in this thing, right?

Because that's what we're called to do.

And if we can't do it ourselves and we're dissatisfied ourselves in the way we're doing it, then maybe we can get somebody else to do it for us.

We could at least participate in their taking seriously of Genesis 215.

So there's a lot of things happening.

But I think the biggest part of it is that the family's been relegated, because if the family is not a productive unit in itself, it's just made up of individuals that happen to come together to watch television.

Why don't we need it?

And so a progressive philosophy that really wants to get rid of it anyway doesn't need to expressly indoctrinate everyone in cultural Marxism.

They just need to tell you to have fun and to follow your dreams and to watch tv.

And we thought, I think for a long time, that consumerism was part and parcel of capitalism, and that since capitalism was contra socialism or communism, then it must be good or at least a necessary evil.

It's not.

And it actually leads to the same thing, which is a leveling of society to make it nothing but individuals and a government.

Because, frankly, to educate children to simply be a cog in a machine and to entertain them doesn't require a family.

So that's kind of the big picture of where we're at.

And so the way we have marketed these, and I think somewhat successfully, time will tell more.

But, hey, guys, get to work.

You're not all a bunch of woodworkers.

It'd be great if you guys went to mortis and tenon and, which is a cool magazine website, and you found out how to do traditional woodworking and stuff, and maybe you will after this.

But here's a stepping stone to actually get your family working in a common purpose.

And so we've been able to, you know, have these big projects where the children come along.

There is no corporate overlord with their expectations that I'm going to come to work without my kids.

I bring my kids to work, and work is wherever we are.

Yeah, exactly.

And they participate, and some of them participate very eagerly at first.

They're small, and they kind of, you know, you're worried about them getting in the way and stuff and getting.

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And you have to slow down and let them do it and burn that time, because if you take time with your children when you're.

When they're young, they'll take time with you, hopefully when you're old.

Right.

But you want them to learn those skills.

And when you invest in your kids, by taking that time to let them help in these projects, that comes back to them.

So, like, initially, we're unpacking, and our kids come in these big flat packs, and we're.

We're unpacking them, and it takes a while.

And all hands on deck, right?

Because everybody can grab boards and then put them with other boards that look like those boards.

And then the kids, you know, the younger ones really want you.

Dad, please let me use that impact driver.

I'm like, I'm just gonna strip this.

Let them do it, right?

Take the extra time.

Let them do it.

It's worth it.

And within 30 or 45 minutes of them kind of being in the way, but helping and feeling like they helped, they'll start playing, but they're not playing with the computer.

They're not playing with the video game.

They're not scrolling social media.

They've got sticks, and they're hitting each other in a good way.

They're sword fighting.

They're building something out of sticks.

They're playing with the tools that we're not using.

They're playing baseball.

They're writing their own rules about how the game's going to be.

They're coaching themselves or refereeing themselves or learning independence.

And then as they get older, and more competent.

They are more involved.

And I tell you, my ten year old and my twelve year old and my 13 year old, I would rather have them than three of your average adult to build one of these things at this point, at least for the first two or 3 hours.

Yeah.

Because it would take an adult that long to get to their level of output competency.

So that's kind of how things work.

I mean, like, there's education going on, there's play going on.

Play is the work of children.

And the thing they most love to play at is work.

And so you've got to lead them in that.

And one of the things that you can do best.

I'll try to close this rant with this, with this thought, but one of the things that you can do is to really enjoy being an adult.

Yes.

Enjoy being an independent adult.

There's a song by the group 21 pilots, and I don't want to trash all their music.

It's not all trash, but this particular song.

It's like he's remembering the old days when the mama's saying us to sleep, but now we're stressed out.

And he's get up, you gotta make money.

And it makes being an adult sound awful.

And the song was on one day and I stopped my son, stop the song.

He paused it.

I said, I'm not gonna make you quit listening to you.

Let's make you quit listening to it.

But that song is trash.

That message is trash.

Yeah.

I like being an adult.

I don't want to be a child again.

I've moved on from being a child.

It wasn't that great.

I still remember it and I'm enjoying my life now.

And he knows that, you know, and he liked the beat or whatever, but we have to embrace that.

We have to actually enjoy what we're doing.

And if we don't enjoy what we're doing, maybe we need to change how we're doing it.

And that brings me to think about those people who are really in tune with what they are doing for their work and they really know the purpose behind it, and they really see that responsibility is a great thing, that independence is a great thing, that whenever you're able to give back to other people instead of just the me me, it really puts a different light on what you're doing and how you do things.

And the fact that you're being that kind of model for your children is absolutely amazing.

And I love seeing that.

The other thing was that, you know, whenever you're talking about the kids, the little ones.

Right.

They really want to help.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's the same way with parents who want to take their kids in the kitchen.

Oh, they're going to make a mess in the kitchen.

I'm not going to be able to get dinner ready really fast.

But if you actually let them do that with you, that bonding, of course, and then those skills that they learn and then you're right, they get tired and they kind of wander off and they start playing with the boxes or they start playing with whatever else is around that really gives them that sense of I'm part of the family, I'm part of the work, and I also get to do the learning and exploring that I need to do.

Yeah.

Because if you give them something else up front, they develop a taste for something else.

Yeah.

I don't know what, what you guys background is.

Did I hear that you're Catholic?

Yeah, I'm Catholic.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know, I would say that, you know, in my background, which, you know, right now we're Presbyterians, but we grew up kind of broadly evangelical and it was a lot of, you know, church was, was light shows and smoke machines and rock band.

Right.

You develop a taste for the things you're given.

And I think a Catholicism Catholic thought has understood that for a long time.

And I would say reformed thought has understood that to some extent too.

But maybe even in reformed theology and certainly in broader evangelicalism, there's this kind of idea that whatever you like is what you like.

And that's really an idea that's just not a christian idea.

You can inculcate, you can cultivate certain desires and certainly liking certain things.

And if you've never had asparagus before, it's a good chance you introduce a ten year old to asparagus for the first time.

Ain't gonna like it.

If you haven't been letting the kid help out in the kitchen.

Good luck dragging them in when they're old enough to be competent.

Right, exactly.

Yeah, it's one of the.

Yeah, exactly.

Because you have to keep them involved.

Right.

And you have to let them have that curiosity because that curiosity brings the learning forward and having them want to do more.

Yeah.

So we're both Gen X.

We grew up with, well, I grew up with my parents both working and just basically, you know, we're called the feral generation.

We had to go figure it out on our own.

We're before the Internet.

It's like racism doesn't make sense to us because we had to play with all the kids in the neighborhood.

And so it's like, a lot of the stuff that's going on now, it's like, and we played with all the kids of all different ages.

So when we look at the stuff that's going on right now, it's just, like, mind boggling that people got to where they are today.

But at the same time, it's like, the work that we did and the play that we did was a lot different, and it wasn't necessarily with the family.

And so when we had a family, it's like, we saw some of the things that we didn't like that was going on with our parents, and we tried to change it, but it wasn't necessarily in the bringing the family together like what you're talking about.

So we didn't have that understanding.

We didn't have that realization growing up, and so we didn't give that to our kids.

So as a result, one of our children, we have 230 year olds, one of our children doesn't talk to us anymore, hasn't talked to me in, like, ten years.

And it's really, it's really hurts would be a really good way to put it, because, you know, your jobs come and go, your friends come and go, but your family should be there for the rest of your life because that's what family is kind of about.

And so part of the reason that we started this is to bring these ideas and concepts back to the family and teach the parents how to be a family that's going to stick together, basically, like what you found.

And so, like, when, when we start working with parents, one of the first things that we talk about is the traditions, is talking about family values.

What are your family values?

What do you want?

And so many people say, oh, it's like, well, family is the most important.

Well, if that's the case, then you need to make the family the most important.

And that's about bringing education home.

That's about bringing your kids home and start teaching them your family values, what your traditions, and preferably, if it's within a religious structure as well, to.

So the whole spoil the rod or spare the rod, spoil the children wasn't about hitting your children.

The rod of Moses was about the tradition of the, of the, of the time.

So if you don't give your kids the tradition, it's not that they're going to be spoiled.

It's that they're going to rot from the inside out.

So if you don't give them the traditions and the teachings and keep your family together, then your family is going to spoil and not be a strong, good family.

And so that's kind of like how we go about it.

So I love the message that you just talked about.

I love the way that you just are bringing that forward.

And again, children learn through play, especially at the younger age.

So allowing them to get that understanding and then to play around it while still involved in it is really special.

So, yeah, I just love your story.

It's so powerful, and more people need to hear it.

And that brings up a good point.

With the kids playing in and around the work, participating more and less as they see fit, they do the same thing in education.

And when you segregate into these really, really tight age groups, which is a historic anomaly that somebody came up with about 100 something years ago, and there's a phenomenon that you notice.

If you put 2010 year olds, heck, if you put 410 year olds together, three or four of them together, the fart jokes become the mainstay of culture really quick.

Like, that's.

That's where it goes.

Like it goes the lowest common denominator.

But if you've got multiple age groups together, then the older ones feel the responsibility to lead, the younger ones feel the need to man up for better, for lack of a better term, man up, woman up to show maturity, to grow, to impress.

Maybe some of that's negative in terms of impress, but the net effect is very good.

They actually do have the kind of interaction and the kind of education.

Not just, here's a fact, but.

But having it modeled before you.

There's so many things in the world, so many things in life that are caught, not taught.

Yeah.

And if you are one of 25 eight year olds with 128 year old in the room.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, we talked about that.

You know, when we start, when we talk with some people around communication and trauma and things like that, it's like, think about some of the most traumatic or places that you were bothered the most.

It was usually in school.

Why?

Because you were around a whole bunch of kids the same age who didn't know what they were doing and they didn't have really good role models to help them.

Very immature situation.

Yeah.

They didn't have emotional regulation.

They didn't have.

They were just all put together with no communication skills.

And the older children have learned how to communicate differently.

And when they see that younger is doing something, they go, hey, yo, that's not okay.

This is how we do that, you know?

And it used to be a community raised, a family.

So the aunts, the uncles, the neighbors, all got involved.

And if they saw children doing something, it's like, oh, I'm going to go tell your parents.

And that brought a different kind of a fear and a regulation of behavior that is just gone now because it's like, oh, I'm going to go tell the teacher.

I'm going to go tell your parents.

And the kids are like, yeah, so what?

I don't care anymore.

Because it's like the children, or even the parents now are afraid of the children and the way things are going right now because they just don't understand what's happening.

So it's like these children who don't know the rules, who haven't grown up, who aren't well regulated, seem to be running everything right now.

And that's not the way it should be.

It's really backwards.

And so we need to get control of that.

Or I wouldn't even say get control of that, but get a better understanding of that and give them the tools they need to mature.

So when you said maturity, man up, woman up, it's like, no, they.

They need to maturity up.

Yeah.

And, yeah.

Something you said about the reflexive answer.

Oh, I care about my family more than anything.

What is family?

What is family time?

What are families for?

What are people for?

So when you answer, what are people for?

And what are families for?

Then you can answer, what family time is better.

And then you might have some answers as to what it means to put your family first or to act as their family is important.

But right now, I think, you know, there's a term that a guy named James K.

Smith coined called cultural liturgies.

And being Catholic, you'll know all about liturgies, right?

What do you say in liturgies?

Don't have to answer that question.

But there's.

There's.

There's a lot that you don't say anything, right?

You just do.

You do stuff, like, a lot of it.

You could be silent, but you're going to do stuff.

And a lot of the liturgy, regardless of whose liturgy it is, no one's speaking to you.

You are doing, or you are speaking.

But in doing those things, you are told that certain things are important.

He used the idea of a shopping mall, which is now a bit of an antiquated concept, funny enough.

But he said.

He pointed out all these things he acted like he didn't know at the shopping mall.

And at first, you don't know.

He's talking about a shopping mall.

He's talking about a place of religious worship.

There's a bug coming after me, getting in my.

He's talking about a place of religious worship.

And one of the things he points out that at this place of religious worship, as you come up to it, you notice by the architecture what it is.

And you know that this kind of architecture is used globally for this kind of worship.

And there are certain symbols that are hanging on the side of it and so forth that, you know, transnationally.

And when you get there, there is a sea of asphalt on which to park cars.

And in the nicer temples, you'll have, you know, golf carts and trains kind of thing.

Trams running people from the sea of asphalt into the temple.

By this, pedestrians are mere pedestrians become suspect.

Right.

So you, when you operate in this world without anybody saying anything, you become suspect of certain people.

He goes into all these metaphors for it.

But basically, you can do a lot of stuff that never says anything but teaches you something.

Yeah.

So you can be told if you go to college, study hard, you go to college, you'll get this job, it'll pay well, you'll be able to live in big, be able to find a well paying job in a large metropolitan area from which you'll be able to retire at a young age with a decent amount of money in your 401K.

Not anymore.

No.

Yeah, other subject, but I agree.

But that's.

That's what we're told.

Right?

So we're told that.

What we're not told is this.

The good life is one in which you don't work, but you have enough money to give you financial security without working, so that you can basically live on vacation the rest of your life and have good healthcare that will greatly extend your life, if not all out, prevent.

Prevent your death.

Right.

I mean, that's the promise.

Yeah.

And.

But it never says that.

So we're told what the good life is by what we do in the same way that we're told it's really good to serve in the military, by seeing f 18s fly over the football game during the national anthem.

Okay, nobody says, it's good to serve in the military.

You just go, wow, that's cool.

You know, we need to be saying, wow, that's cool at some things, like working as families, having a unified family mission.

A family mission statement, having family core values.

I think you guys talked about, like, in your consultations, to help people find their core values.

Yep.

It's incredibly important.

We've been through that, and we've seen the distilling effect.

Like, it helps you get a mission.

And ours is basically creative work in music and writing and hospitality.

We want to have people out here.

We have this beautiful property.

We want to have people, too.

We have a university nearby.

Yeah.

When I was in the military and I was overseas, I had people share hospitality with me that got me out of the dark and depressing, awful barracks on the weekends.

And so we've tried to duplicate that environment.

And so with these international students here, we're able to have them out.

They see a place like doesn't exist in a lot of their countries unless you're loyalty or something.

And also, you know, introduce them to our family traditions.

We almost have, you know, what a Catholic would recognize as daily mass at our house?

We do.

We do family worship every night.

And it's kind of a read, sing, pray.

Yeah, sing kind of thing.

And so we invite students to participate in that.

And it doesn't matter if they're muslim, hindu, whatever, they find that it's, it's beautiful.

And then if it's beautiful, it must be true, because that's how we're created to respond to beauty.

Beauty should point us to truth.

So I want to add one thing to one thing that you were talking about is, like, you, you talked about how you go get a job and then you make enough retire that you can, or make enough money that you can retire and not have to do anything.

But if you, if you look at the statistics, it's like so many people die just a few years after retirement because they've lost their purpose, they've lost their mission.

And so just doing what you want bores them to death.

And, well, maybe not necessarily that way, but they lose their reason for living.

And then you watch these people who have worked until their eighties and nineties, and they're still cognizant and they're still thriving and they're doing so well.

So the idea of working so that you don't have to work anymore is a really weird, backward concept that ends a lot of people's lives prematurely.

So that's not a good goal.

And so, again, what you're talking about is brought out in the statistics of retirement as well.

So to be able to, and again, most people don't necessarily enjoy what you do.

So to, so to work as a family and to learn and to be able to say, hey, this is what I want to do, and then to go forth and build that life that you're never going to want to retire, that this is, no, this is who I am.

This is part of what I do.

And you do that with your family and you keep growing.

But like you said, also, it's like, well, you want to do something like this, and how can we incorporate that into the family?

And so it's like they don't all have to do the same thing, but within the family structure and within those traditions.

To build that life and to build it is such an important thing to actually talk about with your children, because if they just go to college to get a job that they're not going to be happy with, to make money that they're not going to be happy with to retire, when they're not happy, then they're never going to, in any of those stages, learn how to be happy and learn what it means to be inside.

And the other thing you talked about is, what is the purpose of a family?

What is the purpose of a person?

And really that comes back to a religious basis.

The purpose of that you have to find, not within, you talked about the biblical producer or the biblical aspect of it.

And so the Bible goes into that a lot in stories, not necessarily telling you, but in stories so that you can figure it out in ways that make sense to you.

And so the coming back to a biblical nature within a family is also very, very important for a lot of this work.

But we don't necessarily, like, point that out.

But a lot of people come to it through the realization of their growing family.

So I love what you're talking about.

I love that you do it daily.

That was never a practice that we had, and I kind of wish we had somehow been able to, been able to incorporate that.

But I was more of a spiritual nature.

I have a different viewpoint of, of a lot of things.

But I'm also very much see God in everyday life.

I see God in everything.

I see God in people.

And so the religion to me wasn't as important as it was to her.

And so that was something that we messed up that we are trying to come back to and fix in our older life.

As a non Catholic, I think this is somewhat being corrected in Protestantism, but sort of disembodied spirituality.

That is not religion.

Because basically, I mean, you get a definition of religion from James.

He said it's, you know, pure religion is to care for orphans and widows.

Right?

But religion is doing so.

It is back to that kind of liturgy, and it's a liturgy of life.

And I think that's what we have to do very differently.

We actually have to live things out in such a way that it confirms and passes on and doesn't contradict because I think a lot of people have said the right things but then done something that they thought was neutral, but it was actually undermining what they were doing.

And really, like, I don't want to indict like, my own parents of some great sin by sending me to public school, but it was kind of a cultural misstep anyway.

It's a cultural missing the mark very much.

And that's one of the things that we really want to do here with our podcast, bringing education home and our company, vibrant family.

Education is really to empower those parents to really think about is what your child is going through in the public school.

Is it really best for you and your family?

Is there a way that you can make a change and make things better for you and your family?

And that probably is or might be bringing education home, which is what most people call homeschool.

And so.

Can we talk about that for a sec?

Huh?

We talk about that for a sec?

Yeah, absolutely.

So when I say, can we talk about that kind of rant for a minute again, the, the trauma of public school or private school?

School.

The same thing.

Yeah, it happens.

There's maybe a sense in which it's back to the poor terms of man up, woman up.

Get over it.

This is how you grow.

You go through this trauma and you get over it.

Right.

No, like there's, there's, they say what, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger with this really long list of caveats that include dismemberment.

Right, right.

Maiming, paralyzation, like all kinds of damage that like just doesn't go away.

Right.

So we don't, I was in the army for twelve years.

We don't send eight year olds to the army.

No.

You know what?

What didn't kill me usually made me stronger when I was 19.

Yeah.

Some of that stuff would have really hurt me at an earlier age and socially, man, read CS Lewis's surprised by joy and listen to his experiences from school.

Pretty bad, you know, and it wasn't stuff that really helped him other than being able to tell the bad story later.

And I think we, we're trading, we're trading one thing that is historically proven for something that's at best, historically unproven.

But, man, if I, if I could give encouragement to anybody that was just considering homeschool, it's like, don't wait, give it a shot because the experts don't.

How do I say this?

The expertise is at best, the expertise is diluted.

Because you've got a classroom full of children that are very different from each other.

I have had children that learned to read at age five.

I have had children that didn't really get it till age ten or eleven.

And that's okay.

We were doing the same thing with them.

We gave them all the advantages.

The first child that we tried to over educate from age three months, as people do with first children.

Yes.

You know, she rebelled against learning to read when she was four and five.

And then when she was seven, almost without any help, the lights came on, the room was full of furniture.

She sat down and went to her literary life.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely disconnected rant, but, yeah, no, I mean, we.

And we've heard that over and over from different people we've had on the podcast.

And things is like, when we asked, like, what, you know, what's the biggest thing about homeschool?

And they're like, we wish we would have done it sooner.

The biggest regret that people have starting homeschooling is they didn't do it sooner.

Yeah, they should have started sooner.

Yeah.

And, you know, with reading, it's like my mom read to us a lot when we were growing up.

Before we could read, she would be reading his stories and that I figured out that I taught myself to read because I would, like, watch over my mom's shoulder.

And then when she stopped reading and I wanted to hear more, I would, like, pick up the book and pretend I could read.

And then one day I realized I was reading.

So I learned to read before I was in school because I just wanted to keep the stories going.

And that's just a weird thing that I.

That I realized as an adult, that it's like I was never really taught to read.

I kind of learned it on my own because I wanted the story to continue.

And so, you know, again, and.

But again, some people learn later, and if you don't push them and force them and make it miserable for them, then when they find the joy in it, the rapidity with which they catch up.

And this is one of the things that we found with homeschooling is even if they start in fourth or fifth or 6th grade and they got really far behind, like, they're at a second grade level, but they're in fifth grade.

Once this, once this whatever clicks, and they realize that homeschool is not.

It's not dangerous, it's not a stressful thing.

There is no more trauma.

It's a safe place, and they're okay.

Once they get their safety, then they get caught up to the fifth graders in public school and then just launch past them like a rocket ship, because then the.

Then it becomes personal to them.

Then they're learning what they love, and you use what they love to center around their learning.

So if they love building.

Teach them building stuff, you know, read building books, do building plays, you know, do building exercises, and then you build their life around that.

If they love dance, if they love music, you know, literature around music, math around music, you know, if they love dance, literature around dance, you know.

So that's one of the beauties of being homeschooled, is once you find out what your children love, then you use that to draw them into learning and to want more.

And then they just.

They just explode.

And then once they get that, then you get to start bringing in the greek literature, the philosophy, the theology, and they're ready for it, because it's not being pushed, it's an interest, it's curiosity.

And that draws so much more into them.

It does.

So I actually had a question for you for what a lot of parents might be saying is, like, what if they don't want to work?

What if they don't want to join you that day in the project, in the.

What are some things that have worked for you?

Because we're trying to get parents to really engage with their children and really bring them into the work, into the family, and making sure this is a joyful experience.

But I.

You know, there are some days that your kids are like, nope, I just really don't want to do that.

What do you do?

I've never had that experience.

Just kidding.

Okay.

I was like, what?

Wow.

Dad, do you have any more difficult tasks today?

Yesterday just wasn't challenging anymore.

No.

So you were talking about being read to you by your mother.

That's huge.

Start off reading out loud to your kids when they are in utero and then forever to the eschaton.

Right.

I mean, just keep on doing that.

Even when they can read.

That doesn't mean that you need to stop reading out loud to them, continue to read out loud to them.

Maybe let them do some of the out loud reading, but do it as a family.

Uh, there are certain books, and actually, I don't know if you guys want to host this link.

I can give you a link for it, but, um, I think on our.

We did.

We did something.

We've got a link on the website somewhere that we gave to somebody for.

It's just a list of books that inculcate a desire to work and on.

Those are ones like little britches.

I don't know if you've heard of that one great book.

And oh, my goodness, if you don't cry your eyes out on the first page of the second book, then you're not me because I'm a crier.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Little house in the prayer.

There's a bunch of other ones that show a family working together.

And so if you can actually bring them up with that, that's one thing.

But even if you can't bring them up with it, they're starting to get a little older now and you're just trying for the first time.

That's still a really good introduction.

It also builds a common family culture and a common family language around those books.

So continuing to read it aloud is great.

When they don't want to work, there will be times when they don't want to work.

If they're used to it.

Some of the kids are going to push through.

Some of the kids are going to rebel.

And it doesn't mean that the one that's rebelling against the works is the worst kid necessarily.

Kind of put this in the terms of the prodigal son, which was previously actually, apparently, like, there was a point at which they quit calling it, they started calling it the prodigal son, like in the 18 hundreds.

But before that, they'd always called it the parable of the older brother because it's really about the older brother because the people Jesus is talking to are represented by the older brother.

Right.

He's doing all the right things, but his heart's not in the right place.

And, you know, it would have been better to be the bad kid.

Right.

Right.

They, if they are given the opportunity early on, like you say, to be in the kitchen and doing the things and not doing the things, that's going to get you way ahead.

When they don't want to work, it's probably not the time to just do it now because I said so.

There are times.

Let's do it now because I said so.

But it can't be over and over again.

Yeah.

They've got to be, they've got to be brought along into something that's more than them.

We've had some issues with our kids doing their farm chores well, and I actually, I did a, I interviewed Sean and Beth Doherty.

You've ever heard of them, but they're, they're kind of instrumental and sort of back to the land, homesteading, homeschooling.

Yeah.

And she was talking about how, you know, getting up at five in the morning.

To do chores is not always easy.

No, but, but she does it.

They do it.

And she talked about moving, moving a fence because using these portable electric fence stuff, moving a fence to the cows.

And it was one of those mornings when the sun came out just right and the golden beams made rainbows and the dew drops, the angels saying, you know, and all that kind of thing.

I wouldn't have been there if it wouldn't have been for the discipline to go out at five in the morning when you don't want to.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, in the heart because like I realized that a lot of the chores I've been telling my kids to do it and do it without me.

And so this morning I repented to my children and I said, okay, from now on I'm doing the chores with you.

Even if it's not necessary, even if I don't need to be there to do it, I'm going to do it with you.

And we ended up kind of extending chores this morning to like, what could have been done in two or three minutes became 30 minutes because we took some time to invest in the system.

We worked on the business, not just in the business.

And we, and we, we improved the environment of the chicks that were brooding right now.

And so I did not get any complaining out of my child.

Who is the most likely to complain because I was doing it with him.

Something that people often do.

I don't want to say this wrong because you can help your kids too much in terms of not letting them fail.

Absolutely to let your kids fail.

But when they're reading, when they're doing math, things like that, there's probably enough problems in the workbook or whatever that if you help them with half of them, there's still going to be enough left for them to do on their own.

Right.

And you're not going to overwhelm that.

But just being there and offering them enough to get over the speed bump enough times that they feel like the speed bump is not so big anymore.

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's, that's big.

And it's a bit of a parallel on the, on the chore thing.

You've got to participate in it.

And then when you participate in it brings you together.

That brings up to a point that is probably a really good follow on question.

If you, if you're not going to ask it, you know, you might have.

What do you do when the 15 year old's just mad at you?

When you're a relationship shot.

Yeah.

And if your relationship consists of having fun together, which is what for what most people family time is, it's just recreation.

Yeah.

I don't know the answer for you, but if family time is continuing to do the mundane and the hopefully less than mundane tasks that you were already doing, there may be awkward silence, but there's nothing absence because you're forced back into this world of doing.

Yeah.

Even when the world of talking is difficult.

And let me tell you that there can be moments of awkward silence when you're raising, say, a 13, 1415 year old girl.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And that's actually one of the questions that parents have sometimes is like, oh, well, you might have.

We haven't done a great job on communication.

We haven't had family meetings.

We haven't had hard conversations.

And we want to get started now because we're having these issues.

It's like, take it slow and do things together so that you're in proximity and then those conversations can kind of start happening.

I would just like to say that doing when you're madden with someone, continuing to do the work gives you opportunities to release that energy, release that while you're in the work.

So that when you're out of the work, you know, it gives your brain space, it gives your cause when you're, you know, you're what they say, idle hands do the devil's work.

So.

Cause you're busy, you're doing.

And it's like, okay, let that process.

So I completely understand that.

Yeah.

If they get mad at you, but you're still working with them, then it gives that time to work out.

And that togetherness while you're working is so very, very helpful as well.

Cause I remember times where I was working with my dad and I would get like, ticked off and I, you know, I'm the kid.

I can't do anything but working through it.

And then after a while of working, I could start thinking again.

Because when you're mad, your brain, your brain produces different chemicals that stop your thinking.

And so getting that out, working through it and would help me understand my father more.

And by the time we were done working, you know, there's times where it's like, okay, I, yeah, I got that wrong.

And I would have to step up.

And at some point in there, somebody's gonna have to say, do you know where the speed square is?

Even if you're mad at them?

Right.

Whatever.

There's going to be something that brings you back.

There's a, there's a Robert Frost poem about the darkest night of the year, and I stopped to watch the farmer's field fill up with snow.

Yeah.

And they say it's actually a suicide contemplation poem, and it's the shaking of the horse's bridle.

Yeah.

Snaps him out.

Right?

Yeah.

Having to ask your kidde for where's the hoof pick?

Where's the speed square?

You know what?

Do you hold this for me?

I can't.

I can't do this by myself.

Can you hold this?

It's this thing that can snap us out of it.

And that might be a good point to say also that, especially if someone's coming to this late.

Yeah.

If your kids, ten.

If your kids, 13.

And the communication is bad at this point, there's anger, there's resentment, there's a cultural disconnect, because they've developed a culture completely different.

Different than yours outside your family.

Yeah.

You need to be vulnerable and honest and say, I messed up.

Help me, help.

Help me by realizing that I'm struggling here, too, that I know we need to be in a different place.

I have had multiple friends that are all older than me.

Incidentally, I'm not very old.

I'm a very young man.

I'm only 42.

But who said the worst mistake I ever made was letting my kid have a smartphone?

Letting my kid have a smartphone with social media accounts on.

Okay.

Yeah.

And, like.

Like crying.

My kid is now in the depths of despair.

All of the bad things.

Actually, one of my friends said, dude, everything bad about my kids being in public school pales in comparison to what's happened to them through smartphones and social media fails in comparison.

Yeah.

Okay, so you're repenting of all this stuff, of all these decisions.

You're like, I want to do things differently.

And right now, you are completely steeped in all my bad decisions, and I am sorry for that.

That vulnerability is huge.

I don't know how many times I've heard a person talk about, you know, how their.

Their parents never apologized to them for anything.

It is not about having all the answers.

It's not about always being right.

You will gain much, much more respect by being vulnerable.

That doesn't mean you're just their friend.

That doesn't mean you don't enforce the rules straight to speak.

But.

But you've got to say you're sorry.

I don't.

I would almost say a week hasn't gone by doubt.

A month goes by, they don't have to apologize to a kidney.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, you start thinking about what kind of role model is that?

How do you want them to see you and how do you want them to be?

You want them to be that person that is caring and understanding and can admit when they're wrong and stand up for themselves when they're right.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

That's a hard thing to do because you need to do both of them, right.

Yeah, exactly.

Yep.

That's called wisdom.

It is.

Knowledge is knowing what ketchup is and knowing what ice cream are.

Wisdom is knowing they don't go together when they use them.

Right.

Exactly.

Oh, this has been such a wonderful conversation, Keith.

I so appreciate your time and your effort of being here and just everything.

You know, I think we've had really great conversation just kind of weaving this theme of working with our kids, working with our family.

And don't be, don't be afraid of homeschooling.

It's something that, it can be really absolutely beautiful, and I really appreciate that.

And in this time and day and age, it's actually probably pretty essential.

But most people, you know, some people can't.

Some people are just still too scared.

But this is something that really should be embraced right now because the system is really, really broken on so many levels and the family is broken on so many levels.

And bringing your kids home and making the family that you say is the most important thing.

You're going to work for your family, you're doing all this stuff for your family, but you're losing your family.

So put the family first.

Actually make the family first.

And that's kind of what we offer as well.

It sounds like what you offer.

So fabulous.

I hope if anybody takes anything from this, it would be that you should have no fear of missing out by homeschooling, by seeking to have a productive family, you should have fear of missing out if you're not doing that.

Exactly.

Can you please make sure our audience knows how to get a hold of you and find out about these wonderful cabins that you also help get to people.

So the cabin for the cabins.

Heartland bunkies.com.

b u n k I e s.

Not with a y but with an ies.

And then for our podcast is called the Stay at home.

Sorry, I was going to mess it up.

The stay at work home, not the stay at home work.

The stay at work home.

And we are stayathome.

No stay@workhome.com.

for that.

Awesome.

Wonderful.

And of course, everything will be down in the show notes.

So don't worry if you didn't quite get that there.

Go down and look down below.

And you also dropped a gift for our audience, which is, you kind of alluded to earlier.

It's a book list.

Yes.

Yes.

About working families, about some things.

If you haven't done your, if you haven't done your family reading aloud yet, start.

Just buy all those books and start.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Wonderful.

Well, thank you, Keith, so much for being here and for all the information that you've shared with us.

And we hope to wish you all the success for you and your family and keep going and doing what you're doing.

And audience, we hope that you have taken the gold nuggets that have been dropped along the way.

You picked them up, you're holding them tight, and then you're going to start putting them out into your family, implementing these things that we just talked about.

And if you are concerned about your child's education, if you are concerned about your family, reach out to someone you can help.

Give us a message, give us a call.

Reach out to somebody else that you know that homeschools and find out more because your family is worth it.

And if you don't know where to go and we're not a right fit for you, reach out to us.

We can help you find someone who will, who will meet your needs.

So.

So it's all about helping the people right now.

So.

Exactly.

All right, audience, until next time, thank you so much for joining us.

And we will talk to you later.

Bye for now.

Bye for now.

Bye.