tasmlab

From my own experience with our first, it was sometimes difficult to remember that we were having a baby and not just a pregnancy, if that makes any sense. That all sorts out though. I wasn't prepared for the circumcision decision and botched it. That might be research-worthy if it is common in Sweden. On breastfeeding, while I certainly encourage it, they don't die if you don't do it either. For our second baby, my wife had complications that kept her in the hospital for several weeks. They eventually kicked the newborn and I out, so I had to stop at the drug store on the way home to buy bottles and formula and figure that out. He lived. (my other two were breastfed). As a passionate bum, will you get to stay home full time? Someone should, IMO. Congratulations! Parenthood is a wonderful experience.

It's sad that he's going. I had found Stef as a guest host on his show, started listening to FDR and never went back to Schiff Radio but rarely. I continued to pay for my premium membership anyways just to support his effort. I think he also recently had a new baby with his wife, so that would be a reason to cut his work down too. It's not like he's going to shut down EuroPac

Everything Tyler wrote is spot on. You could not possibly be in a better position. The only thing that would really cinch it was if you had 6-12 months of savings to lean on to hedge your risk. Personal anecdote: I was in the exact place at 32, except married and planning on having children. I would sit and mull all of the risks and everything with going out on my own. I had a six figure salary and a stellar reputation at the time. One thought that finally got me to 'jump' was this: If I didn't make a move, I was guaranteed that my own business would never happen. If my criteria for success was having my own business, than not taking a shot was guaranteed FAILURE. Only by taking the leap did I have a CHANCE at being successful. I focused on getting a first customer before quitting the salaried job. I did as little as I could at the salaried job at this time, just enough to not get fired. If you are working UP the corporate ladder, you can't do this since you have to put your best effort in, but once you check out mentally, it becomes easy. That was almost 10 years ago. I now earn more than twice I did then and only work 20 hours a week, so it worked out. We're still small, only four employees total, but everybody's pretty happy. I've since launched five other businesses though, all of which failed. Fortunately my main one has always been good.

Hi Ashton (and everyone else). Thanks for your replies. I don't agree with your conclusion. I've just included your quotes that I wanted to comment on. People in fact do NOT have to take standardized tests to have a career, good or bad. I'm not sure why you would think that. Are you in the workforce yet? I've held countless jobs without ever being tested, and the same with everybody I know. John Holt introduced the concept 40 years ago. It's very unpopular, almost unheard of, in the general population. It has a stigma and people who do it have no easy course. Parents who don't care about their child's education don't decide to unschool, it's a very difficult decision and takes a lot more effort than shipping them to public schools. To suggest these parents take this approach because they are burned out or don't feel like teaching is untrue with every unschooler I've met. But to take your point literally, yes, when someone says "I unschool" they are in fact "Not schooling". That's the point. They believe that schooling is bad. And what is your measure for "successful careers"? Is success defined as titular, years employed, payscale, personal time, happiness, satisfaction, free time, or societal respect? Is a director of Finance at a uniform leasing company more successful than a guy who plays Tuba in a regional orchestra? But no matter, statistics or human capital measurements have nothing to do with raising happy, functional, virtuous, smart people. If curricula, forced assignments, tests, grades, etc. are all anathema to human flourishing, it really doesn't matter if there are statistics or studies that says schooled kids make for better job-holders. As far as having lower test scores and under performing in academic categories, it makes little sense to hold an unschooler up to a schooled standard. It presumes the school standard is a good measuring stick in the first place. As a metaphor, if you compared dolphins trained to do tricks at Seaworld to wild dolphins, and doing tricks was the standard, then wild dolphins would underperform miserably to that standard. Most curriculums way over teach advanced mathematics, over teach sciences, focus on all sorts of historical, geographic, literary and arts trivia/facts that aren't necessary, useful or entertaining. So when an unschooled kid is tested on quadratic equations, sentence diagraming and memorizing state capitals, they tend not to know that stuff. Peace,

I think you are going to have a really rough time! From what I hear in the USA, teachers who bring any different ideas or approaches are forced to comply or are outed. Those that comply despite their true feelings are typically spiteful and unhappy. I'm just a stranger on the Internet reading your one post, but either it was terrible luck that you found FDR or it was terrible that you went into teaching. There would be few things as difficult to reconcile. Maybe soldiering. Even being a FDR-following tax collector would be easier to put together. Or just treat it as a job like any other. Show up to work, do what you are told, collect your paycheck and do what's right and enjoyable on your free time. Like most everybody. If you can turn a few kids onto the truth on the sly, more power to you. You can maintain two distinct identities. You only have to hold it up for 45 years or so, then you can retire, get your pension and then die. It's interesting that you are reading Gatto. He's a delight and there's probably few who attempted to do good as a PS teacher as well as he. But, by his own admission, he failed. He couldn't do it. He quit because he couldn't stand hurting children anymore. Seemingly every chapter of his books ends with an admission of tired depression. If this giant of education couldn't take it, I'm not sure what chances I'd give you. Plus, if you are true-blue FDRer, you'll eventually need to homeschool your own children to keep them from the evils of public education. What a pickle you'll be in! Best of luck in whatever you decide!

The study (at least in the quote provided) says that unstructured homeschoolers do the worse on STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES. Oh no! They probably did an awful job preparing their children to take a standardized test. Well, that's sort of the point. Ashton, did you suggest it was lower 'academic intelligence' or was that in the study? Anecdote: My third grader spent the first half of the year in PS and then homeschool the second half. She had to take the Stanford Achievement test as part of our accountability organization's policy at the end of the year. The test features some very specific and random history questions, in particular about Squanto the Indian. My daughter got them right because, in a freakish and miraculous coincidence, they study Squanto the Indian in detail in third grade public school. (Of lesser interest, I wonder what organization put up the funds for the study. It would seem odd for this to be a free market occurrence.)

Having four people you can call up sounds like plenty to me to get started.

My reservations wouldn't be so much about the curriculum or the program, but they may make many demands upon you such as hours required (logged in), homework, assignment completion, grading and testing. If you are looking for a structured program, I'd rather purchase a separate one and not worry about reporting so much to the state. (Disclosure: Homeschooler, unschooler, kids age 3 - 6 - 9)

A good friend of mine is Chief Product Officer at a big web development company and hires hundreds of developers. His #1 requirement is that the candidate have and actively does 'build stuff', more so than certifications or degrees or past job titles. He wants to see working software that you've built.

Check out the first dozen or so pages of Rothbard's "What has government done to our money", if you haven't already. It's a fun read, you can download it for free, and he makes simple arguments probably better than most of us can. (sorry in advance for this non-answer)

Although I hadn't read his comment, my mind went to the same place that QueechoFeecho's did. My pun was a bit of a reach :-)

FDR is having a special where you can buy all of Stef's books for $70.

If you know how to program software (I presume you must if you are developing a game), you might check a crowdsource business like TopCoder, IBM Liquid or similar. Google "crowdsource software development". You competitively bid to do little software dev projects out of your home. Since the timing is flexible on them, you could probably work whilst the baby is resting or at night when your spouse is home. Your income would be variable though, and competing for every job is emotionally taxing. You could possibly look into work-at-home customer care jobs as well from the likes of Teletech, convergent, or other big call center outsourcing company. The problem with a lot of jobs is that you can't abandon them to go heat up a bottle for the baby or the thousand other things raising an infant requires each minute of the day.

Pretend you are on your death bed looking back on your life. Will you be like "I'm glad I spent that time when my children were young going to work and delegating their care for most of the day/week." Or will you be like "I'm glad I spent my time with my child when they are growing up." ? For us, we definitely didn't want to skip the majority of our parenting, for both OUR experiences as parents and for our kids. We did send two of our kids to preschool for three half days a week when they were 3/4, but mostly for them to play with other kids, not because we needed the baby sitting. I regret this to a degree. We homeschool now and both me and my wife are home with them all day. I make a pretty good paycheck working part time from a home office and my wife is full-time mom, so I know it doesn't work for everyone logistically. And you have to think about their care not just when they are babies but all the way until they become adults. If daycare turns to preschool then school, you'll miss almost the whole thing. Or, how about try staying home for a year and see how it goes?

After a few google searches, I saw that EC (morning after pill, an abortifacients, cost between $35 and $65 per dose. If you are going broke buying this stuff, you probably have bigger problems than your shitty job at Hobby Lobby.

You're a librarian now, but after a few FDR podcasts, you'll turn into a full blown archivist.

I always thought that if you could digitize your brain and live bodiless on the Internet, it would resemble a religious view of heaven. An enterally living 'soul', up in the cloud with access to the entire world's knowledge. (exhales giant bong toke)

This is really scary in a way, because you will be telling your kids that they will eventually have the choice to leave or support their own father (you). Very much like the free market/RTR type of thing that Stef talks about i.e., that they ultimately get to choose you when you are old enough.

Thanks for the big response, Luminescent! I very much enjoyed it. I don't exactly remember how much solicitation I heard before donating to FDR, although it was only after a few podcasts and I also bought the entire book collection to show support, unsure if I was going to read them. I was already donating to other sites, so it felt natural to support FDR right away. I guess there's a donation convention on the Internet that's easy to grab on to. I can't imagine buying someone else's dinner just because I liked their behavior. It would be interesting if everyone was in the habit of physically rewarding things that they liked. How about this twisted replacement for government: Instead of everyone having to ship 30% of their income to Washington, it's instead a law that everyone has to spend 30% of their income rewarding other people's good behavior?

Tell them the exact truth. It's not you talking badly about your family, it's just the truth and it sounds bad because it is*. And give them your opinions. It's a big reason why you are there. * Like the Harry Truman quote “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.”

Yea, although I wouldn't have accepted the gift. I can't really take any credit either, they're good kids all on their own.

I do a little work in both the oil and mining industries (and even forestry, chemicals, natural resources). It's too bad there is corruption and govt dependence in them, but all industries do to some degree. It's one of the more interesting fields I get to work in and the people, compared to other industries, are delightful. Usually very excited about their work, down to earth, technical. (I know I'm not addressing your question)

My family went out to dinner last night at a nice-ish restaurant. My wife and I have three kids, aged 3, 6, and 8. The bill arrives and I give the waitress my card. She returns and says that one of the other guests had paid for our check because our kids were so well-behaved. It was a $90 tab. They mystery payor had already left the restaurant, didn't introduce themselves or anything. Completely anonymous. Weird, huh? Some questions: - Are there just some weird generous people in the world doing random acts of kindness? - I'm a peaceful parenter, but for all this guy knows maybe I beat them into submission. - Are my kids that awesome? They were mostly playing with the ipad. - How awful are all of the other kids he sees eating at restaurants? - Did he do anything creepy like follow us home? And... - In a truly free society, would people buy each other dinner without a government? No real big quandary here, just wanted to share. :-)

On obedience, there's several pledges and codes of conduct. They have the boys stand at attention, make a symbol with their hand, and recite pledges to the flag. There's uniforms. The scout oath goes: On my honor, I will do my best To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight. From their website (not my interpretation): Note that the Boy Scout Oath has traditionally been considered to have three promises. Those three promises are delineated by the semicolons in the Oath, which divide it into three clauses. The three promises of the Scout Oath are, therefore: Duty to God and country, Duty to other people, and Duty to self So, duty to god and country and other people isn't too atheistic/anarchistic. The pledge goes: A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent. These aren't so bad, only obedient and reverent are a little dicey. There's also a ranking system (like in the military), but it's more about achievement than plain hierarchy. You should easily be able to counter educate your boy. I wouldn't call this stuff a deal-breaker. My family might look into scouting as a social thing for our homeschooled kids.

Para military Christian organization that pushes patriotism and obedience. What could go wrong? I agree with J-William. My boyscout troop was basically a poker club for the dads. We'd go camping and all the dads would load up on beer, smokes and play cards throughout the afternoon and evening. Us boys would run around in the woods and play war. No badges, instruction, etc. Completely secular. Our weekly meetings were a recital of some of the scouting oaths and then furious dodge ball for an hour. Later, a new scoutleader came in and stopped the drinking/gambling etc., and insisted on the scouts learning scouting skills and getting badges. Very few dads ever showed up again and most boys I knew quit soon after. Anecdote!