This Golden Hour

100. Leah Farish and Conversation Balloons

• Timothy Eaton

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In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Leah Farish, an award-winning civil rights attorney, author, speaker, and homeschool mother of two. Leah shares insights from her diverse career, including her experience as a homeschooling mother and legal advocate for homeschooling families. Our conversation explores the importance of family culture, the influence of intergenerational relationships, and the challenges and benefits of homeschooling. It would be great for you to check out Leah’s podcast, “Conversation Balloons,” to learn more about her work and to get to know Leah better.


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leahfarish.com


Leah's Podcast

Conversation Balloons

This Golden Hour

Leah Farish:

our homeschool kids are not really isolated, but they're certainly. Not shoulder to shoulder with other kids their age by the dozens all day long. And I think. That is very healthy for a kid's development to be taken out of that milieu for at least a while. Yeah. And let them hear themselves and develop their own voice and really be attentive to their parents and to develop a family culture. I think it's so great that we have this option in Canada and the US.

Timmy Eaton:

Hi. I am Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and Doctor of Education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years, and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out, but people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue. New homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling and homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of This Golden Hour podcast. As you exercise, drive clean or just chill. You are listening to this Golden Hour podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Leah Farish, an award-winning civil rights attorney, author, speaker, and homeschool mother of two. Leah shares insights from her diverse career, including her experience as a homeschooling mother and legal advocate for homeschooling families. Our conversation explores the importance of family culture, the influence of intergenerational relationships, and the challenges and benefits of homeschooling. It would be great for you to check out Leah's podcast conversation balloons to learn more about her work and to get to know Leah better. Welcome back to this Golden Hour podcast today. We are very excited to have with us Leah Perish from Oklahoma. Leah, thanks for being with us.

Leah Farish:

Wait. It's Leah Farish.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, did I say Parrish? I'll start it again.

Leah Farish:

That's okay.

Timmy Eaton:

Welcome back to this Golden Hour podcast today. We are very excited to have with us Leah Ferish from Oklahoma. Leah, thanks for being with us.

Leah Farish:

It's my pleasure, Tim,

Timmy Eaton:

I appreciate you taking time. Just for my audience to, to know. I just was interviewed by Leah just 10 minutes before this and we had a great conversation. Now. I'm sorry, I get to take my turn,

Leah Farish:

everyone listened to him talking on conversation balloons. Yes.

Timmy Eaton:

That's my

Leah Farish:

podcast,

Timmy Eaton:

Leah is an award-winning civil rights attorney, author, and speaker. Her undergraduate degree is from Duke University, master's from Vanderbilt, and her law degree is from Baylor. Her podcast conversation balloons is in Spotify's top 25% and top 25% video podcast on YouTube. She homeschooled her kids for four years and has taught law related courses at colleges in her Tulsa, Oklahoma area. Her website is leah fairish.com. So that's a, what else would you add, if anything, to the, to your bio there?

Leah Farish:

Oh, I think that's plenty.

Timmy Eaton:

Okay.

Leah Farish:

That's kept me busy. Yes.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes, indeed. That's a, that's an amazing resume. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came up with the title of your podcast conversation, balloons?

Leah Farish:

Yeah. Those are the little puffs that come out of the character's mouth in comic books, and I wanted something to do with conversation. I wanted the show to not just be an interview where I'm just asking questions, but that we're actually exchanging ideas and experiences.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. I think that's consistent with my thoughts as well. Now in that biography that we gave of you, there was a lot said there. Can you take us through some of that, like a civil rights attorney, author and speaker, and then degrees from different places and law degrees. So maybe just walk us through some of that

Leah Farish:

thanks. I I loved learning and I was a public school kid. My mother was a public school teacher that was all through our family. I was a, at the time, I'm no longer, but I was a United Methodist and they actually have now an official position of supporting the public schools. So that was really my orientation. I got certified while. I was in undergraduate in North Carolina at Duke and was a teacher's a did my student teaching in a high school. And I, I loved teaching. I was good at it. And I got my first job teaching when I was 22 with a master's in. English and was of course teaching English became the head of the department the second year that I was at that school in Dallas and I loved it, but I needed to move after four years'cause my husband was going to residency medical. Residency. I, everyone told me, oh your husband's gonna be a family practice resident. You won't see him for three years. What are you gonna do with yourself and in a new town? And I thought, oh, what am I gonna do with myself? And I thought, I've always loved the idea of. Law school. I didn't know any lawyers really, but I didn't know anything about the practice of law, but I knew that I loved the reading and the stories that cases are, and so I took the LSA. And made it into law school. So that's what I did for three years. And then I had a little baby and it was tricky to balance those two callings. Yes. And I was doing okay shifting things. I felt every day I was improvising. Every day I improvised how I was gonna make this Rubik's cube of obligations work that day. And it was very stressful. And finally one day I just, I had my son in a Montessori school and I had told the teacher, my son. Needs to be touched. Just, a pat on the shoulder, a hug when he's discouraged something he needs physical contact. And she said, oh, we don't do that here. And I was. Just driving to a teacher conference and I was scheming and trying to think how do I get the teacher to do what I know my son needs to learn in other ways too. And all of a sudden I just shook the steering wheel. I said, why don't I just do this myself? And so I thought I really, I need to take a better role in. The, these kids' childhood. I had a little girl by then as well, and I couldn't see how I'd make it work. I wanted him to finish the end of the year and I started exploring. I knew a couple of homeschoolers. I was impressed with their kids. I started asking how are you doing this? Could I come see your home and see what it's like? And Tim I could not bring myself to make this commitment. And so I fasted for three days, and on the third day I was at my church and. It was after this service and my pastor was standing around talking to everybody and he was talking about school something, and he turned and looked directly at me and said, how about you, Leah? Are you teaching your children? Oh, I thought, what? I thought that was a sign from God. Am I or am I just. Shoving that off on somebody else. So I decided to take the plunge and try homeschooling and I did it. And, a lot of homeschoolers and podcasts and things. This is a total commitment. It's a 24 7 thing. It's a total, and for me, Tim it was not, it was. The parts of raising my children, that gave me great pleasure. That I knew I was good at that only I could do. That's what I did. If I didn't have to do that part of it, I delegated it and even, driving to enrichment events, waiting for them to get through with their art club. Class or their gymnastics or their piano lesson. I didn't do that. I often hired someone to do that. And again, it was a lot of improvising. It was a patchwork, but I also had the calling to represent, homeschool. Schoolers in court. I've represented kids in a lot of different settings. I had cases that went to the Supreme Court of the United States and I just felt like I, I had to keep my foot in two worlds. But, there were so many times when God showed me. Like one time my kids were watching tv, I really admired you saying earlier you don't even have a tv. It didn't ever, but my kids were watching TV on a break and I felt like God said in my heart, don't give them entertainment. Give them yourself. And so that, that has been my challenge ever since. And as an attorney. I have thought about power a lot. And as a parent, you think about power and authority a lot. And I really question, do I want to have power over my kids or would I rather have influence? And Galatians four 18 says it is a good thing to be zealous in good things always and not. Only when I am with you, St. Paul said, not only when I'm with you, I want you to be zealous for good things and that's what influence is. Your kids will do what you've taught them and go by the principles you've taught them if you've had influence on them. And with power, you only will get the results you want when you're there to exert the power. And so I wanted the chance to really model and influence my kids' values.

Timmy Eaton:

That's wonderful. Oh, I appreciate you sharing that and as you said that, I thought there's this idea of power and like you said, influence. And then there's the idea of empower, right? Do I empower my kids and am I instilling in things where they're choosing for themselves? I. Things that they want and things that they believe in. Just outta curiosity, because you said you had the occasion to be in court with cer certain homeschool situations. It was that through H-S-L-D-A, were you affiliated with H-S-L-D-A?

Leah Farish:

No I was friends with an H-S-L-B-A staffer. And of course, I did some, a little bit of coordinating with them, but I was. An allied attorney with A CLJ for a while. That's an a US organization. I don't know if they're active in Canada. And then I also, during that time, was active with Rutherford Institute, which was currently out of Charlottesville, Virginia. But I worked with them for years and they sent me a case they don't only represent Christian clients but then at the time it was called Alliance Defense Fund, it's now called Alliance Defending Freedom. They work on all the cases, all the big culture war cases. They only represent Christians. And so I got cases sometimes from Rutherford that were. Like I represented the little Muslim girl who wanted to wear her job to Muskogee Public Schools, which is a school district in Eastern Oklahoma. And that got international attention. And so it was a school related case, but of course it was public school's course not a Christian student, and not a homeschooling student, I really want to represent her. I wanted to shape the outcome of that case. I knew she was gonna win. Absolutely. It was a clear First Amendment, US First Amendment case. But there were a lot of ways that it could be resolved in her favor, and I was very pleased with how we, I'm not talking about the money, that never matters to me. I'm talking about what it would be like going forward, what we would demand, if that makes sense. Yeah. And how it would be characterized. And the cases involving homeschoolers, they came up in a couple ways. They will come up in, a truancy case, which is, the parent is accused. Usually a neighbor calls in or it could be a family member. There have been grandparents that did not support homeschooling and were afraid that, the child isn't being properly educated, you're defending a very it's a pretty minor infraction in terms of it's not a serious problem because if it's not homeschooling, most people aren't sitting in jail because they didn't send their kids to school.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. There's bigger fish to fry.

Leah Farish:

Yeah. On the other hand, the stakes are very high because the court will threaten you that if you don't comply with whatever their resolution is, you could have your children taken away. You will have child protective services of what, whatever you call'em in your jurisdiction get involved and that gets very heavy handed. And it things get out of control quickly and other children in your family that were not initially involved will all be involved. And so it gets very ugly very fast if you're not careful. So the other way that these cases come up is in. The context of something I never hear anyone talk about in homeschooling settings, but it's divorce. Homeschooling families do sometimes divorce, and unfortunately, because I was known in that community, I got a lot. Of exposure to the marital problems that can come up. And it was usually big families. It was usually very conservative families and families that I admired. I never would've dreamed what I heard, but I would advise people to really strive for authenticity. And their marriages. And to get help and to hold each other accountable. And the church is there in our lives for those of us who want church in our lives. It's there for good reasons and it is there to help you stay accountable. So anyway, when you have a divorce and their children, you're going to have a custody dispute, among most of these people because they had strong opinions about how their kids are being raised and those opinions persist into divorce court. And you get grandparents who for the first time are going on the record with their strong opinions. And you often have a family where one spouse doesn't support homeschooling and the other does on the plus side, I would say ability that home a great blessing in the context of visitation. And the dissolution of a marriage. There were so many times when homeschoolers could solve those visitation problems when other families just could not, and it became very brittle. If that makes sense. Because you would have a spouse who moves to another state, but if the kids are homeschoolers, that can. Be accommodated. That's an actual workable a regular academic calendar that is pretty much not solvable. And you're gonna end up with a lot more imbalance visitation, and therefore the influence gets all imbalanced.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. That's one thing I love about just doing the, these podcasts is you learn like such. Specific nuances to the situations and to even the benefits of of choosing the homeschool route. And so I appreciate you sharing what you just shared about that. Can you take us back a little bit? What, when was that when your pastor looked at you and said, are you teaching your children? Like, when are we talking?

Leah Farish:

And, the late eighties.

Timmy Eaton:

So the resurgence of home education, and I always call it the resurgence because from Adam until the 1730s, it wasn't called home education, but that's what it was. That's what people were doing. And then, with the Prussian and other models, it became this thing called, public education. So anyway, with the resurgence of home education in the 1970s, like you were among the front lines doing that in the eighties.'cause there wasn't a ton of people doing that. And most of them were compelled to do that in an underground situation. And so I think a lot of these, especially the legal stuff that you're referring to was probably more. Common then as far as truancy and other things, I know it still exists, but it's would you say that it's way less common? That maybe the cases are different now, like you said in, in divorce or whatever, but it's not what it used to be?

Leah Farish:

Yeah. I would say that, the case is based on like suspicion because the public doesn't understand homeschooling. Those have gone by the wayside. There, there can be, again, in a neighborhood or family dispute, there can be accusations made about the inadequacy that there's sham homeschooling going on, or that weird things are being taught right? And. And those things may, have to be documented and someone may look into them. But it, it's, I really haven't heard of that in 20 years. But occasionally you have families that are not doing a good job.

Timmy Eaton:

What would you say, with your experience as like a an attorney and then with your having seen both the traditional system and then the like a homeschooling arena what do you see as like issues and problems in education in general today?

Leah Farish:

The bad academic outcomes. The the lack of a moral vocabulary being taught to children. They're not being equipped to deal with the confidence that they innately have, but they don't know what to do with it. And they're being encouraged, I think, to silence it. And you get some very brutal. Environments resulting when you have kids that don't know what to do with their conscience.

Timmy Eaton:

Are you feeling that is improving slowly over time as as more people choose? Non-conventional routes of education and especially the United States, homeschooling, like I said, is increasing quite a bit. And other, I feel like currently there's lots of, sentiment for alternative education choice for families. Do you feel like that's improving in your view?

Leah Farish:

Yeah. I'm very encouraged in the black community, I read that 16% of black families are homeschooling and one thing I love is the number of communities of homeschooling families. I didn't have a lot to, I. Of companionship in that when I was starting out and crowdsourcing techniques and enrichment activities, all that kind of thing is, has really developed beautifully. And some kids are able to access public school for perhaps, things like. Marching band or violin lessons or just shop, things that they, classes that they can't do their house. And concurrent enrollment With college, these things are developing and loosening up to where kids can, not necessarily be limited to what that home can offer, other resources are available. They can get to know other kinds of kids and I think that's all to the good. In the US is quite variable according to where you live. What's available? But even like something like speech pathology or something that you need a therapist or you need someone that, a technician that you can't provide in your home. I think it, it's important to access everything that your child needs, not just everything that I can do for my child, but everything they need.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. Just to illustrate that in, in my own situation, and I've talked about it even becoming a challenge in a sense because. One of the reasons we chose to home educate was to separate ourselves from the school. Not in a necessarily negative way, but just to not be tied to the schedule. And my kids, as they've gotten into high school, have played high school sports through the schools and which has been good in a lot of ways, but it's been a challenge in other ways because, now you're tied to a school schedule, so you can't, do some of the philosophies that you believe in, in, in home education by tying yourself to that. And then also like you were saying there's so many different ways to do this now. Like how many Facebook groups are there on homeschooling and co-ops and there's so many ways to do education, which is why I've said often I. That homeschooling isn't really the right name. It's not homeschooling. What it is families learning the way they wanna learn and living the way they wanna live. And and I just love, again, the freedom and flexibility of it. So maybe just tell us a couple things about like your, you told us your decision to homeschool. What was your husband like with that and what did he think? And then for how long did you homeschool and what was it like?

Leah Farish:

Yeah, that's a, those are good questions. He was very open to the idea for all of us, because I had training in education he pretty much deferred to my evaluation. It's not just a matter of what you can offer, but. How good you are at assessing what your kid needs and where they are. I, I determine, in my opinion, my daughter, in one situation we were gonna put her in a traditional school and she was actually a great hit. Where her age would indicate, and he pretty much let me decide what to do about that. And we just said, you need to put her in this other grade. She's, I said, not only has she done all the work of the grade she's supposed to be. And she's gonna boss everybody around. So she needs to be among the biggest kids you can put her with because she What grade? What grade

Timmy Eaton:

was that? Do you remember? She

Leah Farish:

held, she was supposed to go into fourth grade, but they put her in fifth grade and she did just fine. Yeah, my husband's a doctor and he didn't have lots of flexibility in his schedule, but he would definitely. He was better at all the stem subjects than I was. And so he would help out. And of course, even when the kids were taking traditional classes, he was there to tutor him at any point because I was left in the dust by about, after. Long division, I'm pretty much useless. It's so neat how a husband and wife can be a team like with teenagers. It was so important. So many moments when I'm a night owl, and he would be up with the dawn. And with teenagers, they're just all over the place. They may be coming in for at 1:00 AM from a tournament or you have to stay up and wait for this or that, or they need to be somewhere at six 30 in the morning one person's body clock is not enough for taking care of kids.

Timmy Eaton:

And how so how long did you home homeschool for? How long did you guys do that?

Leah Farish:

Four years.

Timmy Eaton:

And that was from like that most, mostly in the primary years of

Leah Farish:

Uhhuh? Yeah. Wow. And it was. Tim, it was just the dearest time in our family's life and our kids really bonded with us. And like you mentioned, we were able to travel during the fall or the spring and go places that we just wouldn't have tried to go during the school year. And, it's a sweet time. I think it was Malcolm Gladwell and Outliers that said in so many great people's lives, there's a period of isolation from their peers that contributes to their greatness. And our homeschool kids are not really isolated, but they're certainly. Not shoulder to shoulder with other kids their age by the dozens all day long. And I think. That is very healthy for a kid's development to be taken out of that milieu for at least a while. Yeah. And let them hear themselves and develop their own voice and really be attentive to their parents and to develop a family culture. I think it's so great that we have this option in Canada and the US.

Timmy Eaton:

I agree. Can you guess what your children would say about their experience? If we had'em on here right now and I said, Hey, tell me about what it was like for you. What do you imagine them saying?

Leah Farish:

Yeah. I actually have in preparing to talk with you, I thought maybe I'd be put on the hot seat about that. Oh, good. They they liked it. They felt it was just a real natural thing to do. It's they felt cozy and just comfortable doing it. And my son, I asked him, about it. And he said there was a one student in his school in kindergarten that was bullying him. And I said, what? This is 30 years later. And I said, I had no idea that was going on, and I was shocked. And it made me wonder how many other children in traditional schools are undergoing this and they don't speak about it. We hear about it a lot, but apparently it goes on even when kids don't say anything. And, I think they both enjoyed it and they have both turned out fantastic. They went to. Excellent colleges and are in amazing careers now with families of their own who are active in church and we love each other and so it's all good.

Timmy Eaton:

Have you ever had conversations like, do they ever play with the idea of homeschooling their own kids?

Leah Farish:

So far they're not, but I don't know if they're gonna realize that they're in this golden hour.

Timmy Eaton:

Of opportunity.

Leah Farish:

We'll see.

Timmy Eaton:

If they decide and they have any questions, tell them I'd love to talk to them. Each house.

Leah Farish:

I would love for them to talk to you. And they both have, their youngest kids are tiny. They're babies. Oh, okay. So they may be, on a path that we don't know

Timmy Eaton:

yet. Yeah, that's true. And again, each family I. Chooses how they wanna do it. I just wanted to see if there was anything. You wanted to say about what you're working on currently, and what are you headed towards and what is your vision?

Leah Farish:

Right now I'm really focusing on my podcast conversation balloons and on, helping intergenerational understanding happen because I'm very concerned about the trend of young adults going no contact with their parents. I've seen the agony of it among grandparent. Level people of being rejected and cut off from even not being allowed to even send a card, not having contact with your grandchildren. This is, I think, an outgrowth of a couple of, in the US a couple of Supreme Court. Cases that, for example, did not affirm any rights of grandparents to see their kids and some other things like that. So that's a heartbreak, and I am giving visibility to that. I'm giving visibility to some other, Social, issues that I think are important to talk about. I wanted a show that would encourage intergenerational communication and would equip people to understand and nurture people older than they are, and people younger than they are. And so homeschooling is part of that picture, and that's why I reached out to you. A lot of strength in friendship and family relationships across the generations. Psalm 1 45 talking about one generation shall declare your works to another. And I think that's important to do. And it's just fun. It's just so much fun to talk to people all over the world that are thinking big thoughts.

Timmy Eaton:

And one last thing if I could ask is, what, how do you see homeschooling relevant in the intergenerational issue?

Leah Farish:

It is not a panacea, Tim. There are kids who are homeschooled and, it among a family, one may totally rebel and others be very devoted to family and the things that they were taught. That's heartbreaking and confusing, but it does. Happen. But I, do believe that among my circles we are seeing that situation is amenable to prayer. And I, there are some that are gradually returning in their thirties and forties and seeing the value of what was instilled in them. And, I think homeschooling is just a great foundation that, family is the foundation of society. That has not changed. And we're finding that if we don't have strong families, we have this Hobbesian society where he said Life is solitary, nasty, brutal and short. That's what we're coming to with. If we don't nurture our families, know our kids, serve and protect our families like you're doing it, it's an existential problem. To not have strong families and homeschooling is a way to do that.

Timmy Eaton:

I appreciate all that you've said. This has been Leah Fairish, everybody, and I encourage you especially to look into her podcast conversation balloons. Lee, I'll give you the last word before we conclude this interview.

Leah Farish:

I love what you're doing, Tim. I love that you are mentoring, especially dads. I think it's tragic the boxes that men have been put in the last 50 years or so in Western culture and, you guys, you have to break out of it. You have to be independent thinkers and find each other to find ways to stand up strong. And I'm glad that you're doing your part in that.

Timmy Eaton:

Thank you again. I appreciate that very much. And again, thanks for taking time, Leah.

Leah Farish:

My pleasure.

Timmy Eaton:

That wraps up another edition of this Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot, and if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.