This Golden Hour

102. Bethany Baldwin and MAD Society Inc.

• Timothy Eaton

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In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Bethany Baldwin from Ohio. Bethany is a homeschooling mother of five and the owner of Mad Society Inc. Bethany talks about the challenges and rewards she has experienced and her innovative approach to integrating arts into education. We discuss Bethany's personal motivations, experiences with different educational methods for her children, and insights on setting up and running a successful home-based drama club. Bethany highlights the importance of creativity, individuality, and adapting educational approaches to fit each family's needs. Listeners will enjoy Bethany’s warm, relatable delivery, and they will glean from her wisdom as a mother who knows the importance of helping her children to act for themselves.


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MAD Society Inc.

This Golden Hour

Bethany Baldwin:

I had a lot of friends that were homeschooling. I. For better or for worse, just did what they did and realized very quickly that my personality did not fit what everybody else was doing. And I don't like making schedules. I don't like testing. I think homeschooling has to fit the parent or else they're gonna hate homeschooling.

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 Bethany Baldwin from Ohio. Bethany is a homeschooling mother of five and the owner of Mad Society, Inc. Bethany talks about the challenges and rewards she's experienced and her innovative approach to integrating arts into education. We discuss Bethany's personal motivations, experiences with different educational methods for her children, and insights on setting up and running a successful home-based drama club. Bethany highlights the importance of creativity, individuality, and adapting educational approaches to fit each family's needs. Listeners will enjoy Bethany's warm, relatable delivery, and they will glean from her wisdom as a mother who knows the importance of helping her children to act for themselves. Welcome back everybody to this Golden Hour podcast. So excited today to have with us Bethany Baldwin from Ohio. Thanks for being with us. Bethany.

Bethany Baldwin:

Thank you for having me on.

Timmy Eaton:

Really appreciate you taking time. I'll do a brief bio if that's cool, and then you can add to it whatever you will. So Bethany is a homeschool mom of five. She's the owner and creator of music, art, and drama, or Mad society focused on incorporating arts into homeschool. And we'll talk about it, but I'm sure it doesn't have to be homeschoolers that use this. It's basically home-based drama club, A-D-D-I-Y curriculum, and I encourage everybody to go to mad society inc.com to check out her stuff. I think you'll really dig it. So with that little backdrop, tell us more. Tell us anything you wanna add to that bio, Bethany?

Bethany Baldwin:

Yeah, I have five kids and. I went to art school. I went to Columbus College of Art and Design. So I'm a an artist by trade and everyone assumes that I was a theater kid. I did zero theater. I did the VBS skits. I was, one of the teams that did that. But I mostly do event planning, and my resume is an extremely eclectic. Hosting opportunities. We have a farmhouse with a barn, and so at some point we decided we would just start to have theater performances in our barn. And that's as simple as it stayed, and it's multiplied locally. There are five of them now. But yeah, I have five kids. Three

Timmy Eaton:

five. Five what? Five

Bethany Baldwin:

five math societies.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, cool. That's awesome. Yeah. So

Bethany Baldwin:

They're all numbered or described by base where they are. How I started, how I created the curriculum and started writing theater content is that people saw what I was doing and wanted to recreate it. So it actually wasn't something I set out to do. It was just meeting the needs of my family and my community and people wanted to figure out how to copy it. So I'm on this journey to figure out how to incorporate simple theater that looks more like little women in the attic or the Dead Poet Society where. They're creating, they're bringing their hobbies and the things that they like to do to a performance instead of making a performance about recreating something that's already been done.

Timmy Eaton:

That's so cool. I can't tell you how many times I've interviewed people on this podcast where they'll say they were just doing it for their family, and then there was a demand for it. There was a desire to have what you created. So tell us a little bit, about how it works? Like how does it work to be mad society, and then how have these five different societies come about, that kind of thing.

Bethany Baldwin:

It really just depends on the person and what their goals are for their kids or their community, because the handbook itself is basically like a dummies book for how you would start a simple theater club. So it has everything that I did to be able to create my club, which hosts. Anywhere from 20 to 30 teens. I've actually gotten up to 35 at one point. But that was a little nuts. But the, my handbook itself it's not specific to any people group. It could be theater, like a community theater or a church group, or even just a family like homeschool family. Could just do a skit. In their home with their family. So the handbook itself has everything you could do. I always encourage people to start really small so it's not stressful and only add the elements that I suggest or that are out there that you're going to be excited about or your kids are going to be excited about. Because theater has the ability to work on leadership skills, it's a group project, it's like a sports team where everybody wins. You can incorporate all kinds of special needs, neurodivergent, physical handicaps. You can incorporate anybody into the theater as long as you keep your expectations reasonable. You wanna aim for a good product, like a quality product, but that you're not trying to make something that looks like perfect and. Is going to make it stressful.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. Keep it fun, keep it enjoyable. Yep. Yeah, and

Bethany Baldwin:

everything I write is comedy and it's parody as well, or original, so no one can go see it in Broadway. However, a lot of the themes, the topics are public domain. So there's, a Neverland one, but it's not anything anyone's seen before.

Timmy Eaton:

You mentioned that it's like even available to people, neuro divergent or people with disabilities. Talk about that a little bit. Just'cause I think that would be of interest to several families.

Bethany Baldwin:

We have a lot of dyslexic kids. Or, one of my favorite students is in a wheelchair and it takes some thought and how to incorporate them. But parents love to help with that, and they love to help you figure out how to incorporate them into a performance. As long as you keep, again, you keep those expectations simple and you recognize that it's about the kids. And it doesn't have to be about a perfect performance, which is where a lot of art goes wrong in general, is that we expect the arts to be to make something perfect right away. Yeah. Where, and it's not allowed to be about the process or about just how to get there and making something that it might not look good. Math, no one expects someone to be able to do algebra out of the gate. There's years worth of trying and, working on it and learning it and creativity's kind of the same way. And we need to not try to measure it and test it. Judge it and all that kind of stuff. And so theater can be simple and it can be that same process where you can start small and you don't have to aim for, little Mermaid Junior right away. Yeah. And you shouldn't, and you shouldn't.

Timmy Eaton:

No. It's like home education. One of the beauties of home education. I feel like it really rehr curiosity and if you're looking for well perfection, like you said it or some defined outcome, then you're kinda limiting, especially in the younger years. And so hopefully it is what curiosity that we slake and that we, encourage. And so yeah, if you made it so strict or something they're not gonna make that very fun for the people involved. So when people come, how does it work? Walk us through what it looks like in real time.

Bethany Baldwin:

I. So far everybody comes and then what

Timmy Eaton:

happens?

Bethany Baldwin:

Oh, for the actual practices in the theater? Yeah. Yeah. Oh wow. No one's ever asked me that. It always feels like a party. Again, I go back to how I'm an event planner and so when we started this theater club and I was getting these scripts and I thought. This is so complicated. This is going to take five adults minimum and a whole bunch of kids like listening to me, but they really wanna have fun. And we do wanna have a goal, but that's why I started writing. So now since I have the scripts, they're written like an event where. A really well planned event where they stay in groups, they go on and off stage in their groups and the characters go all together. So it's not oh, Peter Pans and six outta seven of the scenes and then Tinkerbells and four outta five. It's so complicated. So I wrote them specifically to be easy to reproduce. And that there isn't one star of the show. There are gonna be three characters that have the largest amount of rules, and then there are removable characters. That way you don't feel pressure to have to fill all the characters. And there are characters that don't even have lines, like the dog might just bark. You can have them do lines, but a lot of kids, especially when they first start, they're like, I think I wanna be on stage, but I don't know if I can memorize and I'm scared. Yeah. And so put'em behind a little dog mask. And so that's our stuff. So when they show up, I always have music playing. So that is exposure music appreciation. And we always do a Dr. A drama game and a mixer, which are in the handbook. And then on my Pinterest page I have, I kind of pin ideas for coaches. So the drama game and the mixer, and then we practice the play or the variety show. What would be an example

Timmy Eaton:

of that? A drama game and a mixer. Give us a.

Bethany Baldwin:

A mixer would be like a game where you grab the cups, like you have all the kids in a line and they have to grab the cup. When you say head, shoulders, knees, nose, toes. But then you say cup and you grab the cup and so it's it's like a minute to win it. Yeah. Feel just simple get to know you kind of game. Totally.

Timmy Eaton:

Break and then a drama.

Bethany Baldwin:

Yeah, a drama game can be simple. I also, I try to have the students lead these, that way they're getting leadership skills in there too. A drama game would basically be, it's what do I think the kids need to practice? Like maybe voice projection or something like that. And either you can ask chat TPT or get on Pinterest or YouTube and find ideas for drama games. That would help them practice whatever you think they might wanna learn, or maybe, it could just be anything that has to do with drama, like improv or writing things like just any, anything that has to do with theater. They do that together. So it does feel like a party.

Timmy Eaton:

I'm just imagining it being like one of those things where the kids really engage like what I mean is like in so many subjects are. In schools a lot of times it's just it's like a bummer or something like that, but I'm imagining it being like, kids are excited about this and maybe not every kid. Like you said, there's some that don't wanna be so prominent in the production, but is it like that? Is it like kids are just totally into it or?

Bethany Baldwin:

They do. I originally started a ministry for my kids as they were getting into high school. I recognized their scattering, the homeschoolers are scattering, they're doing college credit, plus some are going into public school. Private school, like they had, they're pursuing their next steps in life. Yeah. And I really wanted to keep them together for the high school years. And so I started a teen group where we started an Instagram page and say, everybody meet at the park. We're gonna play volleyball on Friday, or we'd host a dance or a ball or, like we would do that. And then eventually one of my friends said, Hey, let's try to do a play. And so we did it and that's how the plays. Started to happen. So it really did start as a club of kids that just hung out together. And then as my kids got older and COVID hit it, we just honed it in on okay, we're just gonna do the theater aspect of it. And I never, ever have to like advertise. Rarely do I have to tell anyone that we. Have an opening even. It's really like the secret society. And when someone finds out that I'm leading it, they're like, how do we get in? No. Yeah. And I put out a plea every once in a while for, is there anyone willing to start one? Locally, I'll help you. And I'm on all the social media platforms and check my messages. I haven't gotten so big yet that I can't check and help people. What are your next steps? And so that's how, like I said, it's little like underground church plants.

Timmy Eaton:

So the original group was like a co-op, or was it just like a bunch of homeschool friends or I missed that. Is that what it was?

Bethany Baldwin:

It was all my kids' friends. No I appreciate co-ops. I've been part of lots of co-ops. I'm just, was got to a point where I didn't really want someone having that overhead. I even tell the parents, drop your kids off. Pick them up three hours later. And everyone was super cool with that. And we keep it really laid back. So it is truly a club. Like a sports team for creative people. That's one of my little slogans. Yeah. Yeah. That they get to, to drop be dropped off. Not with all their little siblings in the back now. It does work really well. People have started them in co-ops. Yeah. It's a little bit hard because of the time crunch. It either has to take up two or three of those blocks of time. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

cause it's about three hours-ish.

Bethany Baldwin:

I like three hours, you can stretch it out over the year. I have a free on my website at all in all my freebies. One of the things that you can get is how would I translate a single play into a year long co-op or a co-op that meets like twice as many times, but the time is shorter. I do have a guide for how to break that down for anyone who would want to break it down in different ways, but I meet eight times. For three hours each. And then we do our dress rehearsal and we do our show.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, cool. And

Bethany Baldwin:

yeah. And then I'll have a party or two where we do the backdrops in the summer and then just tuck'em away, like until it's time. We get in there and we work on it and we have a great time, and what we get is what we get.

Timmy Eaton:

You mentioned there was five right now.

Bethany Baldwin:

In Central Ohio. Yep.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, okay. And is it elsewhere? Are people getting a hold of you and saying, Hey, I wanna do this locally where I am all over the place, or,

Bethany Baldwin:

yeah, I've gone to a couple homeschool conventions and of course I'm speaking and people have purchased the handbook and they can just. Start it on their own, based again, on their own, their needs for their kids, how many people they have already, if they have other adults to help them. And yeah, just simple theater. Get a script. And get some students that are excited about it. They have to be able to read, to be able to participate for, yeah. To participate. Yeah. And this really, the niche here is middle school and high school. Gotcha. Just beautiful. But I eventually I hope that I can start. A couple that are adult community theater as well. I just haven't gotten there yet. My next step is actually I'm meeting at a local prison to attempt to have days where we do skits within a day timeframe with inmates and their children.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, I heard you say that on your website, I believe, and or somewhere. And I wondered how did you set that up?

Bethany Baldwin:

It hasn't happened yet. Oh, okay. I've created the structure for it and my content is, so half the year we do a play, a full length play, and the other half we do a variety show. And those are bundles of skits that all have the same theme. And then there are a couple improv skits where the students don't even know what they're gonna do until they get on stage. So it feels like Saturday Night Live. And so they don't have to memorize anything. And there's someone who's leading it and it's basically like a Saturday. I mean, It's all clean. Yeah. And then there's like an mc thing to it and a playlist to play before and after. So that's what I hope to be able to take. So it would feel like a VBS day, but the goal would be to take everyone would get a blank t-shirt. They would get a skit to act with their children. And they would just read their lines, they would practice as long as they could, and then they would perform the skit for everyone else that was there in prison within a day. So they'd make this amazing experience, like these memories with their children and their parents.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. Oh, that's cool. So that, that's where

Bethany Baldwin:

I'm headed next, hopefully with this. Oh, good

Timmy Eaton:

luck with that. That'd be awesome. Thank

Bethany Baldwin:

you.

Timmy Eaton:

Now it's called Mad Society Music Art Drama, but is the emphasis on drama? Is it?

Bethany Baldwin:

The emphasis is bringing whatever your kid is good at and letting them use that skill or practice that skill if they've not done it within the performance. So my oldest actually wrote the score and played piano for our first performance that we did. So she played live piano for our show herself. Awesome. And she got to put that on her college application, that she wrote a score for, and no one knows how big our theater club isn't. Yeah, exactly. Or that we're not turning a profit at all. But or that if a student is interested in video and cinematography, that they might video it and they might edit it, and that they could put that on there and they could have that on their resume. Or if someone wants to be the director in under supervision instead of acting, we've had three students be the director. And so the within theater it's like a church or a business where if a kid is excited about something, they can bring that opportunity. And I actually have a freebie also and all those freebies on my website, it's called, I'm Unique, I'll use it. It's a worksheet where it asks kids. What do you do in your free time? What have people said you're good at? What do you like doing? What would you like to try? And then we take just a little bit of time and say, how could we. Use that for our upcoming theater performance. Cool. And those are the things that we have happen. And anything that no one volunteers for or they're not excited about, we don't need costumes to have a play. And if that's gonna be stressful and you have no money, you don't actually need that.

Timmy Eaton:

Tell people to use their imagination.

Bethany Baldwin:

They use your imagination. Yeah. Yep.

Timmy Eaton:

So is the resource set up in a way that like people could take it and then gear it? That's what you're saying, they can gear it towards their child or towards their co-op if it be that or whatever it is that people have interest in.

Bethany Baldwin:

Yeah, I have a YouTube video specifically for homeschoolers for how you would get a play script and do it in your home and I can send you the link to that. But then there's Pinterest boards to go with all my content, so whatever group. Of people that want to try to pursue this. There's already an inspiration board for costumes, backdrops, some music, that kind of stuff. So a lot of ways to help whoever's excited about it, feel like they can. Do that. And then for the two large plays that I've written, there's a 25 page sample so they can see just how much I built in. Like I have a very specific playlist for people to play beforehand. I have the opening what to say, I have how many adults you'll need and what their job descriptions are. And in my handbook is a description of, say you have a student that wants to do makeup. They wanna be the makeup designer. There's a description for them and so that student or that adult could read that. So they have a little job description of what they would do, and when they would need to get it done by.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. That's thorough. I'm an

Bethany Baldwin:

event planner. I'm an event planner.

Timmy Eaton:

You said you weren't even doing theater and stuff like that. So how did you do this? Like I'm saying, like, why did you come up with all this?

Bethany Baldwin:

My kids, their friends wanted to do a play in our barn and. I'll be on my sixth year and after, again, after three years, I recognize this is so inefficient. This is so complicated. And I'm about to pull my hair out. I don't know if I can keep doing this. Yeah. And so I did a whole bunch of research. How do you write a play? I wrote down everything that was frustrating. I talked to the other, parents that were helping me lead and the ones that were just starting I was watching them start clubs and the frustrations that they were having, documented, eventually pulled everything all in together to make this handbook on how to start a club. Started making YouTube videos and figuring out how to organize this in a way that people wouldn't even have to think about it. They could just do it and. We all volunteer for, basketball and, they're the people that are running my kids' basketball team. They're not professional basketball players. They're parents and or the robotics team. They might like it. You would hope that they would like it, right? Yes. But there's so much room in there for your kids to learn and grow and be, and creativity is applicable to all professions, all areas of life, adults need to be using the creative side of their brain and a lot of people just aren't. They aren't.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. And I know you say that, like on the, on your site you say, this resource can be used by anyone. And so it's not just for a particular group. I just wanna encourage everybody to go to mad society inc.com and check it out and use these resources. I wanted to at least for a few minutes, transition to just like your experience with homeschooling. So can we do that for a few minutes?

Bethany Baldwin:

Yeah. My motto is each kid, each year.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Bethany Baldwin:

And we have a very difficult adoption story, and it's ongoing. Our kids currently are 14 to 21. So we have had them in almost every version of education that you can based on what they need. And I think it's important to learn to do something with excellence and to head for a goal, just because you don't end up having that be as your career. We definitely had each kid pick something that they were passionate about to focus on and really built their educational experience around what they thought they might want to do right for the rest of their life. And so we've done public school and private school and college credit plus co-ops, unschooling. I even gave one kid a full gap year where he didn't really do much about math and that was the right thing for him. And I'm realizing now that's actually popular.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, it's actually, I don't

Bethany Baldwin:

get any credit for influencing anyone in that, but that is definitely what our family had to do because of the special needs of our adopted kids because of the amount of time and energy and how hard that was, that taking each kid each year and what they needed. We had to be very specific and very careful because we simply didn't have the time to get it wrong.

Timmy Eaton:

It's cool like where did the audacity come from? To look at all the different options, because a lot of people feel so handcuffed and or don't have the wherewithal to ask the question what are the other options? And that's why so many people have chosen to just, send their kid to school.'cause that's, what else do you do? So like, where did that come from? How did you know about the options? How were you exposed specifically to homeschooling? Like, how did you know it existed?

Bethany Baldwin:

I had one friend growing up that was homeschooled. Of course, that was a totally different thing In a totally different world. Yes. So I never considered it. And then when I took our oldest to private school, kindergarten, it was an all day program. I just, I missed her. I thought about her all day long and it was like I just can't do this. I was crying too much. And then I had a lot of friends that were homeschooling. I. For better or for worse, just did what they did and realized very quickly that my personality did not fit what everybody else was doing. And I don't like making schedules. I don't like testing. I, I think homeschooling has to fit the parent or else they're gonna hate homeschooling.

Timmy Eaton:

That's a good insight.

Bethany Baldwin:

And so for new homeschoolers, I like to say if you're just starting it, find an adult that's like you. If you're outgoing and you like to party and like you don't like schedules or that kind of stuff, the best thing you can do is find an adult that's like you and start with that. And then as the kids got older we tailored everything to what they said they wanted. And when you tailor their education, it sounds like it would be more work. On you as a parent, but when they love what they're doing, they just go, yeah. And you don't have to be good at it, especially with the internet. You can watch YouTube and learn absolutely anything. And we did that. We have let each kid pursue what they're passionate about. And now I didn't have judging people on. I didn't have social media when I was in the beginning. And I think it's really good, the Internet's really good for finding those options, but then you just need to walk away and not respond to anyone that has any opinion on what you're doing. And I did have people, in my life that had opinions about some decisions that we made for each kid each year. Yeah. And it hurt, but we did the right thing and we knew that we knew what each kid needed and so we.

Timmy Eaton:

I was wondering like how did you and your husband's families respond? Like what did they think?

Bethany Baldwin:

We never had trouble with, like our actual family. It was mostly just the friend community. And people are very passionate. Everybody's passionate about something. Yeah. They should be otherwise. Things wouldn't change. People's lives would be horribly the same and boring and but when you don't understand why other people aren't passionate about the same thing, it's not a good place to be because hopefully we all have something that we are passionate about and that we're working towards changing the world, and producing kids that will change the world. So we shouldn't be making other people feel bad if they don't feel passionate about the same things in the same way. I didn't lose friendships, but. There were opinions and

Timmy Eaton:

yeah, no, for sure. It's interesting and what I find is that people feel really comfortable telling you what they think. Even though you're making decisions about your own family. So maybe it's a compliment that they feel that close to you or something. But

Bethany Baldwin:

yeah, you definitely wanna have people who have permission to speak into your life, but if you haven't given someone that permission, then you can just feel like, bless your heart. And just move on. Again, with our adoption story we had to develop pretty thick skin really quick and we way faster than most people had to be okay with. Okay. My kids' decisions, I cannot control them. You do your part, but then they can't be a reflection on you. They have free will. And they came with trauma, abuse and neglect. And so we had to learn to have, thick skin sounds so bad, but that was a lesson that we learned, had to learn in a different way. Yeah. So it was really easy to apply that to homeschooling for us.

Timmy Eaton:

And you said you had five five kids. From 14 to 21,

Bethany Baldwin:

yep.

Timmy Eaton:

We have six children that range from 11 to 21, and have you done the principal homeschooling in your situation?

Bethany Baldwin:

I did. Yes. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

I know you, you said you've been all over the place as far as they, you've tried different options of education, but with homeschooling in particular, like what did you notice is like the difference between your role with your kids from the primary years of learning? Somewhere between, five and 12, 13 and then 13 to 18. Like how does the parents' role change? Regarding helping them prepare for their future and just education and what goes on daily.

Bethany Baldwin:

When you homeschool, you do not have the opportunity to be a lazy parent. You do not have the option to not get along with your kid. You have to figure that out, and you do. I don't know anyone that said I had to send them to school because we just fought all the time. You figure it out. Then if you have their respect and you give them that foundation to build on, the goal is that you slowly take your hands off the reins and you let them learn things. Don't let them do anything that's gonna ruin their life. But you do have to take your hands off the reins and you have to be very specific about that. You also have to be very specific about your choices and friends and being proactive. Yeah. And having friendships and, as part of why I created the community that I did.'cause I thought we've gotta do this on purpose. We've gotta be specific about keeping our kids with a friend group that we want them to have. But then also finding those places where they're gonna be challenged and they're not gonna just be in your home and you're gonna let other parents speak into their lives that you trust. And if, even if those people get it wrong there, it's a safe enough space where you can talk them through that. I love teenagers. I love the teenage years, however. Our adopted kids are struggling a lot. And with the attachment issues, and I know a lot of people we have a very idyllic situation with our bio kids and what we've been able to do. So we have both ends of the spectrum while we're Yeah. I am able to see and have compassion and a little different perspective than someone that doesn't have the hard circumstances that we have and. That there are a lot of people out there that look at the homeschool community and think I'd give anything to have my life set up in a way that I would have the luxury and the honor to give my kids. It's a blessing. It is an. We are so blessed if you're able to homeschool your kid.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, no, it is, I agree that it's a blessing. What would you say what are your top motivations and benefits that you see? If somebody were to say to you, Bethany what, why do you do this? What, why is it worth it? What are like the top things that come into your head that you're like, no'cause of this, and this.

Bethany Baldwin:

For sure. The relationship. Being able to be the first person, hopefully that tells my kid all the important stuff.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, because you, I have a, if you have, I have a good friend that says she always says it is like meet the world together.

Bethany Baldwin:

Yeah. Because if you're the second person to tell your kid something that. Someone else might tell them about it in a way, or explain it or something you don't want them to, a perspective you don't want them to have. If you're the second person, then they have to rethink. They have to, are you right or were they right? Yeah. And so if you're the first person you, that's where you wanna be. So if you're homeschooling your kid, you get to decide how you're gonna teach them about. All those things that are scary and intimidating, but you get to hopefully be that for them. So I love that they didn't come home from school and be like that's not what the teacher said. I'm the teacher. But then you have to give them those opportunities to get out there and have someone tell them something and then they can come back. And under the safety of your home, let's talk about that. Totally. Being able to pursue my oldest is piano performance and she got a 90% scholarship to college because she had the time to pursue the exact piano teachers she could go. During the day she practiced, she started teaching piano to other students. In middle school, she had her own piano business, teaching business. Wow. She never could have done that if she was not homeschooled. You just don't

Timmy Eaton:

have the time. All six of our kids are heavily into music. And it's just it's just, people are always like, man, they're so talented. And you're like, they just have a lot of time. They do, yeah. They develop the talents, but they have a lot of time and they're consistent.

Bethany Baldwin:

Yeah. And so that is definitely one of the best things where they get to choose how to spend their time and if they wanna waste their time, even the way they waste their time is specific, it's like you're watching YouTube videos on how to write music. As your time waster, and so it's, that's beautiful. Do I have to give another reason? No, I think

Timmy Eaton:

that was really good. What about what would you say if somebody said, look, so what is not very enjoyable to you? You specifically? What do you not really like about homeschool? Or what's a challenge?

Bethany Baldwin:

It's so funny. The first thing I think of when you asked me that is dating. Oh, that was awful. It is. It is awful. It is amazing. Okay. Because like you're saying, your

Timmy Eaton:

kids dating

Bethany Baldwin:

them dating, yes. That was actually really hard for us because, homeschoolers are passionate about how they want their kids to pursue that area of life. Yes. And it can quickly become the Hatfields and the McCoys and you're like, how are we gonna keep going to co-op when we don't agree on how to handle this? So that was definitely. A challenge that you can't necessarily write a book for and get it right.

Timmy Eaton:

And I think you spoke to that somewhat when you said it's hard because as as parents of youth like you said it's a, it's like a game of pulling back, yeah. Allowing, leaving the reins alone and then, directing them, giving counsel, but then allowing them to make decisions for themselves so that they progress and grow and develop their own ability to use their agency. But it's hard.

Bethany Baldwin:

Yeah. It is hard. Yeah. Another hard thing. I do think it, it's, it's a sacrifice. And as I am getting close to, being an empty nester, like we're getting really close now. I, I didn't get to pursue what I get to pursue now. But that's something that I believe the skillsets in being a good homeschool parent, it's like I am so ready and equipped. To really hit the ground running with my next season of life.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. Are you saying opportunities that weren't there because you, you were homeschooled?

Bethany Baldwin:

Because I was pursuing homeschooling with excellence and because I didn't have the time and because I really wanted to be a good mom. Yeah. And that was the right choice. We had a lot of kids it's definitely a sacrifice. But I also think that's mostly just pressure that's put on us in. The time we're in because a hundred years ago, even someone educates them and it's the mom at home and she probably wouldn't have even thought about it. And yeah. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

So when did you guys start? When did you start homeschooling?

Bethany Baldwin:

When our oldest was first grade

Timmy Eaton:

and so that's so

Bethany Baldwin:

she's 21.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, no way. Cool.

Bethany Baldwin:

Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. So you've, we've probably doing it about the same amount of time

Bethany Baldwin:

yeah, and it's changed a lot.

Timmy Eaton:

When it when resurgence of homeschooling in the mid 1970s, you had people doing it like underground in the eighties and nineties. We're so grateful for those that have gone before this to lay the foundation for this. Like that, we're free to do that. And like that, it's common in, in the United States especially. It's like the fastest growing form of education and it's so awesome that it's growing the way it is. People are opening their minds and their eyes to oh, there's gotta be a better way to go about doing this. But like you said, it, not everybody's in a situation right now that they can, if they could choose that. So it's a blessing. And so yes,

Bethany Baldwin:

but if your kid is trustworthy at home. Because of the internet, because of all the opportunities, the options that you have, homeschooling doesn't mean that you have to be sitting there at the table with your kid, like doing it with them. And I would say, I never really did that. We would get stuff that could be tested by either electronically or I would just match up the back of the book and be like, try again. Yeah. And so I wasn't that hands. On now, my husband did the math. And that is one thing, and a lot of people, there's a huge movement for like, why are we even doing math? I do think we have to learn to do things that we're not good at and we have to learn to, to be teachable. And so if you don't do something like math, I think. There that you have to learn to be taught and to love learning beyond and to your

Timmy Eaton:

comfort zone and

Bethany Baldwin:

Yeah. Yeah. And so that's math for a lot of people and that's okay. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

I love that you're even posing that way'cause most people would be going yeah, you have to do math. But the idea is that like you, you are really customizing it, like you said, to each of your children. And that's not always common sense like we always talk about deschooling and homeschooling and it's so true. People need to deschool and I'm a product of this. So stuck in the conventional way, institutional way of doing things that it just sounds like taboo to say something like. Yeah, if you wanna do math, go ahead. And, some people listening are like, what? What do you mean you have to? And I personally think math is good because it's cool and you use it a lot, but some of the math, depending on what you're pursuing, see that's the thing that's cool about it. It's like common sense. Begin with? The end in mind what career, what education path are they pursuing? Work backwards to the present. Yeah. And then make decisions based on that. And a lot of times you will have those fundamentals in that. You talked about your husband helping with math. How has he been, engaged in the homeschooling stuff? What was his role? In your mind, what's his job?

Bethany Baldwin:

He completely handled the math for me. We did math, uc, and the kids would watch the video, they'd do their math, they put it on Daddy's pillow, he'd check it, he'd put it back. And as they got older, they're. They're self-driven and I think, oh my goodness, homeschoolers are capable of doing things on their own. It's, it is so beautiful how self-driven most of them are. It's a good way to say it. And yes not all of them. So he would do the math and then he didn't do too much else except support me and we just made sure that we were a team. Yeah. And that he didn't, question what I chose to do because I, it's my business, like it's what I, it has to fit me. And so just supporting for the person who's the supporting figure, whether it's the mom or dad, I do know dads who do all the homeschooling. I think I have a son-in-law that might be that. So I'm full support of that. Yeah. Cool. That he works from home. So that it's just being supportive and not really questioning the choices that they make. Because if you think about how much research you'd have to do to even make an educated comment or, criticism they don't do that to you. I didn't show up at my husband's work and ever say, I, I don't agree with you. Like I didn't even have that option. Yeah. And obviously if I'm doing something really bad then no. And you share your

Timmy Eaton:

children Yes, of course. Yeah.

Bethany Baldwin:

You share your children. But I do think it's honoring each other in that and he was just a good dad. We just had a good marriage and

Timmy Eaton:

you feel like you're on the same page as far as like your main motivations and your reasons for doing it, and. Oh

Bethany Baldwin:

no. We fight about whether or not we should teach the kids math. No, we don't fight about it. We have debates about Yeah, you've got passions. Yeah.'cause I am so an artist and he's so business in math and science but it's good that we need to keep talking about those things. And I'll keep talking about where are kids. Careers are even headed. And I think for a lot of us, our kids are gonna have careers that we haven't even conceived of because totally of how much AI is changing things, how much the world is changing that a lot of jobs are just disappearing. When I went to. Columbus College of Art Design, half of the jobs, the careers that I could have picked, they're completely eliminated because of ai. Almost completely eliminated. So we have to recognize that that creative, that independent thing, that entrepreneur spirit those things. If you're teachable and you wanna make things better and you're self-driven and you know how to talk and relate to people, you have good relationships, relational skills, those are. Those are magic you. We need those things and that's what our kids need from us. We love them. No teacher can love and be as invested in them ever as I could be.

Timmy Eaton:

So if somebody came to you if somebody's considering it and they're going, man we know this looks appealing to us, but it's so overwhelming. There's tons of stuff out there, there's so many ways to do it. What's your counsel to a good friend who says, Bethany, I'm overwhelmed. I want to do this, but it just sounds crazy and I don't know where to start and I don't know what to do

Bethany Baldwin:

with homeschooling.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Bethany Baldwin:

Again, I think I go back to that. Find someone that homeschools, that likes it, that has your personality, and just that first year, just copy what they do. Because there's an infinite amount of ways that you can educate your children. There's an infinite amount of knowledge. Yeah. It's never ending. And so there's no way that you can ever get an infinite amount of knowledge into your child. And so take the pressure off of yourself. For what it means to be educated. You need to be literate. You need to be able to do basic math. You need to know where, what you're headed towards as a person. Your kids are people with a goal, with a path. And it's it's okay. Take that. You cannot teach them everything. Yeah. You have to pick and choose, attach faith to that and enjoy it.

Timmy Eaton:

I think there's a lot to what you said about you, like just finding like-mindedness and, and that's helpful. And then it is. Okay. One of the biggest mistakes homeschool families make is like replicating what happens in the school. And I understand it's not the end of the world. But like your suggestion I think is more effective where you find somebody that's like you, and then you just mimic for a bit and then you inevitably pick up stuff that you, everyone says they're a particular homeschool style. I think everybody's eclectic because

Bethany Baldwin:

I agree. Absolute.'cause

Timmy Eaton:

they're pulling and picking from everywhere and then, and it becomes Bethany's homeschool and it becomes so on and so forth, so it's, it is very customized. Last question I wanted to do is just to first. Just give you the last word on anything you wanna say and then tell us what's in the future for mad society and just you and homeschooling and whatever you wanna say. What do you see coming? What's in the works?

Bethany Baldwin:

I am going to take a fast from social media as I write my next year's content. So every year I have two themes and when I become a writer and I'm writing the theater content, I, so after today, I'm good to go into like dark mode and I'm gonna write. Cool. Ranch and safari. Not sorry. So I have a Western and African themed is the whole next year so people can purchase like a whole theme for their year. And then of course going into pursuing the prison ministry. And what that would look like. And then just continuing to listen to people as they start math societies, as they want to incorporate the arts into their homeschool or their school. What do they need and how can I help them get that to make that work for them? Because I'm a huge fan of creativity and want people to be able to love who they are Yeah. And what they're good at, and be able to put that on a stage, whether that's a theater stage. And most people, if you ask them what they're good at they'll struggle to answer and that's just not okay.

Timmy Eaton:

Those are great insights. You guys, this has been Bethany Baldwin and again when I encourage everybody to go to mad society inc.com and hopefully we get to talk again soon. Thank you so much.

Bethany Baldwin:

Thank you.

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.