One Bet, Six Plane Tickets, and a Decade in Africa We Never Saw Coming
Episode 4 · June 15, 2026 · 59 min · with Brad and Aubree Stafford
Show notes
It started with a bet over a glass of freshly squeezed goat milk, and ended up being a 10 year adventure that changed our lives and homeschooling forever.
In this episode, we share the story of how we ended up going to Cape Town, the unexpected opportunity that led us to move our family and how we stayed for nearly a decade.
We discuss how homeschooling gave us the flexibility to say "yes" to an unconventional path, what we learned from living overseas, the benefits from being 'unplugged' and what we learned that strengthened our family that you can apply to your family...no matter where you are in the world!
Transcript
The whole conversation, 59 minutes, to read or search.
Brad
Hello, hello, and welcome again to Outside the System. I'm your host, Brad Stafford, with my lovely wife, Aubree Stafford. Today we are going to dive into our experience in South Africa, so in Cape Town in particular. So we were over there for about 10 years, off and on. Homeschooled the whole time. Lots of struggles, lots of challenges.
Aubree
Lots of fun.
Brad
Lots of fun. But ultimately we want to give you guys a little bit more of a backstory, and really what we learned over there, and how we're applying a lot of the things that we learned over there in difficult times to today. So I guess the first thing is, how did we get over there?
Aubree
How did we... Yeah, because we were living on the farm, which we loved. Like, we loved being able to have our own chicken and eggs and milk and cheese and yogurt. Loved all those things. But then I think I had always kind of had an interest in moving someplace else. Both of us were blessed with fantastic parents. Our parents were close by, lots of extended family close by.
Aubree
And really no one ever really moved away. So we kind of did that first little foray into living a little bit further away when we went to the Shenandoah Valley. That was like two hours. Because it's actually a lot harder than you think. You can't just rock up to a country and be like, "Hey, we want to live here." You have to have visas, and it's pretty complicated. So I... I mean, we were kind of talking about it, and you were not super interested.
Brad
No, we had looked at a number of different places. We looked at the Basque region of France, just because it was kind of like, we loved our time on the farm, but we, and I say "we," me eventually, said we have a... with my work, working online, right? And then with the homeschooling.
Aubree
And our kids were little. I mean, Micah was the oldest, was like seven.
Brad
That's right. So we kind of looked around and said, not necessarily, is this it, but, should we do something different?
Aubree
And we had the opportunity, and that was the thing, where a lot of people don't. Like, most of my family members, your family members were tied to that area because of work. Where you started working online, like, immediately after we got married. And so we could go anywhere. And that was like an exciting opportunity, but also a little bit like, all of a sudden you have so many open possibilities. I feel like that's always been a challenge for us, because we haven't had a tie, in a way, to a lot of places.
Brad
Like, our job, my job never... A lot of times I think people's jobs are their taproots to a location.
Aubree
Yeah, and it helps you make decisions, because you only have so many options. Like our parents, my parents couldn't have left. I mean, it would have been silly for them to leave their jobs, right? Around the Maryland area. So for us, we had that opportunity.
Aubree
And also we were not... So this was when we had four kids. And then the biggest trip we had taken, remember, where we were like, "Okay, let's just try a little travel with the kids," and it was Texas we went to. And I can remember, I just laughed so hard, because I was trying to control every single... I was pregnant with our fourth baby. So that means Micah was six. So it was like six, four, and two, not even. So like five, three, and, you know, 18 months or something.
Aubree
I brought blackout shades, blackout curtains, and a noisemaker. Because to me, the most important thing was naps, which I still will stand by. I feel like having nap time for your little kids is essential. But I think you do just try to control as much as you can. And that was a big learning process for me, that I think all the big travel and the big moves helped me to see the reality that you actually can't control everything. So, you know, we went to Texas and it was super fun. And that was our first, that was our biggest trip we had ever taken with our kids, was Texas. That we flew there.
Brad
And then we flew. And then it was, I guess, the summer of 2014. My best friend Dustin had married a South African girl. And for years, and this was before WhatsApp, this was before Telegram, before Signal, he was living over there, and every time I got a chance to talk to him, or he came back, it was, "Oh man, you guys have to come over. You have to come over and visit, you have to come over and visit." And every time I would say no.
Aubree
Because we had no clue what it was like.
Brad
I'm not going to the dark continent. I'm an American. We don't do that.
Aubree
Well, yeah, we had no idea. Like, I didn't even have a clue. You can't. Like Nelson Mandela, like, you've heard of him. If you've been public schooled, you know, you've heard of Nelson Mandela. You've heard of things in South Africa, but you don't really have any clue of what it's actually really like there.
Brad
Right, right. And so he came back, and it was at the time when we were milking a lot of goats and doing a lot of the farm stuff, and he kept saying, "Oh man, you guys have to come. You guys have to come over." And I'm like, "No, man, I'm not going." So it was in Riva, at Mike's Bar and Grill. Crab House. Crab House, sorry.
Aubree
Get it right.
Brad
And I said, "If you drink this, [unclear]."
Aubree
No, then, was it, he came to our house, right? Wasn't he? Because you had the goat milk there.
Brad
Maybe. Yeah. I forget exactly how the bet went down. But ultimately I said, if... because he was like, "I'll never drink that goat milk." And I said, "I'll never go to Africa." So I slammed down the liter of milk in front of him and I said, "If you drink this, then we're good." I don't know why he even had a... he's just, it's just Dustin. Delicious. But he ended up drinking it, and then the day before he left, we bought tickets. And the other cool... because he had a place over there. Yeah, so we just had to pay.
Aubree
And do you remember, at the time we had been looking, because I had a cousin who was stationed in Alaska. And we were looking with another cousin about, because they also had young kids, about doing a big trip and taking our kids to Alaska. And by the time we paid for airfare, Airbnb, or wherever we're gonna stay, and renting a car, it was gonna be so much more expensive than actually flying to South Africa, because his wife's family had a place we could stay for free. And so all we were doing was paying for tickets and renting a car, which, if you have dollars going there, so far. So much cheaper. So that's how we... yeah, we decided to do that.
Brad
Yep. So we went over, and that was in February of 2015. And so we packed up and we're preparing everything. Three-week trip over there.
Aubree
I did have to pack lighter.
Brad
You did have to pack lighter. We learned you have to weigh your bags on international flights. But we got over there, and the trip itself was terrible. The flights over, Micah and Eliza were both air sick.
Aubree
Well, because the first flight over, you're just flying the six or seven hours to London. And then I think we did Virgin, Virgin Air, whatever. And the flight was really nice. So it was a super nice flight, but then you don't realize that no matter what, you're basically waking up in the middle of the night. So you get the six or seven-hour flight, you pretend sleep on the flight, and then you're waking up in the middle of... your body's like, it's the middle of the night.
Aubree
And with little kids, it was the middle of the night. And kids don't ever sleep well on airplanes. Like, I just don't think they do. And our youngest was, she wasn't even one. So having to be on an airplane for that long, and that was just the seven-hour flight, with a one-year-old. And also just that internal fear of knowing that you're gonna be the annoying person that maybe, you know, their baby might cry. And she was really, really good. So she was fine.
Aubree
But it was that we had the long layover, remember? And we made the fatal error of taking them to the children's play area at the Virgin Atlantic Lounge. That was our fatal flaw, because we're like, "Oh, we have such a long layover. We'll just take them, play in that little child pit they have with all the different soft stuff." And so they were climbing around there and they had a fun time, and then... might as well have been licking the bottom of a train or something. We realized that. And so then we fly down, and Brad gets motion sickness. I don't. We were pretty sure Micah probably would. So we were giving Dramamine.
Aubree
But then I didn't realize that the 11 hours would just... you can get sick. You have to dose them again, right? So, and it was so hard, because I remember Micah was seven years old, and he just started throwing up, and we still had probably two hours left, and I couldn't... I wasn't next to him. Like, he was at the far end of the row.
Aubree
And there was this older couple, an older American couple that were going for a holiday, and they were so nice and kind, and they're like, "You're doing such a good job, buddy." He was so... it was so rough. And I think, I'm sure we'll talk about this a lot more, but doing those kind of things where it's so hard as a parent to let go of control, especially for me, like, it was hard to let go and be like, "Oh my gosh." And then you realize he's gonna be okay. Like, it sucks that he's vomiting. It sucks, and then Eliza started vomiting.
Brad
Yeah, and then we get off the plane.
Aubree
Right, so we make it off the plane.
Brad
Yeah, finally, everyone's like, "Yay, everything's fine." And then at Cape Town International Airport, I guess a number of planes had landed at that time. People were going down the escalator and bailing off because they were just packing in, and I said, "Oh, rude. We're gonna give it five minutes to get it..."
Aubree
It was like, I just felt like, "We're in Africa." Like, it was so different. I just feel like that never would have happened in America. That you literally... there's so many people that people couldn't get off the escalator at the bottom.
Brad
Yeah, they were.
Aubree
The line was so long and so packed that people were jumping off. So we're like, "All right, we're just gonna stay up here for a second."
Brad
Who's managing this? But nobody.
Aubree
But the other... do you remember, people were so nice, when, like, this was, you know, 2014. 2015. If we had kids, they would let us skip the line every time. We hardly ever had to wait in line.
Brad
All you had to really do was ask.
Aubree
Yeah, but they would even come up to you, remember? I mean, they would come up and see that you had kids. Especially in Africa. You have kids. Even the Europeans sometimes would let you bump up, and not just get on the plane early.
Brad
Yeah. We opened lines, like, we went through passport checks faster. It was... [unclear] get in the car. It was very nice.
Aubree
And get the rental car. And Brad's driving, you know, on the wrong side of the road. And then I think we had given them Dramamine again. I'm pretty sure I re-gave it on the airplane. But I just don't know if it didn't take or whatever, because then they're still... they're car sick. Because we're going around mountains.
Brad
Mountains, and, like, ocean road, and... but it was so big. It was such a... it was such, like, a hard thing, and I think it really kind of set us to life as doing hard things. Even if you don't know the end of the outcome, you just have to do the next right thing, and sometimes the next right thing is gonna be hard. Like, how do we find a bag for that kid in the back? How far are we away?
Aubree
And that you are stronger, like, and they are stronger than you think. You know what I mean? I think for us, we had an abhorrence of vomit.
Brad
Yep. I, the most.
Aubree
I mean, and this trip, like, that was the beginning of the vomit. I mean, it was coming pretty much the whole three weeks. There was vomit involved. Like, never in our lives had we ever experienced so much vomit. And Micah was so tough. I can literally still picture them in the back of the car. But it was just so... pale face. Pale face. I'm like, "It's okay, you guys are doing so well." They were... everyone's tired.
Aubree
But then we get there, and this is how I approached all those things afterward, is we get there, and we are literally in an oceanfront flat. I mean, we go out on our balcony and you just are looking out at False Bay. It was mountain, beach. We had never... we were East Coast people. You had been to California before. I had never been to California. I just had never seen really such a beautiful place.
Aubree
Then you watch the sunset, and I feel like that helped me from then on to be like, if you can picture yourself where you're going to be... that would always be my trick. I would just imagine myself sitting on the couch of where I knew I was going. And then thinking of myself two days before, thinking, "You're gonna be sitting there. Like, you're gonna get there, it's gonna be over. It's gonna be hard, you're gonna survive, you might not sleep." And so then we would always tell people, you just go into it expecting to not sleep. Like, you don't.
Brad
And the only way out is through, is kind of the mindset. And I think that's a good picture, even if you're not... even us coming back to Florida, where we're not seeing sunsets, we're not having a view. We're not... it's okay, well, we're gonna be on our couch, and there is...
Aubree
Well, yeah, that feeling of relief. It's, you know, that feeling that you know there is an outcome. It's not going to last forever. It will be over. That flight will be over. You know, you will just figure out a way to get through. And then, you know, with the long flights, like, we've ended up doing the 16-hour flights, also with toddlers and babies. And really just, it helps you to see it will be over. It's gonna be long, it will be over. You kind of celebrate half-hour chunks. You know, another hour's gone by. Another hour's gone by, and you just find things to do.
Brad
Either the plane crashes and we're off the flight, or we get there and we're off the flight. It's got to be. You just have to... And I think the one thing that is really just something that I feel like with homeschooling, work, dad parenting, mom parenting, everything: the only thing that you can really control is your attitude.
Aubree
That's right.
Brad
That's it. And especially with kids, if you're flustered and frustrated and losing your temper and complaining, guess what?
Aubree
They're gonna see, right?
Brad
They're gonna see that, and they're gonna do that as well. So it's really the only thing that you have control over.
Aubree
Yeah, and I think, as you know, sometimes you feel like you have more control when you're in your everyday life, right? When you're in your everyday life and you're in your home, you're in your normal routine, you can feel like you have control. And I think for me, what works so well was that we kind of forced ourselves to get into these positions that we knew were going to be difficult.
Aubree
And I can literally remember being on those flights and being like, "Okay, I've never actually had to pray like this in my life." Like, just to pray for patience. Like, dealing with a one-year-old that's uncomfortable, tired, wants to nonstop nurse, you know, and having other kids to take care of, and then we had more kids. And yeah, it's that thing of, the only thing I control is my attitude.
Aubree
They're looking to you. Your kids are looking to you, right? They're looking to how you handle it. If you're smiling, if you're relaxed, they're going to be like that. And for me, it was that we actually all know we don't have control really about everything. But sometimes you kind of have the illusion of being more in control of things than you really are. And for me, it was doing those kind of really hard trips, and also that's the mental preparation for something you knew was going to be really hard.
Brad
Yeah, because... spoiler alert, I don't like flying. I don't like flying. I don't like it. I would rather drive.
Aubree
I hate driving.
Brad
I'm not averse to flying, but I just am not... I just, yeah, I just don't like flying.
Aubree
And so Brad's like a newborn baby. Like, I think they call it self-habituating or something like that, where, you know, when you have a literal newborn, a couple weeks old, it doesn't matter where you take them, and they will just sleep on their mom. That's Brad on the airplane.
Brad
I'm just like, just sleep.
Aubree
Falls asleep, and, like, before... I'm not exaggerating. It's been before the flight's taken off, where he's back there with his eyes closed in the blanket, like, tucked up to his chin.
Brad
Maybe not that way.
Aubree
Yes.
Brad
I'm still helpful.
Aubree
He will, he will wake up and help. Well, totally, he will totally help, but it's like I have to kind of whack his... I always make sure I can hit him somehow. So I can be like, "Wake up, I need something from up here. I need something." And there's been times where he's had to sleep in between two kids, like with his arm between them, because they were fighting over their one little seat.
Brad
Well, they... I remember it, I forget which flight it was, but Eve and Susanna were laying sort of foot to face.
Aubree
Because we had the Plane Pals, right?
Brad
Yeah. In between two seats. And then what would happen was one of them would flop, the other one would flop, then they just bicker. And so I would hardly call it sleeping, more of like laying and nodding off, like [unclear].
Aubree
With your arm in between them.
Brad
With my arm between them, knowing, okay, if I stay like this for too long, I won't be able to turn my head for a week. But I'm like, the fighting and trying to get them to sleep was more important.
Aubree
And then you would usually, once we kept having more kids, you would end up having the toddler, or like the two or three-year-old, if I would have the baby. Which, newborns are the easiest.
Brad
Yeah, newborns are a secret. But anyway, so the trip itself, I would say it kind of went in... So the sickness and the challenges were one thing. But we get there, we're overwhelmed with the beauty of the place. It's stunning. Everyone should go to Cape Town, South Africa. Period. It is a beautiful country. It's just beautiful. Then by week two, we had just met a lot of people.
Aubree
Because we weren't going there as tourists, right? We were going there because Dustin was there, Karin was there, and then we also... my aunt had a friend who, her son, or her... no, her brother and his family were there. So we had met people. We also didn't say that, you know, the first night, then Eliza puked.
Brad
Yeah, she puked in the bed.
Aubree
And then the whole rest of the time... you know, it isn't America. Like, we're drinking water, we're eating things that the kids weren't used to. So when I say it was nonstop having to deal with kids being sick, it was the whole time.
Brad
Yeah, it was all the way.
Aubree
It was the whole time. So, but in the midst of that, yes.
Brad
And so in the midst of all that, the people that we met... because I think what happens is, when people go to foreign countries, sometimes they just stay in their little... they stay in cliques. They stay in their expat group. Like, yeah, they stay in the expat group. And we never were like that. We did things with Americans, we did things with expats, but they weren't our sole friend group there.
Brad
So that first, like, the second week, we're just blown away by the people. And then by the third week, through that friend, we met another American family. They were leaving, and that organization needed someone to teach business who knew farming, who was willing and able to move over there, and so that sort of fit into, "Wow, we could actually live here." And so after the three weeks, we went back and prayed a lot about it and consulted and said, "Let's go."
Aubree
Yeah, because I can remember we were driving, and I just remember it's so different. You know, and I had been to, like, Scandinavia before, and we had been to Mexico, the Caribbean. But when you go someplace where it was just so different... and this was way before COVID. So in a lot of ways, Cape Town was more like it was when we were growing up. Yes, that's like... when did the iPhone... it wasn't until COVID that it was... Well, yeah, because I'm trying to remember, like, obviously people had iPhones there, but it was much different in terms of the way, the culture.
Brad
So they say that South Africa is about 10 years behind the US. Or was. Or was, until COVID. Everything sort of exponentially increased with the globalism and the technology, and yuck. But at that time, it very much felt more... even within those three weeks, pop in and have dinner with random people, and just go out to the beach and meet up with other people that you knew. And that area was, I mean, it was probably, I think it's probably 250... 200,000 people. Not as huge. But it felt very small town, and felt very, very safe. I mean, that was the other thing.
Aubree
We felt... And also it was just different, where, you know, we grew up... like, when I... we grew up on a farm, but we didn't really have any experience with towns, really. You know, we were kind of more like suburban kids, where you didn't really have a town center, right? And you didn't really have that feeling of... like, clearly you went to school with the same kids, you played sports with the same kids, you went to church with the same people, but it wasn't really like you would just go to a coffee shop and be friends with the people there. And know their name.
Aubree
And so there, the whole restaurant culture being different there, where even back then, going to a restaurant in the US is always more expensive than it is to prepare your own food. But there, it was pretty similar in the price. And then they would always have places for the kids to play. So it became much more of an actual experience, not just like, "All right, let's go get some food. Let's eat some food really quick. All right, let's go home." It'd be like, okay, you get there kind of early, maybe you meet friends there, the kids all play, you have a leisurely dinner.
Aubree
And also, I mean, as we found out later, there's a lot of different things about that. But I think for us, one of the... for me at least, the attraction in the beginning was it just was so different. It was unlike anything else that I'd ever had.
Brad
It's a very cafe culture. Where in the US, it's turn-tables-over culture. So that's the difference. There's blessings and curses, because sometimes it takes you 20 minutes to get your check.
Brad
But other times you're not feeling rushed to make the next decision. You're not feeling, "Oh, I need to do this." And especially with the kids, I think that was another thing. It just felt like an old... like, it felt more old school, where people didn't view kids and families as burdens. And there were issues in terms of more general kid management, where parents didn't manage their kids and they're wild, and need to tase them and, like, tie them up in the back or something. But for the most part, everyone was generally more familially oriented and welcoming. So it... felt different.
Aubree
Do you remember, around that time? Because I can remember that was when, like, the younger teenagers were having phones. Or, you know, teenagers had that, in the US. Or, like, an 11-year-old would have a phone. And we were already feeling that kind of pressure when we had little kids, not to give them phones, but to really just start kind of jumping on the carousel of, "Okay, you've got kids, and now you need to sign up for sports. Now what are you gonna do for this? What are you gonna do for that?" Even with homeschooling, there was just a really... there's just an assumption that you're just gonna have a bunch of things to do.
Aubree
And I didn't want to live like that. You and I both grew up playing sports all the time. And our parents, you know, were great parents, and they wanted us to be able to experience all those sports. It wasn't as bad when we were kids, but we both did the travel teams, where you're playing every weekend, that's your whole life, is the sport. And we didn't want to do that. And it was also, I remember feeling like in the US... and again, living outside the US makes you appreciate America in ways you didn't realize.
Brad
Yes, for sure. 100%.
Aubree
But then there's also... it was hard to find people like us, I felt like, who didn't already, when their kids were seven, start signing up for sports. Because we put Micah into soccer, remember? And I can remember being like, "Okay, these dudes are like some overweight dads who are... I mean, we're gonna teach him more playing in our backyard." Then he would just... And then you're looking at, okay, it's right at dinner time. So then one of us is gonna have to either take him to the practice, and the other one stays home and has dinner with the kids. Or we all go, and then I have to figure out dinner at the practice.
Brad
So yeah, I think we both recognized that the cheese of sports had already started to slide off the cracker. And I would love to do a dedicated sportball episode, because I've got a lot of feelings on that. A lot to say about that. A lot of feelings on sportball. But we recognized back then that it had become an idol, and the thing that... when you're worshiping something, you're sacrificing something else.
Brad
And so very clearly the worship of the travel teams, the sports, the busyness came at the sacrifice of our family. And we had been really just so blessed to be always around each other. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we always were around each other. And so to say, "Well, we're gonna have to sacrifice some dinners," for what?
Aubree
And it was also, do you remember? I don't even remember, it was a guy that wrote a book, like, literally that long ago, like 10-plus years, and it was something about busyness, and he was saying how it was like a badge of honor to be like, "Hey, how are you doing?" "Oh, you know, just super busy." And that's how everyone was talking, and we had really felt that a lot.
Brad
Very much.
Aubree
Where there would be people that, you know, they said they wanted to, like, "Yeah, yeah, we want to hang out and do things," and then you'd get on their calendar three weeks later on a Tuesday night.
Brad
If that.
Aubree
If that's when they had an opening with their kids. And so, and I also feel like I realized that a lot of that is actually easier: to sign up your children for a lot of activities and sports than actually look at them and be like, "Okay, what are we gonna do together? What are we gonna do as a family?" Do you know, what could your kid be doing instead? Because you are, like you said, you're giving something up. You're replacing something with those activities. And it is easier for a lot of people, because you don't really have to think about it. You're just like, "Okay, they've got soccer on this day, they've got this on this day."
Brad
Outsource, outsource, outsource. And that comes at a significant cost. I feel like in today's society, the younger people, I guess, that I talk to anyway, because I go pretty hard on the sportball with any guy that I know, they recognize the trade that isn't worth it. And they can also kind of see it in the culture itself.
Brad
They see the fruit in parents who have sacrificed everything for their kids' sport, where... it's just mind-blowing to me, the tiniest percentage of people actually do anything with that sport beyond, at best, they become a coach of something. But what they end up sacrificing, more often than not, is a close family, a level of authority and respect, understanding who these people are and why I need to change.
Aubree
An identity apart from the sport. That was a big... yeah.
Brad
Yes. So I feel like I'm hopeful in terms of, as I continue to spread the gospel of sportball, that more and more families are gonna... Because that's the other thing, is when I start talking about it in particular, people are like, "Oh, you don't like sports." I'm like, "No, I don't like what sports has become." I like athleticism, right? I like staying in shape, I like making good food choices, I like [unclear]. Those are all good things. It's gone too far. It's moved too far.
Brad
And what was interesting, and that was something we noticed when we had moved back there, or when we moved there the first time, is the friends that we made, not all Americans, mostly South Africans, the sport that their kids did didn't actually sacrifice their family time. It didn't sacrifice their time to be around other people.
Aubree
Because it was built into the school day. That was the bigger difference. So it was built into the school day. So school was over early, like one o'clock or one thirty, depending how old the child was. And then if they played sport, they would do it right after school. So it wasn't at dinner time. It wasn't when, you know, your family should be having a meal together. And I was super convicted about that pretty young, that, you know, in our marriage, we would be having dinner together. Like, I think that once you let that domino fall, it's so easy to let other things go. So once you, you know, you were like, "Okay, well, it's only two days a week that they have soccer practice."
Aubree
And then before you know it, it's like, "Oh yeah, but then also now they've got a game on Friday. And now, you know, Saturday they've got a game." And so your whole life becomes oriented around the sports. And then the shocker is, then people are surprised that their kids are narcissists, because literally their whole life revolves around the sports. And you know, we were really fortunate that my aunt and uncle live right near us, and they have three of, like, the most athletic boys, that are in their 20s now.
Brad
Stellar human beings.
Aubree
Stellar. And we're seeing them, and we're like, okay, they are the best that they're gonna get. And you still see, like, even my aunt said to me not long ago, sometimes she thinks maybe they shouldn't have leaned so into just supporting every decision that their sons wanted to do, to make them, like, live their dream. You know?
Brad
Because I think the hard part is, it doesn't start out as... you don't start out bowing to the idol. You slowly move.
Aubree
Because it has a good aspect. That's the thing. Because the sports have a good aspect. Especially, you know, when the dad's involved in the coaching and the family's all going to the games and, you know, you're learning things. I mean, we probably should just do a whole other...
Brad
Yeah, we're gonna have to do a sportball episode.
Aubree
But I think that was the thing, back to Cape Town, was that the kids could be involved in things. And it wasn't that kids weren't. No, and our kids did things, but it would be in the early afternoon. So it would be at two or three o'clock, and then we'd still be able to have dinner together. You'd still be able to spend your time as a family.
Aubree
And then, you know, when we first came back and were telling people that we were gonna go do it... Because what we... we went on a volunteer visa. So we were working for a missionary organization, but we were not like a typical missionary, in the missionary model of raising money. So Brad continued to work. So he worked, so we were able to go over pretty quickly, because we didn't do the normal kind of thing that people do to get a volunteer visa.
Brad
Yeah, there's the whole missionary thing, we can do another episode. It comes with a lot of sacrifice as well. And a lot of, I think a lot of unnecessary pressure, bureaucracy, and financial implications.
Aubree
But we were able to actually do a pretty quick turnaround. And I don't think our parents were very thrilled, enthused about it. And so we ended up going back, and, you know, you think about, like, it was because our life was already in such an easy way to make it happen. Because you could work from anywhere. We were homeschooling, we were able to rent our house out, so it actually was really pretty simple to get everything in place, and we ended up getting the visas pretty quick. I think it took about six months or something like that. And then by that time, we were pregnant with our fifth baby. And I just remember, too, just being like, not even having a care in the world. I'm like, "This will be fine."
Brad
People were more worried about that. "Well, maybe you should wait." No. What? No, no. I mean, at this point, it was our fifth. You've always stayed... and that was the other thing, is you've always stayed active. You've always figured out... We can do another episode on actually, like, homeschooling and taking care of yourself.
Aubree
Or even, and also just the fact that, like, I had four hospital births, like, you know, natural, but, like, with medication. Hospital births. And then went to Cape Town and just went the whole other way, with midwives and that whole thing. Which again, like, you just see how doing certain things opens up a realm of things that you didn't really think was possible before. And I think going to Cape Town really, it changed a lot of the way... I don't know what it would have been like if I had stayed in the United States, as far as homeschooling, but there, it was not normal. Like, most people did not homeschool. We had one other family, maybe two families that we knew that homeschooled.
Brad
Yeah. And I think ultimately what the blessing was, is when you kind of are able to step out of it, because there's already this, "Ugh, we don't like this," and you can't really put your finger on it. You know, like I remember, my dad mostly doesn't like music at church. And what it was, was the music is very effeminate. So being able to put your finger on... the music in most churches is very effeminate and emotional.
Aubree
That's why a man doesn't like that.
Brad
That's why men don't like that, or they shouldn't, they shouldn't like that. It was the same thing with us being outside of the United States, gave us a different view. And it's not... you don't have to leave America to do that, but for us, that was how it worked. Especially now, when we were... we were early, kind of radicalizing out and questioning a lot of the things that were, quote unquote, normal. Everyone did this. You just put your kids in sports, you just do this, you just do... We were already questioning that.
Brad
So the amount of people doing that now is a million more people than were doing it back then. We needed to get out in order to really help to also strengthen our family, and to say this homeschooling is the most valuable thing, our mealtime is the most valuable thing, our time together is the most valuable thing. Where I think in the United States, we also could have been caught up in... because our kids are athletic. Because your kids are good at sports.
Aubree
Yeah, and you have to actually fight against it. I think that was the thing, that it really felt like a fight to stay true to what principles you wanted to, where I feel like when we went over there, it was just a lot easier. Like, even in the sense of screens, and, you know, at the time, for the kids to even have an iPad or their own anything. Where when we first got there, there was no Amazon there. There was no quick delivery of anything. I couldn't get stuff, I couldn't get homeschool curriculums sent, I couldn't get a lot of books delivered. We just had to deal with what you had there.
Aubree
And the internet too. Like, so the internet, you were working at night. So Brad would volunteer three days a week, all day, and then come home in the evenings and work. And he would be on the computer working. And so I couldn't get on the computer at the same time. So I think it just made me kind of go back to being like, "I'm just gonna read books when the kids are in bed, then. I'm just gonna read books when the kids are in bed. Okay, the baby's awake, okay."
Brad
Get her. Yeah, but it really... it slowed, I think it slowed down the thinking process, to kind of allow us to take a step back and say, "Well, what should we be doing here? Like, do we need to be buying all these things?" Like, you can't... it was much more difficult to get sold on products and services and stuff there, because it wasn't this... I don't want to say the sales process wasn't as good, but the delivery process made you actually think about what you were purchasing. So curriculums, books, that's why one of the things... and you've done a number of videos inside of the membership on building your home library.
Aubree
Yeah, that is for sure the most crucial thing, because we travel with so many books, like an embarrassing number, but not really, because that was a lot of international flight experience. But that was the thing, was that I knew that that's what I wanted our kids to be around: books. So, like, the first year I brought a lot, but I ended up leaving half of them back. But I knew that that's what I wanted our kids to be surrounded by: books. I wanted them to have books all the time. I wanted them to just have constant access to it. So that meant that, you know, in each of our 50-pound suitcases, I would put 25 pounds of books. Almost everything, really.
Aubree
And so, but there I didn't have access, and also I wasn't on social media. I wasn't watching what other homeschool women were doing. I wasn't really consuming that kind of stuff. I just... I liked the classical pedagogy, and I had Charlotte Mason books, and I just went with that system, and I kind of constructed my own sort of just habits, that then you're able to see that that's really what it is. It's the power of making big decisions, like, "We're just going to do a ton of reading. I'm gonna read out loud every day. We're gonna focus on memorizing a lot of things and build a foundation." And that really, so much of it is just your life.
Aubree
And that gave me a freedom, because I didn't have a lot of external inputs of, "This is what your day should look like. This is what my homeschool looks like. This is all these things," where I think a lot of people get caught up or overwhelmed with... there's so many options and so many people doing things so well and beautifully, and a lot of, you know, encouragement, quote, in air quotes, that maybe isn't encouragement all the time, because it's kind of taking you away from what the goal is.
Brad
Or what you literally have in front of you. You know, so if you have two kids, you're seeing this idyllic farmstead with this lady with five kids, and she's in a linen dress, and the dad's chopping wood, and all this. It's actually fake. And so you, as a person with two kids, you look at that and go, "Oh, that'd be so nice. Maybe we should have another kid," as opposed to saying, "Well, what am I blessed with right here? I've got these two kids. What can I do to get them reading more? What can I do to sacrifice other things in our life to make sure that we have a strong family? How is my husband being involved? No, he can't chop wood, but you know what he can do? He can build computers, he can do electrical, you know, he can do..."
Brad
So I think that's the trap that we never really, and still haven't, fallen into, because we know that a lot of that stuff is purely fake. But it also doesn't deal with what your situation is, because our situation is different from our neighbor's situation, where they have one, I guess she's two years old, a two-year-old. Or our neighbor across the street, where they have a 13-year-old and a seven-year-old. So these two different families seeing this idyllic, "Here's the best curriculum, and here's what my schedule looks like, and here's all that," that's not real life. And that's the thing that we were blessed with in Cape Town, is just dealing with what we had in front of us.
Aubree
Because we weren't being swayed, and it's like, yeah, I think, culturally either. Right, because there, it just felt like we were so much more in a community, and that's the thing that we've always had. Like, that's what always brought us back there all the time, was that there was just a different lifestyle there. And you know, we've not lived in a lot of different places in America, and so I wouldn't say that that doesn't exist in America at all. But I think it's harder to find in the United States in some ways, and so you really have to look for it, or try to create it yourself.
Aubree
And I think the homeschooling there, it helped my mind, as far as, like, a kid that was... you know, I was public schooled, went to a public four-year university, I was good at school. It helped me break that model of school: homeschooling needs to look like school. It helped me break the idea of, like, you're preparing them for a job.
Brad
Because that's the other end of the extreme. Then the farm lady over here, and the super academic, like, "You've got to check all these boxes off."
Aubree
And our kids were not even enrolled. They were basically... Micah was seven, so he was enrolled when we were in Maryland, I think, for kindergarten, first grade. And then maybe Eliza was enrolled for kindergarten, I don't know. But then for the whole time, they were not enrolled ever, anywhere. They were not enrolled in South Africa. We were completely outside of any educational institution structure.
Aubree
And I think that helped me, and I still have to... still remind myself, it's not about all the stuff you accomplish in one day. You clearly need to construct a foundation that is robust for your child. They need to be able to read well, they need to express themselves well, they need to write well, you need to work on memory. And the big thing for us, too, was that we realized that their worldview was the most important thing.
Brad
And thinking about the world around them. Because being in South Africa, you're dealing with people eating out of the trash can. You're dealing with taxi drivers, which, I love taxi drivers. I love the freedom of the Wild West of taxi drivers. But they're booking, you know, there's traffic, and they're barreling down the middle lanes, you know, barely not hitting people. You're dealing with a culture from the apartheid. And then also looking at the United States from afar and seeing the blessings and the curses of that. I think me helping our kids to have that really strong biblical worldview, to help them discern those things.
Aubree
Well, I see... it doesn't matter if you teach your kid how to spot every logical fallacy that exists. If they do not have a foundation that's based in transcendent truths that you help them to see, then they're gonna fall for anything that comes their way.
Aubree
So I think because we were able to separate ourselves, and we didn't have, like, for good and for bad, we didn't have our family around... that we didn't have a lot of reason, you know, we couldn't say, "Can your parents watch the kids while we do this?" Like, we did everything together, and we were around a lot of different people, and I think that helped us to really focus on that truth of saying, if you don't have this foundation, what's it worth? Like, homeschooling, you might as well have just set up public school, in a way, you know what I mean?
Brad
We really built our own family culture, because we didn't allow a lot of the South African culture to infiltrate our family, just as much as when we were in the US, and even now, we don't allow that Western consumer...
Aubree
Right, because you can spot it a little easier. And I think, especially because the timing, and I think we talked about this before, while, like, everyone's so nostalgic about the '90s, which, the '90s are terrible. I watched Beverly Hills, 90210, and oh, like, it was so bad. Stop. '90s are not good. But I think what it is, is they're nostalgic for that time before we had smartphones and iPhones and things like that. So to us, we're a bit nostalgic, because that was what early living in Cape Town at that time was for us. Because it was before it really had really sunk its teeth into every single thing about our lives.
Aubree
And I think we still have a choice on that. You know, we definitely have a choice on how we engage with that, and I think it gave us a bit of a buffer. We were over there, because we were able to kind of be a little bit more purposeful about how we approached it, because it didn't come on quite so fast, right?
Brad
So we had a little buffery couple years where we were able to say, okay, our kids are not gonna get cell phones until, you know, they show the maturity to understand they are aware of the dangers of the technology, they understand we still have oversight.
Aubree
Right, and they'll never have social media. So, like, Micah bought his own phone. He bought his phone when we came to Florida the first time, in 2023, when he was 16, off of, like, Back Market or something. It's like an old... but he's never had social media. And Eliza has a phone now, really purely as a 16-year-old, for being able to message us if we actually have to leave her home, because we don't have a landline. So it's kind of like those things are... and communicate with friends. Yeah, and the grandparents, like, being able to talk to her.
Aubree
But I think that it gave us a buffer there, and it enabled, especially it enabled me to really be able to focus on what was really the most important part about homeschooling. And, like, the why you're homeschooling is the most important thing, because there's gonna be so many different issues that get in your way. But if you can really come down to, like, why you're actually doing it... and it's great to spend time with your kids, it's great to do all those things, but really, you want to be able to give your child an actual true worldview, to show them what is the actual reality. Like, because the reality is not iPhones. That's not the reality. The reality is not Instagram.
Aubree
So I think that's what living there for so long gave us, was the ability to really synthesize our own worldview. Not our own worldview, but our own way to help our children see that. And you know, like Brad says all the time, I think one of the things that's hard for a lot of people is, it's hard for them to be firm enough with their kids regarding the reality of the world. And I think that was something that we were able to do, is to help them, to actually teach them that it's not attractive to fall for all those things. You're not missing out on something better. We're not trying to withhold good things from you here.
Brad
Yeah, one of the consequences of the school systems today, and these poor kids, we see them get off the bus. They're pale, they're hunched over, all of them are looking on their cell phones. Like, it's... And they go, "Well, I'm glad you picked that fight with me." Because the addiction that a lot of people have... and it really was a blessing, because we still fought those fights, but it wasn't as, I would say, as challenging as it is now.
Brad
So if we never left the US, I feel like we would... I wouldn't change my opinion. I don't think that changed our opinion on phones. But if everyone else has a phone, that becomes a more difficult challenge. And then you have to really... which I think a lot of people sort of fall short on, is you cannot compromise. If you know that cell phones are evil, if you know that social media is evil, you've gotta fight that fight. You've gotta do that hard work.
Aubree
And maybe not, like, evil in the sense that it's... because we talked about this with our kids all the time. When would the time be that you would go back to? Because even now, I mean, it's pretty handy having the Find My feature on an 18-year-old boy. Like, I tell them all the time, I'm like, "Dang, when we were your age, no one knew where we were. It was, like, absolute freedom." And we got into a lot of trouble, because no one knew where we were.
Brad
No oversight.
Aubree
Right. So obviously it's nice to be able to send your older kids out into the world with a little bit more of a buffer, and to say, okay, you still need the influence of your parents. Like, you didn't turn 18 and all of a sudden become a man that knows everything and is wise and can just make all of his own decisions. So it's kind of helpful... I think it's helpful. Like, there are benefits.
Brad
There's a value. There's a value in the data. It's a valuable tool, but if you don't have the right framework of understanding where the... you know, the big... where are the ditches? Where are the ditches, in no social media, or no phones, rather, versus full unfettered access? There's a healthy, appropriate medium, just like with sports, just like with eating. You know, there's all these really healthy mediums that, I think, there's such a pull in one direction or the other that people just fall into detrimental...
Aubree
And you kind of have to always be realigning yourself. And for me, you know, the big part for me was realizing that you're not in control. And that was what all those big traveling, all the trips, did for me. It was like a real... like, you just really have to see that you're gonna get through it. It made me realize the kids are a lot stronger than you realize, you know. Like, they're actually capable of a lot of hard things.
Brad
All kids actually are.
Aubree
And it's actually good to put them in situations where they do have to be tough and strong. Like, I remember Abram being, like, three, and I hated Dulles International Airport. You know how you get off the airplane and you have to ride that big bus thing? And I remember, I think I had Eve strapped on me, and he's, like, falling asleep, and I remember being like, "Oh, I feel so bad for him." But then it's like, he's fine. He's gonna go home and sleep, he's gonna be fine, he's gonna catch up on all of his sleep.
Aubree
So to me, it was that big thing of realizing that I'm not actually in control of everything, and then really seeing that school, the school systems that we all went to, are actually not... they're not, I was gonna say natural, but they're actually a completely contrived social experiment. Like, education does not happen like that. Education does not happen, you know, just checking off boxes, and then you feel like you've done a good job for the day.
Aubree
Homeschooling... and that's why we kind of, you know, we say we've been doing it for 18 years, even though our oldest is only 18, because really, that's what homeschooling is. Education is all the time, like, all the interactions you have to have with your kid, the home that you create, the habits you have. So it's a freeing thing in a way, because you realize that it's life.
Brad
Yeah. Because I think that was another blessing of being over there, because we weren't overwhelmed with all these different curriculums. We had to sort of get down to what is the point. And the point is biblical worldview, having them understand how the world works through the framework of a foundational truth. And then ultimately, that you never stop learning. That's it. You never... there's never... I think modern school systems, and I think what most people have a fear about in terms of homeschooling, is they're gonna get behind. They're gonna get behind. They're not gonna know their presidents by the age of 12, and they don't know all the bones of the body. Who actually cares?
Brad
I think that's a blessing of technology.
Aubree
You can learn that.
Brad
You can learn that. But the blessing of technology is you can figure that out in five seconds. But ultimately the biggest thing about homeschooling, bar none, is that you're teaching them to learn. Because I grew up hating to learn. I... I thought that I hated learning. I didn't read. So I think, and unfortunately, even in South Africa, we see that these school systems break kids. They break them. It takes them from these gregarious, learning, curious... and then fit into this mold. You have to learn Afrikaans. If you don't learn Afrikaans, you don't pass. And it's such a broken system, where when you realize, yes, there are foundational things that you need to teach your kids.
Brad
And praise the Lord, there's so many resources available that can make it easy for you. But when you sort of release the thought that there's a certain amount of information that I have to fit in my kids' brain, when you say that's not it, if I can teach them to learn, if I teach them to love to read, to understand how to approach different topics, how to think, then there's no limits, really, of what they can learn.
Aubree
Right. It's not a scarcity model, you know, like, you can keep learning all the time.
Brad
Yeah, I'm 42. I learn every day. You have to be learning every day. And the school systems trick people into thinking that it ends when they're 18.
Aubree
Oh, the other thing.
Brad
And they want to get more advanced, and so they go to a college, and then...
Aubree
The other thing that came to my mind as you're saying that is, I feel like South Africa is really where we realized that school is basically daycare. Where you actually, you're like, this entire school system exists to have a place to put all the kids. That's actually it. Like, that's the purpose. Like, there's 40-plus kids in the class. The teachers, some of them can't read. I mean, there's so many... there's so many things where you're like, if you actually had the goal of, quote unquote, educating children, to make them at least literate and be able to do basic math, the school system fails at this. Just objectively fails. Because that's not their goal. Their goal literally is just to have kids in some type of daycare. Like, they need to manage all the children.
Aubree
So it's just funny how you see... and I'm sure we maybe would have realized that if we had... But I think for our family, I felt it in my bones. For our family, that was just the path that God chose for us, was that that was how we were gonna learn all those things. You know, and again, it just reinforced that homeschooling is just your lifestyle. It's a lifestyle that you create, and that you don't need a specific curriculum to do it.
Brad
You know, you don't need to go to Africa to unlearn things. You don't need to go... you don't need to... farm experience, alienate your entire family so they don't impact you negatively. You have to learn how to manage those things. So a lot of it is parental responsibility. And I really think, you know, we had Ronnie and that guy Nick over here yesterday, and I'm just hopeful, because more and more people saying it's my responsibility to do the hard work.
Brad
Where for generations it was outsource, outsource, outsource. And so to see a younger generation say, "It's my responsibility," it just gives me hope, because I feel like, you know, looking at where we are in the United States, no one wants to take responsibility. And really, the responsibility starts at home. You're responsible for yourself, then you're responsible for... if you're a husband, you're responsible for your wife. If you're a wife, you're responsible for your kids. That sort of responsibility hierarchy only works when you're homeschooling.
Brad
It only really... and the more people that do that and take on that responsibility, I mean, I'm hopeful about the future. I don't care how crazy things get, because, number one, I've got eight kids, so I have to be hopeful about the future. But the more people that are recognizing that they have to take the responsibility, and also to understand there's, like I said, there's so many resources, so many podcasts that are encouraging people to reject this thing. There's so many different curriculum studies. You've done one within the Roadmap course, to understand, okay, what are all these curriculums? How do I deal with these fears? How do I frame my day? We did that in the Roadmap course. But there's also tons of other things that are really meant to help people really get outside the system and do right, and we can all learn.
Aubree
You know, one of my just favorite things about having homeschooled our older kids so far is that I've gotten to relearn. Like, I've had to unlearn a lot of the things I learned from public school, but then I've gotten to learn with them. And you really can create this really awesome life for you and your kids. You know, I mean, I did, and it's cool to look at how we've changed. It doesn't have to look the same all the time. So the way that I did school with our three older kids, and the way that I do it with the youngers now, it's different than how I did it.
Brad
But doesn't mean that it's... you just adapt to whatever situation.
Aubree
And also kind of what I want to do. Like, with them, I did tons of notebook pages. We all learned to draw. Like, I never learned how to draw. So we did lots of drawing and painting, obviously lots of reading, narrations, copywork, all that stuff too. And with the younger kids, we do kind of more language stuff. And yeah, so you really can create a really amazing, beautiful life without the constraints of, this is how it has to look, and this is how it has to function. You know, and I think that's the freedom of it.
Brad
Well, very good. I hope this was encouraging for everyone. And as always, if you have questions, you can shoot us an email, brad@anyonecanhomeschool.com. If you would like to take our Roadmap course, we would encourage you to do that, as a new mom or as a refresher. It's anyonecanhomeschool.com/roadmap. Or if you want to actually have a mentor to talk to, who's been there and done that, who's raised kids, who can help you fill in those sort of generational wisdom gaps of managing your house as a homeschooler, we have coaching available. So go to anyonecanhomeschool.com, click on the link that says Parents Start Here, and get going. Have a great rest of your day.
Cleaned for reading from the episode's automatic transcript: filler words and false starts are left out, nothing is added. The recording is the record.
