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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 484: Homeschooling, You're Doing It Right Just by Doing It | Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms
00:57:51
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- [00:01]
Ginny Urich
Hello friends. Welcome back. I am thrilled you are here because today is a big one. First, my new book, homeschooling. You're doing it right just by doing it is officially out in the world. It is launch day and I could not be more excited and maybe also a little nervous. And second, what a better way to celebrate than with today's guest, the legendary Joel Salatin. Joel is known around the world for his bold approach to sustainable farming and his commitment to strong values rooted family life. But today's episode is something brand new. For the very first time, Joel is sharing imprint through the forward he wrote for my new book Homeschooling. His thoughts on homeschooling. It is wise, it is honest, and it is deeply inspiring. Now, even if you're not a homeschooler, I hope you'll stick around. This conversation is full of takeaways about reclaiming childhood, building family culture and choosing a path that doesn't always follow the crowd. And it's for anyone thinking deeply about how to raise resilient kids in today's world. If this podcast or movement has been meaningful to you, I will be so grateful if you'd consider picking up the book today. Launch day really matters. It matters so much. These first day sales help the book reach more people. They help keep the message visible, and they let publishers know this kind of content is needed. You can find it anywhere books are sold. Just type in Ginny Rich and it will pop right up. And if it resonates, please pass it along, Share it with a friend, gift it to your homeschool group, post a story. All of it helps so, so much. And lastly, reviews. They are small, but they are really powerful. Whether it's a quick rating or a few words, your feedback helps this book and this podcast reach families who are searching for encouragement. Thank you. Thank you for celebrating this moment with me. I am forever grateful. Now let's dive in and here is Joel Salatin.
- [01:51]
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- [02:23]
Ginny Urich
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Urich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and I have so been looking forward to this day because Joel Salatin is back. Welcome.
- [02:33]
Joel Salatin
Thank you, Jenny. It's always a delight and an honor to be with you.
- [02:37]
Ginny Urich
Yes, I am a huge fan. I was just showing you this massive stack of your books have been really some of my favorite parts of adulthood and really life changing books for me to read. And a while back, I interviewed this woman named Jill Winger, and you had written a forward to her cookbook. And it was the best forward I'd ever read. It was so informative and inspiring and so glowing about Jill. And I just had this thought. I mean, this was a ways back, and I thought, what would it be like to have Joel write a forward to your book? And so I have a homeschooling book that's coming out today, the day that this podcast goes live. And I just remember having this inkling, like, in my soul. I want to ask Joel, I want to ask Joel if he'll write a forward to this book about homeschooling, because we've spoken at conferences together about homeschooling. But to date, you don't have a book out about homeschooling. I know everybody wants to ask you questions about homeschooling, and you're out speaking about that. And there are some really amazing parallels between homeschooling and homesteading. And so this book, homeschooling, you're doing it, right? Just by doing it, you wrote the forward. And it is one of the biggest honors of my life. So thank you for doing that.
- [03:48]
Joel Salatin
Absolutely. Well, it is a fantastic book. You know, once or twice I've actually been asked to do a forward, and I end up. I actually read the whole manuscript. You know, some people, they just crank out forwards, and I'm sure now, you know, AI chatgpt, I'm sure, is cranking out forwards for people just, you know, right off the cuff. But I actually read the manuscript, the whole thing, and then do the forward. And a couple times I've actually turned them down. There's just too much stuff in it that I just can't. But this one was just. I'm saying amen on every page. It's just fantastic.
- [04:23]
Ginny Urich
Thank you. Thank you. Okay, you have a. I think maybe this is the only book I have of yours that has a forward. It's called Holy Cows and Hog Heaven the Food Buyer's Guide to Farm Friendly Food I just want to read just a quick bit here where you say, I'm a full time Christian, libertarian, capitalist, environmentalist farmer who supplies families and restaurants with Beyond Organic food in Virginia, U.S. shenandoah Valley and beyond. And you talk about how every day you have conversations, people are coming to you with all sorts of questions. Why is your food so clean? Why does your food taste better? Why can't I get your wonderful food in the grocery store? What can I do to help you? Are you having any problems with the government? Why are your prices higher? Why can't I get eggs in November? All of these different questions that people have. And you say the questions are endless and they're all sincere, meaningful and insightful. And it's really interesting. You have become the guy that people come to with so many questions. And today the questions are going to be focused around homeschooling. I would love, Joel, if you could take us back. You know, I know some of your story, which is that you heard about homeschooling on Focus on the Family, you'd never heard the word before, and you decide to do something, you and your wife decide to do something with your children that in a lot of places is still illegal, that no one really understands the outcomes. I mean, even today people are so nervous. It's why I wrote the book. But today we know, well, there's homeschoolers that are lawyers and doctors and stay at home parents and farmers. There's homeschoolers in every strata of society. But back then you wouldn't have been able to see the outcome. You don't know if homeschool kids can get into college. You don't know, you know, how they're going to turn out. You don't know about the socializing piece and all of that. What makes a person gives them the ability to make a decision like that for their children without being able to sort of see that the end of the line.
- [06:17]
Joel Salatin
Oh, wow, such a great. I wish I had a, I wish I had a really good, good, quick, concise answer. I think, I think that it starts with a very deep rooted dubiousness. I don't know if that's a word or not, about the conventional system. So we, we didn't, I think to be perfectly. I've never really spoken this before, Jenny. I mean, that's, that's the cool of a great interviewer is it teases out of you things that you don normally say. I think we came to homeschooling not because we thought it would be better, but because we were Fearful of the public school system. You know, we have two, two things going on. We have fear and faith. Fear makes us run. Faith makes us stop. I've often heard evangelists say more people, more people accept Christ because they're afraid of going to hell than that they want to go to heaven. So that's why you hear, you know, hellfire, brimstone. Right. You know, the evangelist. So I think for us, we'd both been products of the public school system, but we'd both gone to a Christian college and we were steeped in non public education. Our conundrum was we didn't have enough money to send our kids to a private school. That was where we were stuck. We were literally stuck philosophically in. We knew we weren't going to do public school. What do we do? And the only option was private school. And we were in quite a stew about this. And when we flipped on the radio the first time, Raymond and Dorothy Moore were on Focus on the Family and just heard the phrase, literally, I caught it. We were. Daniel was six weeks old. We were going to our first, you know, the first outing with the new baby. You know, we were going to a farming seminar, flipped on a radio, oh, Focus on the Family zone. Flipped on the radio and heard homeschooling. It was like a bolt of lightning. I looked at Theresa, I said, I have no idea what that is, but that's what we're going to do. That's the way it hit us. Because we were committed to not doing the public. We couldn't afford the private, and we were desperate for a solution.
- [08:17]
Ginny Urich
Isn't that an amazing answer? Oh my goodness. Because what it shows is that this whole lifestyle that you ended up choosing and that, that over time, 10 years later, you've got a son that's building his own home on your property. You can't foresee that you make this choice that you've never heard of, that's really, really fringe at the time, doesn't have all sorts of data to back it. You make that decision based out of deficit, based out of what you can't do. What we really want to do is send them to private school. That's what we really want to do.
- [08:50]
Joel Salatin
Right, right.
- [08:51]
Ginny Urich
If only we had the money.
- [08:53]
Joel Salatin
Right.
- [08:53]
Ginny Urich
But here you are in this place of lack that ends up leading to a place of abundance.
- [08:58]
Joel Salatin
Yes, yes. And you know, isn't that the way life happens often? You know, I do a lot of farm consulting now. You know, people, they leave the city and they want to get this, this rural. I Call it an agrarian bunker. And to me, there definite the more wealthy you are, the less creative you are. And it's when you get hungry. It's when you get hungry and you become poor. And I mean, isn't that like Christ, you know, come to me as a child. Don't come to me as a wealthy person, come to me as a child. And so, yeah, you could say we, you know, we were. We were kind of forced into it. It was the only thing that we felt like. So what we did, literally as soon as we got home from the conference, they had their book out. Better late than early, no, Homegrown Kids.
- [09:51]
Ginny Urich
Homegrown Kids, that's right.
- [09:53]
Joel Salatin
They ended up writing about four or five books. I've got them all here. But their first big blockbuster was Homegrown Kids. And of course, for us, having left outside employment, coming to the farm, we were trying to claw out a life of living here on the farm. We'd been laughed at by friends, family, acquaintances, everybody that this is, you know, stupid. So we were. We were already in maverick mode. We were already in, you know, alternative mode. And so it was natural to just, you know, add this tool to our alternative box. And so when we got home, we wrote to, I guess, focus on the Family and got the book Homegrown Kids. I mean, I devoured it in a day and we were more convinced than ever and we were off the races.
- [10:44]
Ginny Urich
And what an interesting thing that your journey started with books, because I think that that's part of the thing that's missing today. People are not reading very much. And if you are going to do something that's alternative but really is normal, I mean, this is historically normal, similar to what you talk about with the food and raising animals. If you're going to do something that's historically normal but not maybe considered normal today, the books really help because they give you that foundation. And so you read Homegrown Kids. I read this book called Learning all the Time by John Holt and Dumbing Us down the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education, which is a great title by John Taylor Gatto. And you start to. You become infused. I mean, I read your books. How about this? Everything I want to do is illegal. Well, that's all about food. I mean, that's a fantastic book. But also, you homeschooled, which was illegal in so many states when you started. So here you are. I want to point this out. It's just a small thing. You make a decision, it's on the radio. Someone decided to write a book about it. And you decide to go get that book and you're going to kind of keep in line with historically normal practices, but things that people laugh at. It's like, could you ever have imagined that decades down the road you're going to be a voice in that space to encourage other people to do the same thing?
- [11:58]
Joel Salatin
No, Jenny, never, never crossed my mind. Hey, the truth. So stories are a little bit. So we got the Growing Without Schooling and then we started, I don't know how, I guess just, you know, when you head down an alternative path, one thing leads to another. I mean it just naturally does. So the next thing we learned, yes, we found out about John Holt. Now remember, we were starting to direct market chemical free meat, poultry things and the 90% of our customer base was liberal Democrat environmentalists. And so we had a couple of customers that we eventually learned were John Holt advocates, you know, unschooling. Growing without Schooling. So as soon as we heard about homeschooling, we started, you know, your young couples with little kids, you know, and if it comes up in a conversation. Well, we got introduced then to John Holt Growing without Schooling. We subscribed then to his magazine Growing without Schooling. And although it was a totally different, you know, non religious, you know, these were families wanting to take their kids out of public school because we don't want them having devotions and seeing the ten Commandments on the wall, you know. But what I realized was both groups were doing it for the same reason and that was for values transferral. We want our kids to grow up with our values. So we, we immersed ourselves in both the, you know, Christian conservative camp and the kind of liberal hip, basically an extension of hippie culture camp. And that's the story of my life. You know, I've straddled these worlds, you know, with, with non chemical agriculture and everything and daring to ask, should we use Styrofoam at the church potluck? You know, all those kind of crazy thorny questions. And we found great encouragement in both of those camps. You know, then came better late than early and you know, and it just was, it just grew from there.
- [13:53]
Ginny Urich
I mean people are you hearing it. It's the philosophies and the books and the thoughts of others that really start to give you that foundation and really point to the fact that you grow so much as an adult. I've thought about that so much. I thought there was only one philosophy of education and it was the march toward the college degree and that's it. I mean it was a very narrow road and what happens is you expose yourself to all of these other ideas, like should the church be using styrofoam plates? Like, you read it and you think, oh, I never considered that before. And you start to make these changes, but. And it makes your adult life so much more abundant. You know, I've considered. I would be two years out, Joel, from retiring as a public school teacher. I realized that about six months ago and it kind of shocked me because I would have a pension, I would have health care probably until I die. And I stepped away from that. But I think sometimes, like last night I was on this webinar with all these people talking about this new book and I thought, well, I would be grading math papers. I would be doing the same thing I did was doing 20 years ago is the same, same, same. But when you step out, then it so much fullness to your life of all the things that you learn and you grow and you read and you consider and then you have all these thoughts that you can pass on to other people. So I think it's wonderful you started with books. Books really help to shape your philosophy and they help you become this more well rounded person. Okay, I want to know if you ever considered quitting. Because I had a couple years, especially when our kids were little, and I don't feel like this anymore. But I did feel like it maybe for about five years. Where in the fall, when the school bus starts coming again, I felt very jealous and I thought, oh, my life would be so much easier if I just. I do not feel that way anymore because I think in the long run it's easier to have your kids home and to be able to shape them and transfer your values. I just think that they're easy, they're easier, they can be bored, they're fine, they're just pleasant to be around. Did you ever consider throwing in the towel?
- [15:53]
Joel Salatin
I. I never considered throwing in the towel and sending them to school. However, we did quit. So, so remember, we're doing this in the, you know, in the mid-80s, okay, the mid-1980s, there were no homeschool conventions. Michael Ferris had not started Homeschool Legal Defense Association. There were no state homes. I mean, the support network that exists today did not exist then. In fact. In fact, you pulled the curtains, you didn't ask, you didn't tell, and you hoped the state truancy officers wouldn't come and take your kids into foster care because you were such a negligent parent. I mean, that was the bath that we started in. And the other Problem was that my mom was a schoolteacher. Teresa's dad was a schoolteacher, and her grandmother was a Laura Ingalls Wilder. You know, the 16 year old certificated, remember? Certificated teacher in a one room schoolhouse. So we had a family full of teachers. And they're watching. Well, Daniel is. I mean, he's like a. He's a mole on my leg. I mean, he's with me everywhere. We, from diaper on, we're just all the time. But these, all these teachers. What's wrong with him? You know, he's five and he's not reading, or he's six and he's not reading. And so, you know, again, there was none of this support network back then. So Teresa and I said, well, how did kids learn to read? You know what I mean? We'd read the Laura Ingalls, you know, the Little House on the Prairie books to the kids. Well, they use McGuffey Readers. So we bought a set of McGuffey Readers. Well, if it was good enough for Laura Ingalls, it was good enough for our kids. And I was an early reader. You know, I'm very verbal and I was a very early reader. So I'm sitting here wondering, I'm questioning myself, what's wrong with him? You know, why won't he read? I mean, we would, we'd go out and build fence together. He brings his McGuffy reader out, you know, I'm putting in a fence post. He's sitting there and he's. And I say, so, you know, what does he say? You know, what is ah? Ah, A, you know, how about T? You know, he got the, you know, phonetics. Sorry. Now put it together. And he would sit there for 15 and just both of us frustrated. He couldn't together. It was terrible. And so finally we just said, you know what, we're just gonna let it go. Just let it go. And so we did. And now he's seven and now he's eight and not reading.
- [18:25]
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- [18:33]
Ginny Urich
Tank top and those overworked shorts.
- [18:35]
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- [21:58]
Joel Salatin
Now he can handle the farm. He can move 100 cows by himself. You know, he can do all this stuff, but that's not what's important. But the other thing was, and then we had Rachel and you know, she. So now she's three or four and she's coming on and we're getting more and more grief from these teachers in our family. But what was interesting was that the cousins were completely different than our kids. Our kids, they could sit and talk to a 90 year old person like an adult. And what happened was that these older adults, they started telling us, we really like your kids. Your kids are different. And that encouraged us, even though Daniel wasn't reading. All right, so to wrap up the story, he's 10 and not reading 10. And I'm thinking, what a failure. You know, you could read to him for four hours, both of our. By that time, Rachel's five or six, and you could read to him for, you know, for hours until your throat got hoarse. And he could remember every single detail. I mean, every single detail. And so at 10 he decides he's got this rabbit project. Well, I'm gonna join the 4H club. So O. So we go to the first meeting, he gets elected, I don't know, historian or some, you know, some minor office. And I can remember like yesterday, we're driving home in the dark, he's in the backseat, he's 10 years old. He says, well, I guess if I'm going to be an officer, I better learn to read. And he went, Jenny, he went from zero to basically 12th grade in six weeks. On his own. On his own, yes.
- [23:30]
Ginny Urich
And Isn't that. Isn't that what the books say? That's what they say, yeah. The book Learning all the Time by John Holt. The subtitle is How Young Children Learn to Read, Write, Do Math, and Investigate the World Without Being Taught. And what he says is they have to have the drive. They have to know. You know, he said, if you're trying to teach someone a language or they have to want it because they have to want to know what it does.
- [23:52]
Joel Salatin
Yeah.
- [23:52]
Ginny Urich
And it gives them something. And then John Taylor Gatto says, at the right age and stage, it takes 50 hours to 100 hours to reach functional literacy. And that's it. And that's what happened in our home, too. Our kids went from reading nothing to reading chapter books. I mean, it took a couple months, but they were older. Yeah, they were older.
- [24:10]
Joel Salatin
Yeah. And one of the. I mean, of course, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, they were. They're just icons in this whole thing. But one of the things I remember them talking about is disassociated learning. Disassociated learning where. How many times in school? I certainly did it, and I bet you did, too. You look at a teacher and say, why do we have to learn this? Why do we have to learn this? And Raymond and Dorothy Moore made the point that when education is institutionalized and divorced from real life, it disassociates the need from the learning. So as John Holt said, when you incorporate the kids into your life and they're just there and they become curious, or you're in the kitchen and you're measuring, well, what's a quarter cup? Well, a quarter quarter is a fourth of a cup. And an understanding of fractions comes in. So when you hit math and fractions. Oh, okay. That's what that means. It's a, you know, or you're building something and it's a. It's an eighth of an inch. All right? You know, you're measuring on a tape. Eighth of an inch. Well, that's. That's, you know, eight of those make an inch. And. And so you come into the academic sphere with a handle on association with need. And that is a fundamental change in how important you think this might be. And you learn it in, you know, and you're not sitting there saying, well, why do we have to learn this?
- [25:32]
Ginny Urich
It is a fundamental change. So the premise of this book, Homeschooling, what I really wanted to communicate, and especially in this day and age when things are rapidly changing, is that this book is a whole set of things that you're Already doing right as a parent before you choose curriculum, before you learn your philosophy, before you maybe read all these books. Your kid is 4. You're, you know, you're going to jump in, dive in, you're going to do it. There are already things that you're doing right simply by pulling your child out of a, of a more assembly line system. One of them is modeling. And that's what you did. You know, you said he was a mole on your leg. I mean he went everywhere with you and he's digging the ponds and he's learning all of these things just from being with you. It's like osmosis. And one of them is you are learning through living, like you said, in the kitchen, building the fence. And all of this information starts to weave in their neural networks and then it's a foundation for learning anything later on. I talked to someone who said there are kids today that have no mental imagery. So when you were talking about how with Daniel, he would listen, he would listen for hours to a book and he's forming all these mental pictures that there are kids because of screens, because they're not being read to, that they would get to college. And if you would say the train pulls into the station, they can't make a mental picture of that. They don't have that. It wasn't formed there. And so all of these things, they seem so simple, but they matter so much. And I know you said we did quit. I remember you and I had a conversation. I really do hope that you write a book about homeschooling just because it aligns so well with homesteading and all that you do. And like we started at the beginning, people have so many questions for you and you come from a unique perspective of doing it when the outcomes weren't, you know, as sort of known as they are now. You know, are they going to be able to get into college? Nobody knew at that point. And one of the title idea is Homeschool Dropout. You and I had talked about that. I think that make a great title for a homeschool book. So, you know, maybe, maybe put the. I'll put the bug in your ear. I know you said the last time we talked you were actually writing fiction, which I think is super exciting, trying something different. I want to talk about this. There appears to be an imbalance in society with a focus on academics over everything else. Such a focus on academics. 15,000 hours of childhood goes to academics. And you talk about how there are young adults and people are talking about this all over the place that often reach college without knowing how to cook or clean or take out the trash. And there is this new book out, Joel. I think you'd find it kind of humorous and also maybe not humorous. It's called what Time is Noon? It's by a man named Chip Layton and he has taken all of these texts so now kids can text their parents. So these teenagers and these college age kids are texting their parents. And the questions are rather ridiculous. I want to read you a couple of. Where do I buy pasta water? Is the 13 by 9 pan the same as a 9 by 13 pan? Does the meat come in the taco kit? Will my eggs taste weird if I take them from different cartons? Which one is the stove? Is chicken broth the sweat of a chicken? How does a boneless chicken walk if they don't have bones? What kind of an animal is a soy? You know, all these different questions. What are the white cubes in fruit cocktail? Are they potato is funny, but not funny. Can you talk about what we're missing? What we're missing when we have. To me, it seems like a very big imbalance, this focus pretty much solely on academics, grades, gpa, test scores.
- [29:01]
Joel Salatin
Oh, wow. Well, you're getting to my heart there, Jenny. That is this visceral. I love the word visceral because it's tactile. It indicates our senses, taste, smell, touch. A visceral, tactile, participatory environment with life. And we are going into a TikTok culture that is primarily virtual and fantasy. It's not real. And so knowing how to interact with, you know, with the kitchen, with the garden, with animals, plants, you know, a thousand hours outside. Okay. I mean, I mean, knowing how to interact with this stuff is just so foundational in not only establishing common sense, but in understanding what is real and not fantasy. When your whole existence is built on fantasy, that food appears magically in the store of the supermarket and dinner magically appears on the table out of a can. You know, yesterday was Teresa's. I gotta tell you this. Yesterday was Teresa's birthday. So I'm in the. I'm in the store. I never go to the store. So I go to the store to get a birthday card. Okay. And of course, when I go to the store, I go to the meat. Meat aisle, you know, and I look at stuff because we're in the meat business. And did you know that lunchables. Lunchables are $14 a pound?
- [30:30]
Ginny Urich
Wow.
- [30:30]
Joel Salatin
If you look at the per pound price, you know, on the bottom $14 a pound. Now you could buy almost two pounds of our ground beef for $14. And. And I was just shocked. But you know, again, Lunchables, Hot Pockets, that's not where stuff appears. Behind that somewhere is a farmer, is a barnyard, is a field, you know, is a forest, a grasshopper, an earthworm, a cricket or something. There's something behind that. What's happened, I think, is our luxury. Our luxury and convenience have given us license to actually remove ourselves from a visceral, tactile understanding of the entire foundation of everything that we depend on. Our food, our energy, our buildings, the house. You live in somewhere, somebody selected a tree, they cut it on a sawmill, and then they ran it through a planer and a dryer to put the trim in your bathroom. That's real wood from somewhere. And so, yeah, I think that one of the reasons there's actually a true school of thought that says, can an urbanized society survive? Because common sense comes from an immersion in understanding. It's not all at my fingertips, I don't control at all. And when you're in the country, you're immersed in things that are beyond you. You can't make a tree, you can't make a green bean. Even God does that. And so when we're in that arena, we're awed and immersed and surrounded by things that God does. In the city, we're only surrounded by things that humans do. You know, roads, street lights, street lamps, all that. And it plays on your, it plays on your psyche. It does. You can't, you can't escape it.
- [32:34]
Ginny Urich
Okay, so give us the parallel then. We're pulling our kids out of a system. We're bringing them home. So parents might be in the city, they might be in the country, but when we, when they come home, they naturally, it's naturally woven into the way that things work. They're home with you, and so they have a front row seat and are involved. They have to be involved. Because as a parent, you can't do everything. It goes back to that, that concept. I think that the things that feel like a deficit truly are kind of part of the strengths of homeschooling. So you bring your kid home and by nature of them being there, they're involved in lunch every day.
- [33:07]
Joel Salatin
Yes.
- [33:07]
Ginny Urich
They're involved in breakfast every day. They're involved in meaningful chores. And you talk about how meaningful chores tie to self worth. It's a big thing that is missing in this day and age. Kids are doing mostly, I would say, unmeaningful things for a good part of their childhood. So, so much of it parallels the homesteading with the homeschooling. Can you talk about the benefits of kids being home in terms of learning the things that make life go. The simple things. Taking out the trash, knowing how to cook, knowing how to clean?
- [33:40]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, I. Well, I think self worth. Self worth. I'm not a child psychologist, but my definition of self worth is successfully accomplishing meaningful tasks. In other words, to pat little, you know, little Mike and little Amy on the head and say, you're a good boy, you're a good girl. Well, the obvious question is, okay, good for what? If I'm good, what am I good? Good for what? You know, knowing how to do the laundry, knowing how to bake muffins, knowing how to plant a carrot, knowing the difference between a lamb's quarters, a ragweed and a green bean. Okay. Those are just such a soul level things to know and to be able to do that, you know, can I feed myself? Can I make something in the kitchen? Can I make my bed? Can I fix a tear in a shirt by sewing it? Can I sew on a button that falls off? I mean, those things are so much more. They're not only valuable, I mean, truly valuable, economically valuable, but. But the ability of having a can do spirit, a can do a need. The most fundamental human need is to feel needed. And if around the household, around the family, you're never needed, well, then you grow up assuming, well, the only place I'm needed is away from home. It's at school, it's on the ball team, it's on the soccer team, it's on, you know, whatever. That's where I'm needed. But actually, when you. When our daughter Rachel went to college, Daniel didn't go. He's a homeschool dropout. But when Rachel went to college, we took her down there. I think she's the probably the only girl that ever attended to college where when we took all of her stuff into the apartment, she had more food because Theresa, she asked, you know, Teresa canned all this chicken, you know, and different things, applesauce, all this stuff. We had way more food. And the other girls are looking, what in the world is that? What in the world is that? And here, you know, within a month, we were hearing, well, these girls don't. They don't even know how to run a vacuum cleaner. They say we're supposed to take the trash out on Monday. Well, where does that go? You know, I mean, Rachel literally had to babysit anyway. We were. We were pretty proud of Rachel. She held her own. And you know what? Then what happened? What happened then was she became the rescue agency. When these girls would go out and get drunk all the time, guess who they called to bring them home? Rachel was home studying or cleaning or keeping things up. And they were in these suites of. There were four girls. Four girls in a suite. It was a little different setup than a lot of places. And so Rachel became.
- [36:28]
Ginny Urich
Like their mother.
- [36:29]
Joel Salatin
Became their mother. Yeah. Yeah. And they're all the same age, but the maturity level was just off the charts. And that doesn't come by growing up on screen time. That comes from realizing, you know, if I want clean clothes in my drawer, somebody has to make those clothes. Those clothes don't just clean themselves. They don't jump in the drawer by themselves. They happen by themselves. And the food at the table, the food doesn't magically appear out of a can or a box. The food is prepared by someone. And if that someone is me, then I'll know how to do it.
- [37:08]
Ginny Urich
We're looking. The whole premise is sort of. We're looking at what society would maybe consider, the deficits and saying, no, these are the strengths in our home. We've got these kids. And, you know, I'm launching a book, so things are busier. So it's okay. You're gonna have to make dinner tonight. I need you to help your little sister with her piano practice. And you see that they make it more fun, you know? Then they're singing these songs. I can hear it from the other room. And they're stepping in to fill in these gaps that naturally happen in a family. In a family business. There's naturally gaps. And then you. You say, so many kids grow up. They go into teens, they go into adults, and they. Without ever feeling needed. And it's a true need. Like, I need you. I need you to take your sister to her driver's ed test. You know, I mean, you actually really need them to fill in those gaps because of the deficits. And it would seem like. Like, Joel, it would seem like, well, isn't the best thing that I'm home all day and they're at school and I'm gonna do their laundry for them, and I'm gonna do all the shopping while they're gone, and then they're gonna come home and I'm gonna have a plate of cookies. It's like, we idealize that. And yet that is removing the kids from daily life. They're not seeing the modeling, and they're not feeling needed. Everything is done to cater to them. And then like you said, you see that you have to wait a couple decades. But you end up seeing the ramifications of that in that book. What time is noon? One of the text messages that he shared in the book was someone texted from college and they said, how do I get the clothes out of the washing machine? Do I just use my hands?
- [38:40]
Joel Salatin
Oh my. Oh that. You know, that's scary. I mean, and if, if Teresa were standing here and hearing that, she would say. And they vote.
- [38:50]
Ginny Urich
Mm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's meant to be funny, but it's also, in some ways it's kind of horrifying and it, you, you can see how it's, it's well meaning. I'm just gonna do their laundry for them, I'm gonna fold it and put it in their drawers and they're doing, you know, they're doing their algebra homework or whatever. But when you, when you play that out for, in 12, 13 years of childhood and you look at it from the opposite side, the, the hindsight, you really see that there's a lot of things you're doing right just by bringing your kids into your home day in and day out and exposing them and having them help with daily living.
- [39:27]
Joel Salatin
Yes. And another little kind of metaphor that I use is if you want a 16 year old that's competent enough to work with you, whatever, building a dog house, building a chicken coop, doing something that you, then that has to be a three year old that's bending over nails and you know, wasting nails if you will, you know, on the floor of the shop while you're trying to do something else. That three year old bending over nails is the precursor for having a 16 year old, competent, bright eyed, bushy tailed, self starter that's ready to take on a project. That's how that works. You don't just jump into competence, you incrementally move toward competence over a time.
- [40:16]
Ginny Urich
Yeah, it's a long term play. It's a long term decision. It's the years where, you know, you feel like it might have been easier if I put them on the bus, but in the long term you've got these kids that are self reliant. That's actually one of the chapters in the book. You are requiring self reliance once again. It's happening just because they're around. It's happening because you can't fill all their time. You can't possibly, you can't possibly come up with every single day, eight hours worth of activities for your kids to do and so they end up having this downtime where they have to reach inside of themselves and figure out what to do.
- [40:48]
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- [41:44]
Ginny Urich
McCrispy strips are now at McDonald's I.
- [41:47]
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Hope you're ready for the most dippable.
- [41:48]
Ginny Urich
Chicken in McDonald's history. Dip it in all the sauces. Dip it in that hot sauce in your bag.
- [41:53]
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Dip it in your McFlurry.
- [41:55]
Ginny Urich
Your dip is your business. McCrispy strips at McDonald's now you're out speaking all over the place. You're doing farm consults. You've been all over the world and you have seen a change in business. You've been in business entrepreneurship for several decades. Can you talk about the importance of self reliance and being a self starter? Why that's so important today? Maybe even more so than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago?
- [42:20]
Joel Salatin
Well again, self starting comes from self confidence and self confidence comes from self worth. These are not prideful things. These are not. Well, I don't need God. We're not talking about something that's anti God or anti spiritual. What we are talking about is personal emotional development. And so it starts with feeling sufficient in and of yourself to accomplish something. Something that's meaningful. Not just the top points getter on Angry Birds, but you know, something that's actually really meaningful. So once you develop that self worth then that moves you towards self confidence. And as you develop self confidence then you become more and more self reliant. Because I can do that or I can learn that I remember very well. So Daniel was when he turned 18 he was elected a president of Virginia, 4, 8. And it's as high as you can go in 4H. And so he had this whole cabinet, you know, 20 cabinet members of, you know, the regional delegates and different things. And 18, they're all getting ready to go to college. You know, most of them were, you know, 17, 18, and they're all. And of course, he was the only one in the entire group not going to college. And they, you know, he took a lot of jokes, a lot of chiding, and was the brunt of quite. And he developed on his own. He developed a nice smiling response to him. He said, I can learn anything I want to. I don't need to go to college to learn it. And it was not off putting. It was not derogatory. But that's confidence. When you can say that as a very young person and actually mean it. And that confidence developed by having accomplished competency in football. They call it reps. You know, how many reps you have repetition, right? It's in that reput. Repetition that competence develops, which is the foundation of confidence, which is the foundation of self reliance. I am enough, Jenny. We live in a time of almost cultish inadequacy, especially in TikTok culture. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not smart enough, I'm not thin enough. I'm, you know, all this. This inadequacy, it's almost like we. We live in this time where we're cultivating a generation that thinks somehow God didn't dish out the right endowments to me. And of course, this brings us to victimization, which brings us to dependency. I can't. I can't. I can't. And all that is wrapped up in this literally knowing how to fold clothes. I mean. I mean, it does. When you peel off that onion and you back up, you back up, you back up, you back up, you back up to finally, it comes back to knowing how to wash the dishes, put stuff away, make a pan of muffins, fold the clothes, saw a board, drive a nail. It's that stuff that then creates the foundation for all of those neat things that happen as late teens.
- [45:30]
Ginny Urich
It's huge. I can do that or I can learn that. That's the goal. That's the goal. Because today, the research is really clear that kids today will have six to seven careers. Not just jobs, but six to seven careers, that only 7% of jobs legally require a college degree. I've talked to this woman named Hannah Maruyama. She's one of my favorite people on the Internet. She really talks about the alternatives to a good life in college and what do you really want out of life? We're asking the wrong questions. And you know, she talks about this, 7% require a college degree. And she says, why do we call it higher education? She's like, I don't like that. He's like, I don't even like that terminology. You can learn anything. You can learn anything. Someone posted the other day, I guess that all of like Harvard, if you, if you want to learn what they're teaching at Harvard, it's online and it's free. Anyone can have access to that. And so if your child can graduate, can hit that adult stage, hit 18, 19 years old with this fundamental knowledge that I can do that or I can learn that, then there's no concerns. Because as the world changes and the job changes and AI takes over that job and you've got to shift and you can, because you know that you can because you folded laundry, because you made the meal when your mom was sick, you know, because you filled in, in the family and you learned. And as a homeschool dropout, he is able to say, I can do that or I can learn that. And I think that people are really to look, think critically about what our life is like today. You know, maybe back, you know, generations past, you could have had an assembly line job for 30 years and kind of plug and play and not really have to think about it and not be on your toes. Those, but that doesn't exist anymore. We're sending our kids into a volatile world, which is exciting and also scary. But the skills that they need for a rapidly changing world are the ones that they learn away from the desk. Yeah, and that's the imbalance. It's 15,000 hours of childhood go to the desk. And this is a different way of doing it, which is why you're doing it. I mean, I believe it in my core. Any parent that loves their child, even though you're going to probably do it wrong on some days, some days, some weeks, some, maybe you have a bad years like that didn't, what we did didn't really work or you know, however we approached homeschooling, didn't really work. But over the course of a childhood that leads into a lifetime, you're doing it right simply by putting your kids in these situations that other people judge, I think as being less than.
- [47:52]
Joel Salatin
Yeah, I, I, I mean obviously we started this before, you know, very early on and when people asked us, you know, we weren't whatever gurus in the movement or anything we were early on in it, but I would just tell them our kids are just doing life with us. That's all we do. And we actually had. We actually had young parents that had kids the same age as ours. And they would look at me, kind of pull me at church or whatever. You talk to your kids as if what they say really matters to you. Yeah, yeah, it does. Because they haven't done it this way away forever. Some of our best ideas on the farm came from Daniel when he was 8, 9, 10. Why do we do this? Well, I don't know. I guess, you know, and so we just, you know, we just live life. We never hired a babysitter. Never hired a babysitter. So, you know, we go back to my 20 year college reunion and we're the only one with little kids. But all the adults are amazed. Well, they, they're fun to talk to, you know, I mean, and everybody at church, the old people at church, they gravitate to our kids because they're fun to talk to. And why? Well, because they're doing life, you know, they're doing life. And, and that's what's exciting.
- [49:02]
Ginny Urich
And doesn't it matter so much that there are kids for old people to enjoy? It matters so much. I think about that a lot. Like what a deficit it is. I've used that word a lot.
- [49:14]
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I wish I could come up with a better word.
- [49:15]
Ginny Urich
What, you know, what a. What a bummer. I can't. It's just so unfortunate that we're so, so segregated, you know, that. That were in the grocery stores during the day that the older people don't get to see young kids at the library. I mean, all of these places, it's like, well, they're in school and they're not out in the community. And I actually think it's a miss. It's such a miss. It's such a simple thing. But the fact that your kids can provide light and vitality and engagement and this the childlike spirit to an adult to an older person and that they can brighten each other's day, like that's missing. And it matter. It matters that that's missing. I love that you brought that up. I think that just one little simple thing. I mean, all of these things, they add up to a big full life that really matters and permeates out. I want to ask one final question. You're obviously in a different spot now than you were when you first got married and had kids. You talk about in your books and people can read your Books. I have a stack here. The marvelous pigments of pigs, Homestead, tsunami. Everything I want to do is illegal, folks. This ain't normal. The sheer ecstasy of being a lunatic farmer. Poly face micro. You can farm your success, Successful farm business, family friendly farming, holy cows and hog heaven. And I'm sure that I have more. They're just not sitting in my pile. I hope you write the homeschool dropout. Someday I think everyone will buy it. But you're in a different spot, Joel. You are in this spot where you're in your. And I, you know, I learned through your books. You're living in an attic. Basically, you're living in the upstairs of a house with Teresa. You get married, you're trying to make the farm thing go, you know, you're living with family, you got a couple hundred dollars a month to your name. And so what you wanted to do is you wanted the private school, but you couldn't afford it. And now you're, you know, you're a grandfather, you're speaking all over the place, you're doing farm consults. Probably now you could afford it. Knowing what you know now, would you still choose homeschool?
- [51:07]
Joel Salatin
Oh, oh, without a doubt. I, I am quick to tell people I wouldn't trade that for a million dollars. I wouldn't trade her for anything. Both of our kids are incredibly successful. Daniel now runs the farm and I'm the least important person here now. And we say he runs the farm so I can run around. Our daughter Rachel is a key manager administrator at a local county in the planning district. She hires and fires and has. And she told me, she said, you know, they actually came and recruited her from what she was doing before. And she said she got this because she could talk. Well, she grew up listening to me talk, you know, and we read and we cultivated that in the kids. And guess what? They talked, they talked to customers, they talked to adults from, I mean, from the time they could jabber, from the time they could jabber, their world was surrounded by these. Our farm customers. Customers, our patrons and stuff, who engage them in conversation. And so of course, fortunately, they grew up before there were screens, but they grew up interacting with an adult world. And so now they carry themselves both extremely well. I mean, Daniel was the young. He was at 6, he's the youngest presenter at an Acres USA Agriculture Conference ever in his history and did a two hour rabbit seminar on rabbits, you know, as a 16 year old, you know, with a room full of adults. Obviously I'm a parent. I'm very Proud of them. But yes, we would do that in a minute. Now I will tell you this, that there are now co ops who specialize in things and we would definitely send them to, you know, a science lab or, you know, a math lab or something like that. You know, that would be, be enjoyable. But Daniel was pretty much, he was nearly done by the time the first like, you know, county homeschool support group started. And so, you know, we just missed all of that, I think just the joy of having them with us for our successes, our failures. How do mom and dad handle rejection? How do they handle lack of recognition? They've done something cool and somebody else takes credit for it. How do they handle the euphoria of success and award? How do they handle. And they were there. They were there for those moments. You know, more is caught than taught. More is caught than taught. So we're really thankful that they got to, to live those with us and we got to be with them throughout their discovery journey.
- [53:57]
Ginny Urich
Yeah, it's so inspiring. You did it. You did it before the co ops were there, before the research was there, before you knew the outcome and you trusted. And you can look back in hindsight and say, that's the decision that I would make again. And that's how we feel. You know, if I could do it over again, I'd do it the same way. I think that's the message of a well lived life. I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't change it for the world. It's the best decision that we ever made and I didn't make it. You know, it's not a braggadocious thing. I made it with shaky knees and, you know, without knowing the outcomes. And I'm so glad. I'm so glad I do not regret it for one second. So, Joel, I have a book with your name right next to my name. I can hardly believe it. I mean, I have been a fan for so long, way back to the documentaries I read. Folks, this ain't normal. I mean, long before I had a podcast, long before any, you know, anybody knew what 1,000 hours outside was. I remember the first time someone asked, we were doing this conference in Virginia and they said, do you want to do a session with Joel? I was like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? And I remember when I talked to Josh about asking, you know, I wonder if he would write the forward. And my mom always, I was like, he's so busy, he's got so much going on. But my mom has always said the worst that someone can say is no. So I was like, I'm just gonna ask. And I just, I mean, I could have done a jig when I found out out that you are going to do it. And it is just a wonderful, wonderful forward. It's a big time in the world to really be thinking about how you educate your kids. And I think this book is going to help you do that, really give you some food for thought to look at things in a historically normal way. What makes the most sense in a world that's rapidly changing. Joel, thank you so much. Thank you for writing the forward. Thank you for all of these books. You, you know, you've given up TV time to write all of these books. You know, almost every year you're coming out with a new one. And they have changed my life. They have changed our lives for generations in our family. And I'm so grateful for you.
- [55:49]
Joel Salatin
Oh, thank you, Jenny. And. And us for you, too. You're a, you're an icon in the movement now, and we just couldn't be, couldn't be prouder of what you've been able to do. Everybody needs to listen to Jenny.
- [56:02]
Ginny Urich
Thanks, Joel.
- [56:06]
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Are you hungry for guidance about mindset, relationships, health, finances, career decisions and dealing with your past? I'm Trey Tucker, licensed therapist and speaker and host of Rugged, a podcast where I help young men and women navigate life's challenges and find solutions to help them live lives of service and meaning. In this podcast, you'll learn mindset strategies to harness your thoughts and emotions in ways that help you achieve your goals. I bring a blend of straight talk and empathy. Empathy. And I'm open to addressing any topic and treating it and the people connected to it with respect and curiosity. Come join us. We have a space for you. Search for Rugged with Trey Tucker wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure to hit the follow button. So new weekly episodes will be delivered straight to your personal podcast feed. My hope is that this podcast will leave you feeling encouraged and empowered to take charge of your life and close the gap between who you are and.
- [57:00]
Joel Salatin
Who you want to be.