Ask HN: How should I afford my children?
I'm a homeschooling stay-at-home father of three living in Wisconsin. I am preparing to initiate a divorce (for excellent reasons I will not enumerate here). I have been out of the workforce for eight years, and I'd like to retain custody of my children and continue to teach them at home. To fund this, I can provide four hours of focused work from home five nights per week and another 45 minutes of scattered time each day to take care of half-brained administrative tasks.
Here are my abilities: I am a skilled Python programmer who also has significant experience in C#.NET, Pascal, and Scheme. My past work has focused on desktop and server-side applications. I'm an able writer in English, and a former professional classical musician and teacher who still performs on a high level.
If you were in my position, how would you maximize the income available from my 4.75 hours daily work without delaying my departure more than a few weeks?
46 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadIf that fails talk to one of the agencies that will get you consulting work (e.g. https://www.gun.io/).
Reduce your living expenses as much as possible.
Most freelance platforms should be happy with ~20 hours/week of consistent work. One freelancer that mainly works with us at that volume had enough stability through Gun.io contracts alone to get a mortgage, which was a pretty big coup for us.
Feel free to shoot me a line at teja at gun.io.
Consider that it also means you have to put in extra effort for them to socialize (play dates, group activities). This is something you get for free with regular school. It's nice you want to spend more time with your kids but it's also important that they have alone time in separate social circles to properly develop social skills. There's still plenty of time to spend after school and on weekends. :)
every sentence you've written is wrong in every aspect, but grammar. sure, you are very sucessfull and independent, so fucking what?
i feel bad for your kids, but wish you all the best, also to your ex-wife/husband, because looking by the way you think about yourself, they had a lot of trouble ;-(
i think in the entire life of my father, summed up, he has never been that prepotent and i'm doing just fine. but i can imagine then what kind of person would i become if he was homeschooling and he would speak that way to me.
maybe take the advantage you've made urself a favour and created a throwaway and rethink your life. you have/had a wife/husband and 3 kids, maybe the problem could also be you and you could work that out and then let the kids have 2 parents(which is very important, 1 is doable also, but not something kids desire or would do them any good).
dunno, maybe go to a psychologist and this doesn't look like something internet people(mostly young that live in sillicon valley) can help. this looks serious and i sincerly wish you the best, just trying to help you. i hope you understand.
wish you the best. you can probably find the job if you dig for it, just do it... but hmm, i would think about everything you wrote there that isn't about the job, like the divorce, like your kids and so on.
hope the reality check was any useful, feel free to send me an e-mail, but as i've said before, a psychologist can help better
Other than that, learn to live well below your means. Look into the FIRE community (Financial Independence Retire Early) to get an idea of how to reduce your expenses. Many people live beyond their means. A good first step is ridding yourself of a car, TV subscription, and cell phone (if extreme like me).
in Wisconsin with 3 kids?
I understand they will receive more attention from you than from their teachers, but OTOH they will be exposed to a single point of view (yours) and to a much narrower social circle than they would otherwise.
You hardly give your children a mention. Is this about them or about you?
Under those parameters, an alternative you might want to consider is hiring a tutor for your children, or forming some sort of cooperative with other parents who feel the same way you do. This would give you the flexibility to be more employable, while keeping to the spirit of your desires.
My eldest daughter has a lot of autistic tendencies and is an unusual learner, but brilliant. I don't want to have her put in a situation where all the things that make her different and wonderful have to be put in a box that was made for someone else. My middle girl is a dancer. She's really good, and she loves it! Homeschooling has let us get her lots of extra opportunities without it taking up all the time we have; we can do more dance without compromising her education or her time to play and be a kid. My little boy isn't old enough for school yet, but I can already see he's going to be a riot to watch. With his work ethic and his determination, he'll thrive no matter what. Selfishly, I want to get to see more of his development than I would at school, but he'll be fine.
In addition to that, they're accustomed to it, and from what they know of school, they would prefer to continue at home. Since I know divorce is unsettling, I don't want to inflict any more changes than are already necessary.
I honestly think that regardless of what your answer would have been, you're going to feel very overwhelmed trying to pull what are likely going to be 16 hour days with few breaks. Your best case scenario is that your work is going to suffer. Is a tutor a viable option? Or working together with other home-schooled kids?
Sorry to be so blunt but if you go forward with your stated plan I think you are making a huge mistake. I understand how parts of this comes off "Who the fuck is this guy to be telling me how to raise my children?" but I think if you were to poll people (on HN or elsewhere) you would get a similar response re: homeschooling.
You don't know what you're talking about, you're just speculating.
The kids I worked with went to specialized classes anywhere from 1 to 4 days a week (where I taught them), had a network of active social relationships, participated in local sports clubs, and were also able to avoid some of the pitfalls of traditional schooling. They learned from some of the best teachers around for the subjects their parents didn't feel comfortable with. They were commonly more well-adjusted people than most. They are people you wouldn't guess were homeschooled and they went off to standard (and sometimes elite) colleges. You may know a lot more homeschooled people than you realize.
I also saw some real problem kids where parents were not doing the necessary things to give the kids space, independence, and proper socialization. In my case, that was the exception but obviously I didn't get to see any of the kids who are so isolated that they wouldn't have come to the out-of-home classes where I was a teacher.
To assume that homeschooling means the kids never get out in the world, don't have friends and social interactions and are just cooped up inside just shows you have no understanding of what homeschooling is like (in that it varies widely). Just like all other forms of schooling, it can be done wonderfully and done terribly.
You have no understanding of what the case is for this particular parent.
And I can assure you, the bad kind you describe is not the exception. What percent it actually represents no one knows, which is a whole other problem. But it's not just a few people here and there.
There are huge networks of people and conferences full of vendors selling parents do-it-all-yourself curricula. In the 90's and early 2000's Bob Jones University (even most evangelical Christians think they're too extreme) found it profitable to sell pre-recorded math and science lessons for high school level homeschoolers. And while I know what valence electrons are (my public school peers probably forgot), I also thought the Earth was 6000 years old into my mid twenties. And like I said, they didn't make and sell all those videos just for me.
It would be great to have more hard data on the current state of homeschooling/home tutoring though...
This describes most of the homeschoolers I have ever known, including myself. It's what I think of when I hear the word. Perhaps I had an atypical experience, having grown up in a Boston suburb.
Side-note for the original OP if they're reading this: these types of communities are so supportive of one another, there may even do things like fundraise to help the more needy within their communities or otherwise work with you. There's huge benefits from being part of such communities which are typically far stronger and meaningful than any community of parents around a typical school.
Now, that's not to say everything is fine. Some large portion (majority?) of homeschooled kids including most of the ones who went to these largely excellent co-op elective things where I taught are homeschooled in part so their fundamentalist parents can keep them away from ideas that would challenge their religious dogma. So, the kids learn ballroom dancing, computer programming, public speaking, music, and more while being socialized in a largely healthy, supportive place with close friends… and also learn that the Ice Ages were caused by the floods around Noah's Ark a few thousand years ago… and the sort of parents who are those fundamentalists have inherently some other quirks that lead to some awkwardness. Also, the rest of us don't know that these people exist since they were never our classmates in normal schools.
And there's a portion of homeschool parents who are just great in every regard and homeschool because they can afford it and realize that the combination of what they can do plus all community resources results in a top-notch education. So, those kids took classes with me at the same places and skipped the insane anti-science classes that were also taught there and instead taught their kids real science either on their own or through different outlets.
In short, it's complex. But everyone who experiences these not-all-that-home-schooled contexts realizes that it's pretty good and that leads to more people doing it. So, in the end, I suspect that's the majority of homeschoolers these days. It's probably super rare to be homeschooled and literally just be at home and never connect to these other home-school resources right around you.
FYI. I homeschooled my sons. Tokenadult homeschooled and is author of one of the earlier and most respected homeschool websites, Learn in Freedom.
http://learninfreedom.org
I worked for The TAG Project for part of the time I homeschooled.
http://www.tagfam.org
I do see that some homeschooled adults are more comfortable doing their own thing, similar to Montessori-educated adults, and some people find having interesting hobbies and jobs upsetting, but we need a few more people like that!
Of the childhood friends I still keep in touch with, I know several other who were homeschooled. None of them are awkward, antisocial or unsuccessful.
It's difficult to counter an argument about homeschooling having a negative effect on social interactions, since that observation is highly subjective. For what it's worth, I've never had any trouble grabbing beers with co-workers after work or meeting people in social settings. Some of my homeschooled friends definitely feel uncomfortable in social situations; I wouldn't say it happens with a higher frequency than my non-homeschooled friends.
That aside, when discussing education I prefer to compare quantifiable metrics, such as test scores, college GPA, employment rate, and median salary. A number of studies have compared these metrics, many of which indicate that homeschooling may provide better opportunities for children (after adjusting for income, location, ethnicity, number of parents at home, number of working parents, etc...). If you're interested, I can dig up these studies.
Homeschooling has prepared me, all of my siblings, and many of my childhood friends incredibly well for the "real world." I highly recommend it.
It depends how you define this, because talking for my city/region, most of them will end up drug addicts/alcoholics or unemployed/unemployable or uneducated or with shitty work... Usually the ones with >= to the average intelligence start to act/think like adults when get around 18-20 years old (if they are in the right environment) and then realise that they wasted their time, now they can't get in college cause they learned nothing in school (they were smart enough to get away with it), can't stay at home and self-learn cause they have to work 8-12h and so on and so on...
If you mean something along the lines "If you have to force it it will probably be shit", I agree. Guy should not get obsessed with his kids education or whatever. Just remember that they are kids.
To OP:
VERY FUCKING IMPORTANT. You don't want to expose your kids to unnecessary stress, especially at young age, especially persistent. Knowing some biology/psychology and having some first hand experience (not just from my childhood but also from what's going with people around me), please don't do it. Maybe wait with the divorce for when they are big enough.
For the homeschooling. Good. I had teachers at college who were sure that they perform at high level, they were shit (this doesn't make them bad researchers/humans just bad teachers). Luckily there were good ones to compensate for them.
One thing the homeschooling can't give your kids is the social contact and the friends they make. Knowing different people just opens a lot of possibilities, and almost everyone needs social contact (speaking just from biological/psychobiological point of view). Anyway, maturity comes at different age for different people. If you don't do terribly wrong as parent (sometimes parents have nothing to do with that), your kids eventually will get interested in some field they want to peruse in college. That's the time for you to be there for them and teach them whatever you know about whatever they are interested in or just help with the money they need for college. Meanwhile you can just guide them and show them that Math/Programming/Linguistics/Chemistry... are not boring. Send them to school and be there when they need you.
Another thing that could go very wrong is that they could become too dependant of you. I don't think that this needs much commenting.
1.) Remember that you may end up sharing custody. Where I'm from, 50-50 is the default. Will you be able to keep homeschooling in a 50-50 custody arrangement?
2.) You and your wife need to sit down, lay all your cards on the table and figure out what the future will look like. You two don't have to love or even like each other, but you have three little people who deserve some stability. Hypothetically, let's say that you and your wife share custody 50-50 and you keep homeschooling your kids. For the love of everything fucking holy, you two have to be on your absolute best behaviour when you do handoffs, especially before school. I simply cannot stress this enough. Your kids will go through something nasty if the divorce is amicable. If you two start fighting during handoffs or pulling the "look at my new boyfriend/girlfriend" shit especially before school, it will only be a thousand times worse. If there is the slightest chance you will share custody, you both need to be 100% on program here or homeschooling simply won't work.
3.) Assuming that you and your wife can be adults about handoffs, you still need to ask yourselves whether homeschooling is still the best. I was older when my parents split, but I didn't start to heal until I talked to other people with divorced parents. Then, I finally realized that every single feeling I had, no matter how fucked I thought it was, was actually pretty normal. I don't have any studies to back this up, but anecdotally, I can't even count how many people I know who have had that same experience. The glorious aspect of school is that your kids will be in classes with other kids who have gone through it all. If you think this over, talk it over with your wife, and still decide to homeschool, you two really need to figure out some therapy for your little ones. Being a child of divorce sucks and they really deserve someone neutral who they can talk to.
4.) Assuming all of this still leads to homeschooling, if I were you, I'd likely start off with a few short term, low value gigs off of a service like Upwork. From experience, transitioning to remote work is tough. Making that transition while you're also the educator may prove too much to safely handle. A service like Upwork would give you a chance to try this out on short term contracts.
Good luck and be safe. And please, I'm begging you to focus on self care too. I know things suck and feel overwhelming, but you've got to take care of yourself if you have any hope of properly caring for your family. Please be safe and know that at least one internet stranger is quite concerned about you.
So from a purely practical standpoint, don't home school MOST of your children. If your daughter is truly on the autism spectrum and the local public school can't effectively deal with that, then +1 for homeschooling her. For children who don't have special needs like that, there's no real need for it. You can send them to public school and still be involved in their education. Learning how to think and learning how to learn are perhaps the most important skills, and they can still be learned in the home.
So come up with a short term plan, then worry about the long-term plan later. If you really think you're cut out for this (and yes, truly ask yourself that in a mirror), find a part or full-time remote job right now. Take whichever you can find first. Plan to send your kids to public school except for the autism spectrum one. This will allow you to give both her and your new job a reasonable amount of attention. Even with only 1 child at home you'll find it quite challenging, though hopefully also rewarding. Probably not exactly what you wanted to hear, but practical solutions rarely are.
If you've read this far, allow me to vent about homeschooling for non-special-needs reasons. Please don't. There's a reason everyone thinks home schoolers are weird. We are. Despite parents best intentions ("best" ranging from individual attention to religious dogmatism), we have near zero interaction with our peers. When we do, it's a very small number of them and for very short periods. We have near zero experience interacting with anyone or anything outside the home. The real world becomes terrifying when you're stuck in a small, safe, homogeneous bubble and don't realize it. Finally, we're with our parents and siblings nearly every minute of the week. That is incredibly unhealthy for a family - being stuck in a house ALL THE TIME with your classmates and teacher. We were all a little miserable, especially in the teenage years. Now if your primary reasons aren't religious, some of that can be avoided, but it will take a concerted effort, which will take time away from your job. And your kids will still turn out a little weird and possibly resent you, even if just a little, for not letting them be "normal."
Just one thought. I don't have much suggestions about best income options for you.
Put together a portfolio. Look into services like UpWork, Moonlight and Textbroker for ways to access work relatively rapidly.
You could also check remote jobs boards. Links:
http://worldwidewebworks.blogspot.com/p/work.html
I'd be so worried about being burnt out from juggling not only the kids' daily lives, but their schooling and then on top of that your job. Where are you going to find time for looking after yourself? Exercising, down-time for both your physical, mental and emotional health.
All I can think of this is the image of that dude holding the whole world on his shoulder...
I don't have any real suggestions as far as maximizing your income earning potential. Maybe pick up project based work or clients?
I'm not a single dad, but I have 2 young kids and a wife that travels a great deal for work. And when she's away, I get a much greater perspective on what an amazing job single parents do. I find myself sometimes burnt out juggling that many things on my own. And also catch myself cutting corners to make things work.
I really wish you and your fam the best of luck.