From Homeschool Mom to Empty Nest with Retired Homeschooler Dawn Garrett

After decades of homeschooling, what comes next?

In this homeschool conversation, I chat with veteran (and retired) homeschool mom Dawn Garrett to explore the often-overlooked season after homeschooling ends. With all three children graduated, Dawn reflects on what mattered most, what she might change, and how she is navigating the quiet, unfamiliar rhythm of life beyond daily lessons.

{This post contains paid links. Please see disclaimer.}

What Really Matters in Homeschooling

Looking back, Dawn emphasizes that the biggest impact didn’t come from perfectly executed plans, but from faithful rhythms and relationships.

One of the most formative practices in her home was protecting Sundays:

“We do morning worship, morning and evening worship… just that protection of Sundays, I think, was hugely important to my kids.”

Equally significant was a steady diet of meaningful books and shared learning experiences. Yet some of the most impactful moments were unexpected, like her husband beginning to work from home during the high school years:

“Him being home was actually an amazing opportunity… my kids are better for it.”

These unplanned gifts remind us that even disruptions can become part of God’s design in our homeschools.

Homeschool Regrets (And Why They Don’t Define You)

Dawn’s reflections are refreshingly honest…and freeing.

“In the grand scheme of things the day-to-day can be really hard, and so there were days I would trade in, but overall, I’m just so thankful that I had the opportunity to be a mom and be a teacher.”

While she might have started differently, she emphasizes that the daily struggles don’t define the whole journey. The long view reveals something richer than any single hard day.

The Identity Shift After Homeschooling

One of the most profound challenges of this transition is identity.

After years of structuring life around homeschooling, Dawn found herself asking deeper questions:

“Who am I if I am not a homeschool mom?”

Her answer required intentional reorientation:

“My identity is to be found in [Jesus] and not in what I do.”

This shift doesn’t happen overnight. It unfolds slowly, often in quiet moments once filled with activity.

The Emotional Transition: Quiet, Weird, and Beautiful

When homeschooling ends, the house changes…dramatically.

“My house was noisy… and then it’s just quiet.”

Dawn describes this season not as grief exactly, but something more nuanced:

“It’s weird because it’s weird.”

There’s space now—mental, emotional, physical—and that space can feel disorienting.

“It gives you a lot of time to be in your head.”

Instead of rushing to fill it, Dawn has embraced a season of pause:

“I feel like I’m still kind of exhaling.”

Why You Don’t Have to Rush Into What’s Next

In a culture that prizes productivity, this may be the most countercultural insight:

“Give yourself a date to start inhaling again.”

Rather than immediately launching into new goals, Dawn encourages a period of rest and reflection—a deliberate transition between seasons.

Launching Adult Children While They Still Live at Home

The transition doesn’t end at graduation. Many homeschool parents navigate a season where adult children still live at home.

Dawn describes this as a shift from authority to relationship:

“From… authority teacher to kind of mom friend.”

This requires intentional restraint and trust, allowing adult children to grow into independence while maintaining connection.

“How can I foster that adult relationship… even while they’re living in my home?”

Advice for New Homeschool Moms

With the wisdom of experience, Dawn offers gentle encouragement to those just beginning:

“Don’t start too soon… don’t push.”

She reminds parents that growth takes time:

“It just takes time to kind of build those muscles.”

And perhaps most reassuring:

“The bad days won’t add up nearly as much as the good days add up.”

Advice for Moms Nearing the End

For those approaching graduation, Dawn offers two simple but profound encouragements:

“Soak it up… really enjoy.”

She names the emotional complexity of this season:

“I’m not sad, but a little bit of melancholy… a little bit of like, I’m not so needed anymore.”

What Comes Next After Homeschooling

Though still in a season of “exhaling,” Dawn is beginning to look ahead.

She anticipates opportunities for writing, serving in her church, and supporting others:

“There are always, always things.”

Her focus isn’t on reinvention. It’s about continued faithfulness in a new way.

Key Takeaways:

• Homeschool success is built on faithful rhythms, not perfection
• Protecting family time and worship has lasting impact
• Unexpected changes can become meaningful blessings
• Your identity is not rooted in homeschooling
• Transition seasons require time, not urgency
• It’s normal for the end of homeschooling to feel “weird”
• Relationships with children evolve into adult friendships
• You don’t need to rush into your next purpose
• The little moments matter more than remembered details
• There is meaningful work and service beyond homeschooling

You May Also Enjoy:

• Charlotte Mason Education (a video interview with Dawn Garrett)
• Homeschooling Teens with Grace and Wisdom with Elsie Iudicello
• Parenting Teens: the Most Asked Questions and a Real Mom’s Answers
• 3 Things I’ve Learned as a Mom of a Homeschool Graduate
• How to Create a Unique Homeschool Graduation
• To College or Not to College… That is the Question
• Raising Our Expectations:  Homeschooling the High School Years 

Find Dawn Garrett Online

Dawn Garrett graduated all 3 of her always-homeschooled children and now learns about God and His cosmos by studying the liberal arts in order to know Him better, imitate Him & His ways, and share about Him with others by following the principles of Charlotte Mason.

• Instagram
• Website
• Facebook

Check out all the other interviews in my Homeschool Conversations series!

[00:00:00] Amy Sloan: Hello, friends. Today I am joined by my friend Dawn Garrett, who was one of the very first guests on the podcast, lo these many years ago, and I’m so delighted to be chatting with her again. Dawn has actually graduated all three of her Always Homeschooled children and now learns about God and his cosmos by studying the liberal arts in order to know him better, imitate him and his ways, and share about him with others by following the principles of Charlotte Mason. So we’re going to be kind of talking about what life is like after homeschooling ends, which I think is something that doesn’t get talked about a whole lot, but it’s something a lot of moms can feel lost. So I’m so excited to chat with you, but here at the beginning, before we dive into the topic, tell us a little bit about yourself and your family and your experience with homeschooling.

[00:00:56] Dawn Garrett: Okay, my name is Dawn. I have been married to Jason since 2000, so 25 years. Very exciting. We live in Central Ohio. I was born in Central Ohio. Jason says you’re like the only person from there. It’s not true, but there are a lot of people who come here. He came here to go to Ohio State. I went to Ohio State. We met a couple years after we were both graduated, and when we were dating, I had heard about this crazy idea about homeschooling. I’d never heard of it when I was in school, and I did an education major, and I never heard of it, and then a friend of mine was homeschooling, and I was like, oh, I want to do that, and so when we were dating, I kind of brought it up early on, and I was like, this is a deal breaker for me, and that he didn’t know that until like last year, I guess, but he was on board, so I was like, okay, we’re going in the same direction. That’s all good, and then we had three kids. Our oldest is just turned 21, and we have a, well, when we’re recording this, he’s 19. He’ll be 20 probably when it publishes, and an 18-year-old. They graduated back to back to back, so we, when my oldest was born, I read The Well-Trained Mind within the first month of her being out, like being alive, and I was like, we’re going to do that. I have the mummified chicken to prove it, and then about her fifth grade year, my son’s fourth grade year, we switched and went all in with Charlotte Mason and Ambleside Online, and we did that until they graduated.

[00:02:47] Amy Sloan: Yeah. Well, as you look back on those years of homeschooling and, you know, different experiences, and this could be like academic or just sort of more general, are there any things that you regret or would do differently?

[00:03:03] Dawn Garrett: I might not have the mummified chicken. I probably, like, if I had it to do entirely over again, I would have started out doing Amplified Online and Charlotte, and doing a Charlotte Mason education, but in the grand scheme of things, no. They’re like, we would have homeschooled, which we did. We would have read a lot of books. We would have done some more math. In the grand scheme of things, like, the day-to-day can be really hard, and so there were days I would trade in, but overall, I’m just so thankful that I had the opportunity to, like, be a mom and be a teacher.

[00:03:49] Amy Sloan: I think that’s really helpful to hear as well, because sometimes we have, like, this terrible day, right? We’ve all had one of those just, like, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad homeschool days, where we’re looking around, and you just, you’re like, I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I’m ruining everything. What is going on? And sometimes that one bad day can, we have the temptation to, like, have that define our whole homeschool, or even our homeschool year, or whatever it is, but everybody has the bad days, and those bad parenting moments, the things that we would change, of course, and, you know, like, the things that we would change, of course, if we could be perfect homeschool parents somehow. But over the course of time, you really do see how God uses even those bad days to humble us, to change our own hearts as parents, and to work in our children, right? Even those harder seasons. I mean, I’m not quite graduated all of my kids yet, but with two, you know, graduated, and my kids getting older, I just look, and I see, like, when everyone comes together, and there’s the inside quotes, and the Shakespeare allusions, and people love each other, and they want to talk to me still. I’m like, okay, that’s, like, that is, that’s great.

[00:05:03] Dawn Garrett: For sure, yes. When my daughter comes home from Tennessee, she’s in college in Tennessee, and when she comes home, my house gets louder. She is not my loud child, but just, like, everybody has to get everything out from while she’s been in school, and so it just, it’s, it’s a joy to see. It’s loud.

[00:05:27] Amy Sloan: Yeah, sometimes I have to be like, guys, okay, guys, I think we need to all, like, give your dad a few minutes of quiet here. He’s not, he’s not used to this. Well, as you look back over the years, too, and kind of with the perspective you have, what are the things that ended up meaning the most in your homeschool, or ended up having the biggest impact on your family, or your homeschool life?

[00:05:55] Dawn Garrett: Well, I have a handful of things. We started very early on, well, we always were like, we aren’t going to do any sports on Sundays. We aren’t, we don’t do outside activities on Sundays. We do morning worship, morning and evening worship, and we have family stuff, and just that protection of Sundays, I think, was hugely important to my kids, and they still, like, they work really hard to not do college work on Sunday. They work really hard to, like, really take that day of rest, and I think it’s such a healthy thing, even if it weren’t for the worship part, right, just having a day off, but the worship part, I see them being really active with their faith, and in the church, and that is very good for a mom’s heart, so that piece of it was really important. Again, the reading a lot of really good books together was a huge part. One of the things that actually probably made the biggest difference was when, in 2020, my husband came home to work remotely with everybody else, but he has stayed home working remotely. Like, they closed their office, but he still works, you know, in our bedroom. Him coming home was huge because I’m not, I’m not very, like, argumentative. I won’t fight with you in general. Very avoidant of any sort of conflict at all, like, extremely, and so I would kind of let the arguments kind of go. Can they resolve them themselves? They can resolve this. This won’t go that long, and then it just, like, would explode, right? He came home, as soon as he heard it even, like, start, he would come out, hey, guys, what’s going on? Hey, guys, we don’t talk to each other like that. Like, he stopped it before it really went going, so him being home, like, he would listen to narration sometimes. He would help with math and science, and so him being home was actually an amazing opportunity, and I know not everybody can have that, but I am just so thankful that he got to be home for those high school years, in particular, and that he still works from home now that my house is quiet because everybody’s gone.

[00:08:34] Amy Sloan: And that’s so interesting because we, I would think you would have said something like, yes, when they were young, and this thing that I planned, and then we did it, and we implemented it over time, and I see how my big glorious plans, you know, had this huge impact, and instead, it’s really beautiful because it’s like, well, one of the things, obviously, was purposeful with worship, obviously, very important, but the other is this little thing that you didn’t have planned. No one could have planned for that, right? And yet, the Lord ended up using that in just the right time in the season of your children’s development and in your family. That’s really beautiful and encouraging, too, because things sometimes derail our plans, as we both know, and it can be easy to think, oh, no, this is ruining everything, but from the perspective now of looking back, you can see how God really used that. That’s really cool.

[00:09:26] Dawn Garrett: It did. Yeah, and my kids are better for it. So I think that’s a lesson that I probably could have learned a lot younger, was that if I just stop it, then their friendships have a chance to blossom and bloom instead of them always being angry with one another.

[00:09:46] Amy Sloan: Yeah. So as you were approaching the end, your three kids graduated one year right after another, I think, right? Yeah, so really close together. So you kind of went from full-time homeschool mom to retired homeschool mom in a relatively short amount of time. Were you already kind of thinking ahead to this retirement or preparing for life after homeschooling in any particular way, or did you just sort of like, oh, everybody’s done. I guess I should figure something out now.

[00:10:16] Dawn Garrett: Kind of somewhere in the middle. So my daughter graduated, my oldest graduated in 2023, and I was like, oh, that means I only have two years left. At the same time, my son decided he wanted to dual enroll entirely for his senior year. So his senior year, he was not really home at all. He was at the local community college, Columbus State, full-time. And so I went from three students to one student very quickly, which was really kind of a shock to the system. Then I started to think about, well, who am I if I am not a homeschool mom? What does that mean? What is the identity? Where am I wanting to put my identity? Where am I called to put my identity? And I had to really kind of wrestle through homeschool mom is not the identity that I’m called to have, really. I’m supposed to be conforming to Christ, and my identity is to be found in him and not in what I do or the work or the relationships that I have. And so I had a couple of years where I was kind of thinking about that a long time. I used to joke that I was going to go, you know, pick people’s groceries for delivery or scam, like work the registers and scam people’s groceries. Like, that’s the work that I thought that I might go do, because it would be flexible. I wanted to be available even to my adult children, because I suspect and suspected that I wanted to have the opportunities to go to Tennessee if I needed to, or to, like, I don’t know, just be around and available for those adult kids. So I just started to think about what actually is the identity that the Lord has for me, and homeschool mom probably isn’t it. I’ve worked for a long time. You know, I worked for Pam Barnhill. I run her community that’s off Facebook, off social media, and I do customer service for her. And so I have, like, this little job. It doesn’t, it’s not like it pays a lot of money, but it adds up enough to pay for some piano lessons and organ lessons. Well, I’m not going to be paying for those anymore, but it’s still gives me a little bit of flexibility, gives our budget some flexibility. And I was talking to Jason, and he’s like, yeah, I don’t, I don’t think you need more of a job. I want you to be available kind of really just to be able to serve in the church and to do things with our church family. There’s some talk that we’re currently having a church plant where there’s some talk about maybe some future church plants that we might be more involved with. But there are always, always things. We just had a family who had babies, twins, and they were in the NICU, and they needed somebody to come watch their toddler for a few hours. And I was free to do that. So I joke, I’m going to be a church lady, not that kind of church lady. And so there, there is work that I can do. And I had to start kind of just thinking through how I really wanted to spend my days because I’m very, very good for during time.

[00:13:55] Amy Sloan: Yeah. Oh, that actually, I’m just like so excited. I’m like, oh, I can’t wait until I can be like, all right, deacons, let me know when somebody needs childcare. I’ll go be the honorary grandma for everybody in the church. Yeah. I love that.

[00:14:09] Amy Sloan: Well, for so many years, you know, you’re talking about identity and, you know, it’s easy to be like, yes, we put our identity in Christ. Okay. Sure. You know, that’s the right answer. But for so many years, the thing that we have done all the time has been homeschooling. It has been our vocation during the day, like actually what we do during the day. It is the thing we think about on social media, the books we read, you know, the conversations we have with our friends, our summers are spent planning for the next homeschool year, right? If we’re not homeschooling, we’re thinking about homeschooling. And then all of a sudden it’s over, which is a good thing because we’ve been working towards graduating adults, right? That was the whole point. But that leaves like a lot of sudden space. And I would imagine that’s a bit bittersweet, maybe even sad, a little bit of grief of kind of losing that thing. So how have you handled the emotional mental side of this shift into a new season?

[00:15:10] Dawn Garrett: People ask me and I say it’s weird because it’s weird. My house was loud. Even, you know, like just doing the regular stuff. There were people walking around, getting a snack, doing like a hearing keyboard typing, you know, like my house was noisy and there was an energy to that kind of people in the home all the time. For years, all five of us all the time in the house, right? And then it’s just quiet. I didn’t have to tell anybody. I did shut the door to Jason’s office and said, you’re going to be in a meeting. I’m going to be in a meeting. But overall, it’s just really quiet. I didn’t have to tell anybody, hey, I’m going to be recording. And it gives you a lot of time to be in your head a lot. Like in your thoughts and like, how do I, like, you can, like, I can beat myself up. I was talking with a friend of mine last night after evening service and she’s like, so how’s it going? And she said, so what are you, what are you reading? What are you doing? I’m like, I’m figuring a lot of time and it feels like this big exhale. And so she said, give yourself a date to start inhaling again. And I thought that was really, really brilliant. And as we’re coming into the holidays and stuff, I was like, maybe, maybe I’m not a big New Year’s resolutions girl, but maybe the new year is the time to say, okay, you’ve had this time of exhale, this time of, it’s not like I’m not doing anything, but before I just kind of ramped back up to like, do the, do the list, you know, we all have this mental list of things that someday I will do. And at the bottom of it is clean the call space. But, you know, I have some projects that I would want to work on, some writing things. I still work in the homeschool world. I still help host a couple of homeschool events throughout the year. I have some, I have some ideas in my head of things that I want to do. I just am not quite ready to like full on get them moving because I feel like I’m still kind of exhaling.

[00:17:47] Amy Sloan: That’s encouraging to hear. I’m sure moms who are looking towards being much closer to where you are now, there, I could imagine that there would be a pressure, right? Because homeschool moms, we tend to like generally be very disciplined and hardworking and like we have hard goals and we want to do a good job, right? To be like, okay, wow, that’s over. You know, now I’m going to like jump into my new thing. And if that’s not immediately clear, or if you just find yourself feeling kind of weird, maybe sad or just disoriented to feel like there’s something wrong, like you should just be immediately jumping into something. But to give yourself that time of transition and not feel the pressure to like immediately have it all figured out, to like not even give yourself time to think. Because you were saying like you just time in your head, time to think. You know, it’s easy to distract ourselves with social media or even activity, even good activities. And sometimes maybe what is needed in that transition season is the quiet, the time to think and reflect and then be ready to move forward.

[00:18:56] Dawn Garrett: Yes, I absolutely agree. And I’m very thankful. I don’t want to discount those moms who have to go back to work. Like they have to go find a job right now because they have three kids in college or they have like all of these things. I am very thankful for the position that, you know, the Lord has put me in with a husband who’s like, no, I think this little job that you have is good enough. It’s what we need to keep you free. Like I realize that there’s some privilege to what space I’m in. And if I had had to go back to work, would I have been thinking about all of these thoughts like this? No, probably not. I would have been thinking about, you know, learning the check register or learning the office job that I was taking or like if you have to go back to work, that’s a good thing too. So there is a freedom in having something to do that is a little easier than the freedom of I don’t have anything to do.

[00:20:23] Amy Sloan: Yeah. That could almost be too scary.

[00:20:27] Dawn Garrett: Too many options. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, it’s very wide. Like, you know, when you’re homeschooling, the papers where they just have to answer the questions, sometimes those are the easier things than the narration where it’s entirely open-ended. It’s kind of the same thing. Structure often gives us a lot of creativity and focus that the whole wide world open to us doesn’t provide.

[00:20:57] Amy Sloan: Well, as you’re thinking about this time of inhaling and your future, you’ve kind of referenced it a little bit, some of the ideas that you have in your head, but do you have any particular goals for the next few years or something you’re really looking forward to about this season? Oh, yeah.

[00:21:16] Dawn Garrett: Well, I’m looking forward to like what the Lord has for my kids. I mean, and hopeful that there’s some grandmomming to do and like all of that. That’s down the road. We’re not there yet, but, you know, I do look forward to that possibility. A long time ago, I wrote an e-book that’s entirely free on my website, but I’ve been thinking it might be time to kind of go back and refresh that and like I’ve learned so much more. I wrote that when I started Charlotte Mason homeschooling. Maybe it’s time to now that I’ve kind of like worked through it, maybe I know a little bit more and I can like refresh it, beef it up a little bit. So I have that writing project. I have some talks that I have to write. I have some other like writing things that I am considering doing. So I have those kinds of things. I do have several opportunities throughout the year to encourage homeschoolers that I love. And I hope to, we have the Set Your Feet retreat in the summer in Columbus this year. And so I, that’s my, it’s hosted at my church. So there’s a lot of responsibility there that I’ll be, that’ll be really ramping up to do. And that, that takes a good bit of time. I wasn’t really kidding about cleaning the clean space. It, it’s like we moved, we’ve been here for 20 years. It’s probably, probably time to work on that.

[00:22:48] Amy Sloan: Yeah. Emptying out the cabinets, throwing away all the old papers.

[00:22:54] Dawn Garrett: Yeah. I mean, yeah. My, my kids do not want their homeschool papers. Yes. And they are never going to want them.

[00:23:03] Amy Sloan: Yes. Get rid of them now. Save a few special things. They get rid of. That’s right.

[00:23:10] Dawn Garrett: Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. So, so I have some projects that like do need some attention and that I’m excited about some of them. So it’s, I just can’t quite give myself the oomph to start them yet. So.

[00:23:27] Amy Sloan: All right. I’m going to talk to you in a few months and see how you’re doing. Yeah. Oh, one of the things that can be a little tricky in the time of transition is if you graduate a child and then maybe they take a gap year or they’re still living at home while they’re starting their next phase of life. So how do you navigate that season where you are trying to launch the child and transition well into their adulthood, but they’re still living at home?

[00:23:57] Dawn Garrett: So my daughter in college did take a gap year and I loved it. It was very much a great way of transitioning from, you know, mother authority teacher to kind of mom friend. And she was working, she worked at a, as a barista at one of the local coffee shops and, but she and I had the opportunity to have a lot of time together. We watched all of Downton Abbey. We watched, you know, all of the Emmas. And so we just kind of were able to really spend a lot of time, her and I just together. And it was a really wonderful bonding opportunity. And, and that it made her going to college easier. You might think it would have made it harder, but it made it easier. Like I knew her as an adult and that actually, I thought really helped. And the school where she goes, there’s no dorms. There’s no, you know, that you live in an apartment, you live in a house. And, and so there’s not, so you really have to be an adult there is kind of the idea. And so that, that year of transition, I thought was really healthy and valuable for her. My son did his, the first year of his associate’s degree as a senior, and then he finished it as his first year out of school. And then he got offered a full-time big boy job and he’s working full-time, four tens, and he sleeps here. That’s what I’ve taken to say. He, unless he’s dog sitting, which he also does sometimes. So, but mostly like I see him sometimes and that’s okay. And it’s good. And when I do see him, it’s lovely. And we have a, we have a very good relationship and we, and we enjoy that a lot. And occasionally he’s like, yeah, I’m going to eat at home this night. And I’m like, great. That’s actually the hardest part is not knowing who’s going to be home for dinner ever. Like, cause it could be two of, it could be just me and Jason. It could be any permutation of the four people who reside in this home. And there’s no planning ahead. Like I go to the grocery store, it feels like every day, cause I don’t know who’s going to be home for dinner, which that’s awkward. I don’t like that as much, but, and then my daughter is a full-time nanny and she works very long hours. She goes to work, she comes home, she’s exhausted and then she goes to work the next day, but she, she, she is usually here for dinner. So, um, going from cooking for five all the time, three meals a day to sometimes four once a day is really, it’s, that’s a, that’s been maybe the hardest transition is the cooking part.

[00:27:06] Amy Sloan: It is really difficult to figure out, wait, how many, how many, how much lettuce do we actually go through in a week as, as the numbers are constantly shifting and changing. Yeah.

[00:27:15] Dawn Garrett: Um, and like before Jason and I had kids, I did not actually cook at times. So I didn’t really, I’ve never cooked for two. I don’t really know how to do that. So it’s, it’s just, it’s a weird, weird, it’s just weird, Amy.

[00:27:31] Amy Sloan: What I hear you saying this whole time is it’s just a little weird and that’s okay. And it’s okay.

[00:27:37] Dawn Garrett: And like in the long run, like we’re going to have a lot of years, Lord willing, we should have a lot of years where it’s just two of us. And, and, and so learning how to enjoy that time with just the two of us and having some common interests that always makes such a big difference.

[00:27:56] Amy Sloan: Yeah. I will say that when my oldest son first started college after graduating high school or homeschool with us, um, he was living at home that freshman year. And I was very purposeful. I thought to myself, like, if he were in a dorm, I wouldn’t know like where he was going. He’s not going to be keeping me up to date with his social calendar or, um, so many things, right? Like I would not know about if he were at a dorm. And so I tried to, as much as I could, you know, remind myself if he were at a dorm and you wouldn’t know about it, then you shouldn’t try to ask him about it just because he’s living at home. Right. And that can be a little different. I mean, obviously if it’s like a meal time or some of those things, a little bit of, if it impacts the rest of the family, for sure, you know, there’s communication and working through and figuring out those details. Um, but really trying to really treat him as an adult, as someone who was independent and just because he was sleeping in my house, um, which worked really well, you know, for saving money and for many reasons, uh, that, but really trying to also like make a distinction. Like you are not my, my child. Like I am no longer overseeing you as a child. Um, I now I’m communicating with you as someone who also lives in the same, the same space, but it was a different, different kind of transition.

[00:29:15] Dawn Garrett: But it’s a real transition though. And like the, the relationship, so I have been, I was an authority over my children for the 18 years, you know, before they reached their majority. Lord willing, I’m going to have a relationship with my children for many, many more than 18 years as adults. So how can I foster that adult relationship? I mean, we’re always their parent. We always have like hopes and dreams and, and things like that. But how can I foster that adult relationship even while they’re living in my home? I think that’s a really, uh, a really good way to think about it.

[00:30:00] Amy Sloan: Yeah. That’s really, really wise. Well, if you were talking to a new homeschool mom, what advice would you give to that new brand new homeschool mom is so excited, right? They’re little children. Well, as a veteran homeschool mom, what would you say to her?

[00:30:17] Dawn Garrett: Don’t start too soon. Um, so don’t push. I know, like, I was so excited about homeschooling, like three, we’re getting going, right? I wish I hadn’t. So there, there’s my, I wish I hadn’t started quite so young. Um, but yeah, don’t, it’ll be okay. And the bad days won’t add up nearly as much as the good days add up. Um, and that you will be surprised. Like, I remember reading, you know, history with my first and second graders and being like, oh, this is so cool. And them really enjoying it. They don’t remember any of it from when they were in first and second grade. Right. Um, they remember it from when they hit it again, like in sixth grade, but just, and I didn’t listen to the moms who told me this, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, and I didn’t listen to the moms who told me this when I had a first and second grader. So I don’t entirely expect the moms to listen to me now, but you know, it’ll be okay. If they don’t narrate something perfectly, it’ll be okay. If you know, they can’t remember what we did last week. It’ll be okay. It takes time to kind of build those muscles. Just like you wouldn’t go out and run a 5k today without having practiced. The catch to 5k doesn’t have you start out running the whole time. Right. They have you run for 30 seconds, which sounds like awful, but it’s okay. It just takes time to kind of build those muscles. And when you build them at the right time, it will come. So, so that’s like, if you’re a younger mom, it will come. Just be consistent, be, show up, do the work. Don’t worry too much.

[00:32:21] Amy Sloan: I remember it really shocking me when I realized that my older children didn’t remember these very important things that we had done when they were, I was like, you loved that. I worked so hard on it. It was great. I have all these great memories. They’re like, yeah, I just have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about. And at first I was very offended by that. But then I also remembered that it, that even though they don’t remember those details, it was all those moments of enthusiasm and joy and togetherness and learning all those things that were like making them the people they became. Right. The kinds of people who are still interested in learning on their own. You know, my daughter, I never did Euclid. I know I’m a failure as a classical educator, but she’s like interested and she’s been doing Euclid herself. Right. So like, that’s the kind of person. And so all those things, they may not remember the details, but there’s still so much soul formation and relationship formation and all of those things that are going on too. And that, that really is what matters for the humans that we want to leave our homes. Right.

[00:33:22] Dawn Garrett: It’s an interesting view that I have with Rebecca going to do this nanny work. She’s been like pulling out the, the Susan Hunt Bible for ABC Bible versus book that we did when she was four. And she’s like, mommy, I don’t remember any of this. And the Cassie and Kayla books. And I don’t remember any of this. But she’s been working really hard and she reads them to her little charge. And yeah, my church doesn’t have the, the Bible verses down, but I know them all now. And I came to the realization, oh, Susan Hunt didn’t write those books actually for the children. She wrote them for the moms. Yes. So that we would learn those Bible verses that my, my four-year-old didn’t remember anymore at 18.

[00:34:09] Amy Sloan: Right. Yeah. Oh goodness. Most, most of the Bible verses that I have memorized are from like the songs that I sing with my children. Right. Right.

[00:34:19] Amy Sloan: Yeah. Well, what if you were talking to a mom who’s where you are, or is nigh on her way towards retirement, what advice would you give to her?

[00:34:29] Dawn Garrett: Um, well, if you’re still on your way, um, soak it up, really enjoy, like, I kind of felt like my last couple of years, there was a little bit of, I, I’m very independent children. So there was a lot of like being available and interruptible and less direct interaction, especially with my youngest. Like we did morning time for years and then her senior year, we didn’t really do any morning time. Um, and that was, that was weird too, you know, but so soak up as much of, of that together where you are actually like teaching and directly involved and enjoy that. Um, for those who are where I am, I guess, take a, take a deep breath and, and, and allow yourself. It’s sad. I’m not grieving. I’m really excited about the opportunities my kids have. I love seeing the adult, their adult selves. Um, but I read an article, they called it mom and Collie. I’m not sad, but a little bit of melancholy, a little bit of like discomfort, a little bit of like, I’m not so needed anymore. So like take the time to exhale and then figure out where you’re going to serve, where you’re called to serve. And, and then do that. Um, cause you know, I’m, I’m in my young fifties and Lord willing, my, my grandma’s about to turn 103, but there’s long life in my family. Like I might be right at the middle. So hopefully there’s a lot of things for me to do in the coming 50 years.

[00:36:26] Amy Sloan: Yeah. Many years of service left. Yeah. One of my favorite picture book authors is Robert McCloskey and the book, A Time of Wonder there at the end. I just think about this quote, it comes up in so many different stages or situations, but um, as you were talking about, about this sort of not sad, but maybe a little bit of melancholy, um, at that end. And yet it’s a joyful, right? It’s not, it’s not a better, it’s a joyful thing. And so at the end of Time of Wonder, they’re leaving their island behind, you know, they’ll return there again, perhaps, but they’re going back to, to their mainland home. And it says, um, a little bit sad about the place we are leaving, a little bit glad about the place we are going at a time of quiet wonder. And that’s kind of like where you are, right? Like a little bit sad about what you are no longer going to enjoy, but a little glad about this next season. And it’s a time of wonder and waiting to see what God has for you next. That’s exciting. That’s really beautiful. Yeah. I’m gonna have to go get out my old Robert McCloskey books now. Oh, Dawn, it is always so great to chat with you. Um, here at the end though, I do want to ask you the questions I ask all my guests. And so the first is just, what are you personally reading lately?

[00:37:46] Dawn Garrett: Um, so I do the Skolay Sisters 5×5 Challenge every year. And, um, this has been a weird year. I’m not reading the things I normally do, but I read all of the Anthony Trollope Barset Chronicles and they were amazing. I loved them. You have to like the Victorians. I do very much like the Victorians. Um, and then I read Adam Bede and right now I’m reading Vanity Fair. So I am stuck in the Victorians and it’s so fun. Um, and I’m really enjoying kind of walking and listening to, um, those audio books. And then for my candy reading, can I tell you about candy reading? Oh yeah, totally. So I love Mary Stewart and Susan Howitch’s 1950s, 1960s Gothic romances. They are totally candy, like, but they’re set in England and they’re just like, I don’t know, that they’re just super fun to me. And I really enjoy them. I found a new 50s, 60s, mid, mid 20th century British Gothic romance writer, Elizabeth Kettle. And I’ve been, um, I’ve been like, I’m on my third or fourth one in a row. They’re just like an easy snack. They’re totally light reading. There’s very little redeeming about them, but they’re just so fun. And so I’ve been doing some candy reading.

[00:39:10] Amy Sloan: Oh, that’s very fun. I think Mary Stewart, she might win like the nine carriages or something like that kind of a mystery. I read that a few years ago for a book club. So yeah, so it was very fun. Very.

[00:39:21] Dawn Garrett: My favorite Mary Stewart is, um, This Rough Magic, which it has a lot of Shakespeare kind of references in it. She was Oxford educated. She was brilliant. They’re definitely candy, but that one it’s set in Cyprus or Crete, Cyprus. And it’s, it’s very fun. It’s my favorite one. Dolphins. It’s great.

[00:39:44] Amy Sloan: All right. I’ll have to, I’ll have to add that to my list for sure. Yeah. All right. So the final question is what would be your best advice for a turning around a homeschool day that’s going all wrong? And then since we have been focusing on life after homeschooling, I’ll also say what would be your best advice just when you’re on your own now and you have to turn around your own day and not blame stuff on the kids?

[00:40:07] Dawn Garrett: Never. Um, I, uh, well, the best, my best, my best advice for turning around a homeschool day gone wrong is to get my husband to like holler at my children. So that probably won’t, might not work for you. Um, I, I think I probably have come down on, and it’s maybe the same, go for a walk. Um, our neighborhood has this nice little nature area. Like it’s a third of a mile. It’s very small. Um, through some trees, there’s a Creek and, um, lots of wildflowers in the spring, which I love. Um, and so just get outside, go for a walk, see the real world, get offline. Um, and even to, for now I would say, go for a walk, listen to your audio book. And, um, that, that can often help my, help me like get motivated to go do the things that I am supposed to be doing.

[00:41:06] Amy Sloan: Good advice for any stage of life. For sure. I think so. I think so. Well, Dawn, where can people find you all around the internet?

[00:41:15] Dawn Garrett: Um, you can find me at my blog, which I don’t publish very often, but it has all the links to is ladydesk.com. Desk is the opposite of Dawn. That’s how you can remember it. Um, and I’m on Instagram and I have, I do have a Facebook page, but Instagram and the blog are probably the best, or you can find me at, um, community.panbarnhill.com.

[00:41:38] Amy Sloan: Yeah. And I will have links to all of those things in the show notes for this episode over at humilityanddoxology.com. I would love it if you would take a moment to send this video, if you’re on YouTube, or send the audio, uh, to a friend that you think could use this encouragement. I think those of us who are still, have many years of homeschooling ahead of us, can be encouraged by the vision of what’s to come and be reminded of the perspective, uh, to have now in the midst of the, of sometimes hard days. And then I hope it’s also an encouragement to the many moms who are like, okay, I, I was always a homeschool mom and now what? So I would love for you to share this and encourage other homeschool moms. And until next time, happy homeschooling.