Ask HN: How should I afford my children? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How should I afford my children?

I would like the perspective of intelligent, unconventional thinkers on a matter that has suddenly become important to me, so naturally I'm asking HN.

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?

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I wholeheartedly believe you are doing your children a disservice and setting them up for failure by homeschooling them. I'm sure you have your reasons and I'm sure you think they are good ones but I honestly can't believe it's what's best for them. If you want to work from home work from home there are a number of online resources/job boards to do this (WeWorkRemotely comes to mind) but don't homeschool. I honestly can't think of anything worse than being cooped up all day with a single parent and then not being able to go out because dad has to work in the hours he isn't teaching. Homeschooling is bad enough on it's own but further removing the ONLY parent from society? Dear god... I can count on 1 finger the homeschooled adults I know that are capable of non-awkward social interactions, don't do that to your kids. To be perfectly honest if I was a judge your spouse would have to be a real piece of work to give a stay-at-home homeschooling father with no current job custody.

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.

He responded to another comment which asked why he is homeschooling, if you're interested.

Ok regarding a poll of HN re:homeschooling here's a positive vote. I was homeschooled during my elementary years and I had a truly great experience. The issue with homeschooling is that it has high variance in outcomes. For some families homeschooling can really be a negative, kids won't be challenged or the parents might have an extremely narrow worldview they intend to foster in their children. There can absolutely be cases where kids become isolated to their detriment. However the benefits can be wonderful. Homeschooling gave me a chance to move at a much faster pace than traditional public schools could have offered. I was able to excel in very different areas (mathematics and art) I believe in a large part because I had total freedom to persue every field to the full extent of my abilities. Also the question of "socialization" is one that I find is somewhat out of date with the way many families homeschool. I always took part in homeschool co-ops once a week and I had many friends who homeschooled. We went on tons of field trips to museums , parks and cultural events. Many places actually cater to homeschool groups visiting during the weekdays. For example I remember getting a behind the scenes personal tour at the local aquarium a and the ski hill nearby had weekday ski days for homeschool families. Also I find that some of the negative experiences some people had at a traditional school I didn't have to deal with at all. I know many people who were bullied for being nerdy introverted kids who actually enjoyed learning (I can't help but think that might have been me and I could have had far less confidence in myself as a result). Kids can be cruel and not all "socialization" is positive. As a final note I hear that "all the homeschoolers I know are hella awkward" objection all the time. It's classic selection bias. The homeschoolers who pass as socially "normal" don't get counted.

As a teacher who has worked with homeschooled children but not been homeschooled myself or been a homeschooling parent, I can assure you that you are grossly misjudging here with very little perspective.

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.

What you're describing sounds kind of awesome, but it's not "homeschooling." It needs a different term. And you're right, we don't know which OP is considering. But given that money will be tight...probably not the one that involves paying tutors.

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...

> What you're describing sounds kind of awesome, but it's not "homeschooling." It needs a different term.

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.

Once anyone starts homeschooling these days, they use the internet etc. and learn about resources, find out there are others around them… I would guess it's actually the tiny minority of homeschoolers who don't know about and have some involvement in these sorts of co-teaching, co-op, special tutor, etc.

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.

I think if you were to poll people (on HN or elsewhere) you would get a similar response re: homeschooling.

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

You probably don’t know the backgrounds of the people around you. Homeschooled adults are about 3% of the population, test at parity or above, attend college and don’t have an unusual unemployment rate. At some point that starts to look like normal.

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!

One other important thing to consider is that the Wisconsin public school system has been gutted by Scott Walker, so unless you're in a particularly great district, there might not be great resources for students, and there will probably be large class sizes.

As another anecdote in favor of homeschooling, as a kid I was homeschooled in a small town in north Idaho and I believe I've escaped all the stereotypes of the awkward homeschooled adult. Quite the contrary, I'm a very successful app developer. And even though I work remotely I have a great social circle.

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.

How many homeschooled adults do you know? As a successful homeschooled adult who knows a considerable number of other successful homeschooled adults, I have to respectfully disagree with your conclusions.

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.

Start here - https://weworkremotely.com/ and inquire about off-hour work. Also look at companies on European hours. While letting those "soak" - Next, Wisconsin is makes it hard - but.... Find all the python and .Net meetups in the state, go. Maybe tell your wife you've been thinking about a position and want to network. If that's not do-able, cold email the meetup organizers for .NET/Python in the area and keep circling out until you get some good leads. On the other side - really plan with your attorney the situation of custody. I know a buddy who has no income, and was divorced (initiated by him) and he could have had full custody, but they chose 50%. Remember the courts generally choose, the mother - so bust a$$ to cover every angle she could attack and strengthen it.

Excellent idea on the meetups and such — I have a good excuse to do that right now, and I will act on it. I'll check into that site, as well.

Look, I don't know your whole situation, so I don't want to be judgemental. But the thing that really stands out for me is that I think you're being overly optimistic about the number of productive hours you'll actually have per day for all of this.

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.

What makes you believe your children would benefit more from being home-schooled by their father than from going to school like ordinary youngsters?

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?

I was trying to keep focused on the question rather than my personal feelings; of course it's about the kids. But I didn't think everyone on HN needed to hear about my feelings.

You're reticent to speak on some topics, which is your right, and I won't prod you about the reason you want to do things a certain way. I'd love to know why you want to keep homeschooling your kids and working four hours a day, but that's your business, not mine - and you've made your parameters clear.

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.

Okay, I was trying to have a discussion on the logistics of raising our children the way we agree is best without defending that way — but I understand; we're humans, and humans want to dig deeper. So here goes:

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.

Sorry to prod further, but I feel a lot of us are thinking the same question. How do you plan to provide an active social life to your children where they can grow up to confidently socialize among friends and strangers in their daily lives?

Sorry. I was trying to give you advice without explicitly prying.

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?

Reach out to former coworkers/managers/employers, see if they need any consulting work.

If 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.

Thanks for the shout out.

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.

I'll check it out and get in touch if it looks like a good fit. Thanks!

Stretching 4 hours might be easier than you think. In my experience I do only about 4-6 hours of focused work per day anyway, during my 7.5 hour work day.

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).

>A good first step is ridding yourself of a car

in Wisconsin with 3 kids?

Others mentioned this already, but look into home-school co-ops and other networks. If you're lucky, you'll find a situation where you can teach programming and/or music and have someone else with other expertise teach your kids (these can be in larger classes that meet at some community space or different homes). Although the teaching will take some extra energy, the times that the kid(s) are with other teachers are times you can do other things, and that sort of networking will get you more support network, leads to income sources, and help your kids get socialized more etc.

Just one thought. I don't have much suggestions about best income options for you.

I would try to line-up several maintenance gigs using Python. There are probably lots of people out there who want low-volume/occasional updates to their site - who don't want a FT developer. This would allow you diversify your clientele and not stress over a high-demand gig, since it sounds like you have your hands pretty full.

Out of curiosity: why homeschooling?

We've found it effective, and it's good to have a chance to spend more time raising the kids. At this point, it's also because since things are being upset already, I hate to do more to unsettle their lives than we already are.

(Without knowing any circumstances obviously)

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. :)

Not sure if it applies in your case, but you didn't mention alimony/child support, so I'm just saying it in case you didn't think of it. If your spouse has been the primary earner while you stay home, then you may be able to get alimony, and additionally child support if you keep custody of the kids.

We were homeschooling our kids when my ex-wife and I got divorced. Just due to the negative tone in this thread I don’t want to start a flame war. Email is in my profile if you want to reach out. I am happy to share in any amount of detail you wish to hear.

Next time, leave out the detail that you are homeschooling. You could have given your time constraints without stating why.

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

First, I'm sorry that you're going through this. I've never been divorced, but I sure remember my parents' divorce. So, I'll give you my perspective as a child of divorce.

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.

I'm a work from home dad (100% remote full-time developer) with a 3 year old. I was home-schooled myself, so your situation is not entirely foreign to me. As you can imagine, you will find this incredibly difficult. You might be able to pull it off. But if you're looking at 4, 5, 6 or more years of that...you'll probably end up needing medication and/or therapy. I'm not even kidding. Even if not, you'll run the risk of being thoroughly miserable and regretting everything. My mother gave up 9 years of her life to home school my brother and me. She was miserable for much of that time, and that was with one less kid and one less job than you. I know that's anecdotal, but it's also kind of obvious.

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."

Full time remote here divorced 2 yrs. Also in Wisconsin. I share 50% full time custody of my 3yr & 7yr old. This is very solid advice. OP - be very skeptical of anything coming from people who don't have young children around. Even those who did, seem to forget how taxing it is. You may reason that the time that you don't have them is "free". It is not. You will need most of it just to properly care for yourself, the household and to recover. Happy to talk more. Feel free to pm me.

P.S. I'm using a throwaway account here for obvious reasons.

Take a look at https://www.skipthedrive.com. Lots of coding opportunities for remote workers.

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