#18 - Cecilie & Jesper Conrad | Katrina Bieler Asks Us Anything: Embracing Radical Parenting and Unschooling: A Journey of Trust and Empowerment

AUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Transcript of Self Directed Episode 18

E18 - Ask Us Anything: Embracing Radical Parenting and Unschooling: A Journey of Trust and Empowerment

Please note: This transcript is autogenerated by AI voice recognition - so there will probably be some transcription errors along the way 🙂

Jesper Conrad: Okay, so today we want to welcome Katrina Beeler and kind of also our self, because often what happens with this podcast is we want to speak a lot with the people we have on, but the reason we have Katrina on is that she wrote back to us after a podcast interview, one of the episodes, and said oh, I have so many questions And we have gotten some feedback also that people they are like, but who are you guys? Can you tell a little more about yourself? And that's why we wanted to do this kind of both here about your life, Katrina, of course, but also giving you the opportunity to ask all the questions you want. 

Katrina Bieler: Okay, thank you. I was so delighted when I wrote and the answer came back right away like yes, let's try it. And yeah, and I wrote in a moment after I had listened to a podcast. It was this had happened to me several times that after I listened I was so full of joy And I just I would turn off the podcast and just keep doing my work that I need to do. But just with this joy bubbling up in me And when I was writing out like all my questions and thoughts, i realized I was like you know, when you discover something beautiful or something that brings us joy, like you just can't help but say like where does this come from? Who are these people? And so finally, after one like episode, i just came handle I have to write back. I subscribed to your newsletter and I just, you know, reply to the newsletter saying please let me ask you all my questions. 

Jesper Conrad: So here we are. How should we start? 

Katrina Bieler: Well, i mean, i thought I thought it makes sense to start at the beginning. So you, i've heard, you know, in the podcast, i've heard that you were living sort of a typical life, that Cecile had decided to stay at home with the children And in my experience that's already kind of a radical decision that you're not going to go to work, so. But then I would you know, when I lived in Switzerland, the idea of homeschooling was sort of like you were saying I'm not going to participate in the common culture anymore, i'm going to, like, remove my child from this common life And I think one. I think that what I've heard in you, the common life, is very important actually, like you really believe in common, a common good, and and it is. I would just want to know, like, where did the idea come from And what did it mean for you to begin this? 

Cecilie Conrad: The idea of homeschooling or or staying at home before school with the children. I think we should. 

Katrina Bieler: I think you could do start it with staying at home. 

Cecilie Conrad: We just started with staying at home, so actually beginning the beginning there was light, there was light. 

Cecilie Conrad: It was the word Okay, no. So I had a beginning that starts before he has the beginning, because I had my first child on my own And then he entered the scene when she was five And soon enough we had some kids together. So my beginning was already kind of radical because I chose to have a child on my own when I was young. Most, most people would have had an abortion in my situation, but that was that was not really on my horizon, That's not what I wanted. So I was radical in becoming a mother, you could say, and I had to fight against all sorts of prejudice on what's it like and why would I be a single mother when I was in my early 20s and would I ever finish my education? It could be a good life, these things. So I already, but I think I've always been a little bit weird or not Untainable, but not really adapted very well. 

Cecilie Conrad: My parents I have four parents because my biological parents divorced when I was very young and remarried the right one fairly quickly. So I grew up with four parents to home And they all said that I was the one. They just couldn't, they just couldn't, they couldn't teach me or what is that called Like what's up power in English. They couldn't tell me what to do, they couldn't correct me, they couldn't control me, they couldn't. I just wouldn't, i would do my own thing. 

Cecilie Conrad: So I think I have it kind of in my spirit somehow, But I was not as strong as I would have liked to be. When I look back, I was just 48 yesterday and I've been a mother now half of my life. My oldest daughter is 24 and I would have loved to be much more radical and much stronger. I was really severely influenced by what was going on around me, especially the first child. I was all alone and pushed from every everybody had an opinion and I really had to stand on my feet And then it was a challenge to to be honest, it was a challenge to let him in on it. 

Jesper Conrad: Of course. 

Cecilie Conrad: Because he was. I was already quite radical and my mother was a wild hippie and I, you know, i was used to people doing other stuff than mainstream. But my husband is more of a nice guy, yeah. 

Jesper Conrad: He's such a nice guy. 

Cecilie Conrad: So that was, that was that And we had to. I had to like, feel, I felt I walked back some steps and had to negotiate basic things I thought was basic things, but they were quite radical and his from his point of view. And when we had children together, I had to acknowledge that there are two parents now and I can't decide. That was well. We made it work and we both evolved And then, after child number two we had together, which is my child three, He adopted the first one, So it's our child three. I had a severe cancer and that was a game changer. Yeah, I became very radical. 

Jesper Conrad: But also the reality of the cancer is the leukemia Cecilia had. she was more or less on hospital for for half a year And I was back home alone with three children, where the youngest was taken away from the breast. 

Cecilie Conrad: Yeah, literally when I was hospitalizing. 

Jesper Conrad: And so so, and before that we had kind of lined out Oh, cecilia has a fancy education as a psychologist and she had some good ideas with stuff she wanted to make a PhD about, and we were more down to the old classical line our, except our, yeah, yeah. But our oldest daughters were in a free school and the kids were in a world of institution and already a little there And then in the start we tried the start after the cancer. 

Jesper Conrad: I still took the kids to the institutions because Cecilia was severely she was very sick, but then the strongest God, it just felt very, very weird to remove the most precious you had, the things you had been afraid to lose in your life, drive them away from you for six or eight hours when you have been around to lose them. That point. 

Cecilie Conrad: To be honest, we didn't know for how long. I would survive, so it didn't really make any sense. So as soon as I gained some energy, we decided to take them out of. so that is child two and three, took them out of kindergarten, nursery and started the home based life because we thought whatever hours they can have with their mother is precious, and we didn't know if I would be around next year. So that was, that was our starting point. 

Jesper Conrad: And was that the year Storm didn't want to go to school? I think it was the same year. 

Cecilie Conrad: Then I was pregnant with number four fairly quickly after that. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, I was pregnant all that, it's amazing that you got pregnant so quickly. 

Cecilie Conrad: Yeah, yeah, it was amazing, but it was hard, Obviously grateful. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah. 

Cecilie Conrad: Well, but it was very hard to go straight from chemotherapy to pregnancy Also. 

Katrina Bieler: I was not that young, i was 37, something like that Okay. 

Cecilie Conrad: And it was yeah, anyway, i'm happy I had him obviously. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah. 

Cecilie Conrad: And so I had a year hoping that the disease wouldn't come back, being pregnant and at home with two children, and you were still working. 

Jesper Conrad: I was still working full time. No. 

Cecilie Conrad: I'm so intense. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah, yeah it was, It was right after the. 

Katrina Bieler: I want to say something about what you said. That that moment, like that suffering, this possibility of death, it made you realize that your children were the thing that you most feared losing. And this is something I ponder a lot, because you give birth to a child and you look at that child and you think where did all this goodness come from? And I remember when I looked at my first child, i just thought you're so good. And I had this moment when I realized that I would never be able to love the goodness as good as it was. Like that I would fail. 

Katrina Bieler: It wasn't like I wanted to fail, i just knew like it's impossible for me to be so true to the goodness that's in this child. And then I realized like, and the world will fail her and she will fail, like she won't be as good as she Do you know what I mean. Like we just fail ourselves too. And it wasn't like an accusation against anything. It was just this moment when I saw like this gift is so much more than myself, my husband or anyone can respond to adequately. And then, of course, that's true, i fail a lot too. 

Katrina Bieler: No, no, no but then we also need to remember we are that gift as well, for someone else And, Well, it was like it also helped me realize too, Like I have this goodness in me And but and I think for me the point was not so much I'm going to fail, but like it is amazing that there's something so good that comes into the world, And like that's really for me what dominates is not the failure. I think that the recognition that I fail all the time was sort of just highlighted. The mystery of all this goodness comes, But I, I like sometimes I want to like shout at parents, like remember this goodness, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Well that's a whole other story. 

Katrina Bieler: to stop yourself trying to change how other people behave around your children, for sure, but I guess what I want to say is I think that it is such a gift to like have seen it and not just passed it by quickly, but like to have had the opportunity to make a judgment that this good is the most precious good, or one of the most precious goods, like this good is worth, like changing my whole life, or So I didn't feel as such changed my whole life. 

Cecilie Conrad: I think we already had the same values. I just became more radical. I already felt that my job as a mother was going to be the most important job I'd ever had in my life. I knew that. I remember talking to my grandmother about it before I fell sick. I just knew this is the thing And I actually tried to negotiate a home-based life with my husband before I fell sick, but he didn't agree with the idea. 

Jesper Conrad: I'm afraid I couldn't. 

Cecilie Conrad: I'm afraid he couldn't provide. And he was filled And it was a lot of things. It came from love. But we ended with the compromise that the kids would go away for like four or five hours every day And I would try something with my brain. In all honesty, i did the laundry, basically, yeah. 

Katrina Bieler: I just tried to stay on top of it, given mother of several children a few hours a day. 

Cecilie Conrad: It's basic stuff. You'll have a shower and do the laundry, empty the dishwasher, go shopping, prepare the food. It's also very difficult. 

Katrina Bieler: I mean the idea that you can switch on your brain. I mean I was doing PhD work also when I got married And then I stopped after having children. Because this idea that you can just turn your brain on and do this work and then turn it off and go back to life, no, i can't. 

Jesper Conrad: But I want to reflect on the thing you said about the goodness. It reminds me of a thing we talk about as bird right, which is that when a child comes into the world it is loved just by being. It is there and that is enough. And then it is fun how people feel they lose that right later in life, That the presence of just being a human being in the world is not good enough. You need to accomplish something to have a value. 

Cecilie Conrad: I'll tell you why It happens. It's the schools, it's the school system, it's the idea of the curriculum, it's the idea of the grading, it's the testing. The child is living a life basically doing something someone else decided they're supposed to do, someone else decided it's important, someone else decided it makes sense. And if you ask them why, from a child's point of view, they can't answer that question anymore. You know, yeah. 

Katrina Bieler: My daughter. 

Cecilie Conrad: What they say is just BS. There's no reality in it, and yet this is what the child does for many hours every day. And everyone around them will be impressed if they do good and disappointed if they don't and ask them to do better And they will evaluate the child based on the accomplishments on these parameters. 

Cecilie Conrad: Maybe there could be a family where you have some art going on And then there's that on top of it, but it's the same dynamic. The child will do a drawing And then mom and dad will say it's a good drawing. Oh so my worth is because I made a good drawing. What if my drawing was ugly? Would they still love me? Yeah, And this dynamic is very very very bad for children. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, i think the dynamic part of the problem is it's the dynamic is intergenerational. Like I went to school, i left very much at this idea that I needed to earn as many gold stars as possible. And then, yeah, and I still sometimes find myself trying to earn the gold star, or we're just even thinking, well, if I just get my house clean, then I'll be good And the kids will be good. 

Jesper Conrad: And we'll all be good. 

Katrina Bieler: And I reduce us all the time to something that could never compare to the goodness that I saw in them in that moment when I was. where did you come from? You're more than I could have made you Yeah. 

Jesper Conrad: And it's along the same line we talked about. Cecilia has recently written a blog post about behave The word behave And because people think that they see unschooled children And it's like, oh, they behave so well And it's a weird word because they do not behave, they do not act, they are just there. 

Katrina Bieler: Themselves. 

Jesper Conrad: And we talked about the word, as it is much more beautiful to look at a child and say, oh, that person has his or her's own being in a good way. They're there And they know who they are And they relax in it. 

Cecilie Conrad: We haven't in the language. I think we could say they carry themselves in a nice way. But we don't say that about children. We say they were behaved, and if you would say that to an adult, they would be offended. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, yeah. 

Cecilie Conrad: That's true In. 

Katrina Bieler: English. We have that also. You could say someone's very gracious, And that's a beautiful compliment. 

Cecilie Conrad: That's better. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, like this gracious way of being in the world. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah. But to go back to the whole homeschooling, unschooling. So what happened was that two or three houses down the road we lived, there was a wonderful woman who became friends because we had children the same age, And Cecilia and her hang out a lot And she wanted to homeschool And her start was actually because her son has such severe allergies. She was the one who lived, She was the one who opened the door for us where it was. Is there even a thing called homeschooling? Because if you're not in that world, it's. If you don't know, it's out there, people don't know. It's an option, Which is also the reason we are doing our podcast is to let people know hey, you can do whatever you want out there, But you need to know there is an option of choosing not to school, of just living your life. 

Jesper Conrad: And the thing that happened was that I very much wanted Storm to go into the same school, the free school, that our oldest daughter was in, And he just kept saying to us that he didn't want to. And he said your mom and dad, how many times do I need to tell you? I really don't think this school thing is something for me. It might be OK for the others. But it's not right for me And I believe he is very true in seeing that. But it took me time. Back then And I will tell it to my wife I was the one trying to press. You know, also with the private school I was like what Private school? that's kind of snubbous. I went to a public school. That was good enough for me. Why should I try to go there? And then, when he didn't want to go to school, I was like let's try to force him. And then it just became very much a clear sign from the universe that the weekend where he should start in school on the Monday, we was on to That's so weird. 

Jesper Conrad: You can. My wife will tell it better then. 

Cecilie Conrad: So you pressured me, So I was totally on board with the homeschooling. But I knew that if my husband disagreed it would be a nightmare. So I thought I'd have to do whatever he asks me to do And then hopefully we'll end up homeschooling. And so we started And I said my. So his veto was the kid has to at least try, And my veto was I'm not going to leave him there unless he tells me it's OK. So, and for some reason I was the one to take him there. 

Jesper Conrad: I went to work. 

Cecilie Conrad: No, you didn't. 

Jesper Conrad: At that period. 

Cecilie Conrad: You maternally because I had the cancer season with the baby, so you were just maybe I was just lazy Yeah. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah. 

Cecilie Conrad: Anyway, i went with the child three times a week, tuesday, wednesday, thursday morning, for as long as he could handle it, for as long as he would be fairly comfortable. He's a very, very nice child, very, he wants to cooperate and it was very important for his father that he tried. So he tried And he kept saying I don't think it's for me, it's not going to work for me. All the other kids might enjoy it, i'm not going to be compatible with the schooling And this was a radical free school, it's nothing. And he felt this is not for me. So I did that. I went three times a week with my son. I went back and showed up at nine and left at eleven. So anyway, after three weeks a teacher sat me down, had a conversation with me a really annoying conversation, told me things about attachment And I'm a trained psychologist and I was like you know. 

Jesper Conrad: But they actually said we think he's too attached to you. 

Cecilie Conrad: There is no such thing as too much attachment. but he obviously didn't know, and it was not about attachment. We have a healthy relation and there is nothing wrong with that. What was wrong from the perspective of the school was that we respect our child. So and he sat me down and he said all these things And I was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. And but what he also said was, if this is going to work, i think the father should show up with the child. And I thought, huh, that's a good idea, especially because it's the father who will want this thing and might see how horrible it is for our child. Compatible with school. because he's right, he knows himself very well. And so this was a Thursday afternoon. when I came back, i told my husband you're going to be the one to go on Tuesday. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah, what we did, was we actually did you feel that? no, no, i as every other normal parent, you as a dad, since it's still oh, can we do this? So what I was doing was I said OK, let's try it out for three months, and then, after a week or two, it just felt, it felt more natural, it felt right. 

Cecilie Conrad: You said at the funeral, after the funeral, when we drove back, you said while we're forcing our child to do this thing that he clearly doesn't want to do, life is precious. Every moment is precious. We do respect our children's own opinion and their right to own their own hours. I don't know why we're doing this. And I said I don't either. And you said OK, let's do it, let's homeschool, but let's do it for three months and see how it goes. And you said I had to teach him how to read and write. 

Katrina Bieler: And I had to teach him math and all these things And so I was the same one who said I'm not going to learn to read. 

Jesper Conrad: Yes, yeah, because you pressed at him. 

Katrina Bieler: That was the same one. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah, it's the same, and he'd already said it at that point. 

Cecilie Conrad: Yeah, so I sat down and tried to teach him how to read and write and do math And, to be honest, i cheated. I didn't do it Home. My husband, i did it, but I didn't. I wanted to do it because I want. If we have a negotiation and we agree on something, obviously I want to do it. I'm not like, not, not, not nice, or how can I say that I wanted to do it but it didn't make any sense. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, Yeah, well, this is, this is something that like. So I started out when Switzerland we sent our daughter to the morning kindergarten when she was four and she loved it and she loved being there And it was right next door to the house And and I sort of missed her terribly, like it felt so strange to send her away at four. And then we moved to the states and I knew in the states I would homeschool And I think partly it was because I was in my own place and I knew, you know, in Switzerland I was like a baby when I moved there I had to learn how to be in that country all over again. And But moving back here I was like no, i, we're not going to do the school. And I knew the school would be seven, eight hours a day to here. There was no sense of like no lunch breaks. You know, that's just, it's grueling And so. 

Katrina Bieler: But I started out thinking like I must teach them how to read, i must teach them math. And then like all my morning is just math and reading with children who are not really hungry for this. And then, and then you know, i know a lot of homeschooling families here And it just seems like there's. The mom takes on all this pressure to keep the house clean, provide the meals, educate the children, like it's so much pressure And it's not. And the thing that I think that makes the pressure the worst is that you're not looking at your child's needs. All these like it's, like all the extraneous things, like you ought to do it this way. 

Cecilie Conrad: And you have to take off your box and say everything has to be perfect and you're in charge, and all this. 

Jesper Conrad: I think, anxiety, some of it, because we all just also started out with some of the crutches like, okay, we tried to buy some mad books and different things, and it's the same. when am I good enough? When is? 

Katrina Bieler: what we have got. When have we done enough? When have we like proven? 

Jesper Conrad: that we're doing it well, and it comes from different things, i believe. One of them is a general anxiety of what would other people think, and the other is that we don't have a lot of us don't have a measuring system, we don't have a lot of people to talk with it about when we homeschool or unschool, where we can understand this is okay. It's okay just to live your life. Nobody needs to learn the same thing in the same page. People are different. 

Jesper Conrad: It is okay, and I recently quit my full-time job, a year ago and I remember how it was for me to reinvent myself And I still had even though we live very alternative. I had this when am I good enough? When is it okay that I just enjoy a day in the sun with friends? Is that okay? Do I need to do something? Yeah, i think that is something that the de-schooling process is so important for the parents that they understand how they can free themselves of this system that was incorporated into them through kindergarten, garden school and the whole idea of how you need to go to work, and both people need to go to work for you to be a productive human being. 

Cecilie Conrad: And your success if you look great and it's fairly skinny, have a big house, two cars, kids at some fancy school and all of these accomplishments. Maybe some people in that situation are very happy. I'm not. Maybe they are, but I don't think we all have the same path And I think that's striving for the same thing and trying to create something that looks like that is not authentic, and I think it's very important that we get to a point where we, as parents, can remove ourselves from the idea that how my house looks and how my children's accomplishments is which falls back on me. It's not when I set my children free and let them do their thing, i can't. 

Cecilie Conrad: So we have our oldest daughter, now 24, she's coming out with her third book. She's a published writer, which is a fairly impressive accomplishment, and people say, oh, you must be so proud, and I'm not so proud would be as if I did it. But I didn't do it. I didn't write those books, i didn't write. She's been writing for all those years And I just cook the pasta. I think she owns that And I tried. 

Katrina Bieler: I'm happy for her, obviously, but I'm not Well it's like just saying if she had yeah, i mean, it's funny because you know who she is and you love her And like and I guess this is like to say that like, her accomplishment is the thing that like makes you proud versus who she is as a person. And had she chosen a life of I don't know, a totally hidden life that had no outward accomplishments, wouldn't change who she is. 

Jesper Conrad: No, no, no, no, no, And that's what you love and know right, That's what. 

Katrina Bieler: That's really what. 

Jesper Conrad: What makes me proud with her specifically is that she had found something she does that make her happy, and that she had found she has found love and she can take care of herself financially. That makes me proud. What she produces is not the essential in that sentences. 

Cecilie Conrad: But do you feel proud in the way that you feel, this is your doing? 

Jesper Conrad: I you know. Then you can say relax, satisfied, very and proud that we have helped succeed. This is what we want. Yeah, I get that. 

Cecilie Conrad: But I'm just saying with the traditional you described before, with the mothers. they try to have the perfect house and do the perfect homeschooling, and have the perfect life and do the perfect yoga and do the perfect perfect, everything at the same time, and it's a huge pressure to try to be one of those mothers. I don't know how they I don't know. I think my eyebrows would be like back here. 

Cecilie Conrad: I think what I'm trying to, and I want to try to put something in between there and say this is not necessary, we don't have to take that role. In that way, we don't get to live. Actually, we don't get to live If we're all the time taking boxes to make this perfection going on. We don't get to chill and to unfold what's going on inside ourselves. We will keep running around trying to make everything external look perfect or seem perfect, or tick all the boxes. I did all the math, but did you kind of enjoy it? 

Jesper Conrad: Did math make any? 

Cecilie Conrad: sense to you And did you? the mother, enjoy it? If you enjoy homeschooling and the kids enjoy participating and it's all voluntary and happy, then there's nothing wrong with it. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, there's two things that you brought up that I want to ask about. I'll share a little bit about my own thinking in the last couple of weeks. So I've been listening to a lot about unschooling and thinking about unschooling, and there was a part of me that wanted to like I wanted to think through every dimension or every objection and be like, okay, i've thought it all through and now I know I'm gonna make the right decision here. And then I was actually I was just praying. I wasn't really praying about it necessarily, but I was praying and I also realized, like this is giving me so much joy And this is a way of like being with my children. That means I'm trusting, i trust that they're good, i trust that learning is not something I have to like pound into them, but that learning just means I love the way you say it, like we're just living life. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, like you see something beautiful, you pursue it because you want to be with something beautiful. You see something good and you want to embrace it, like, and I was like this is just how I want to live, and I don't know all the answers to everyone's objections And they're not all my objections. I don't know the answers to it but, like once, i realized it's a response. I'm responding to something greater than me, more beautiful than me. It was just peace, because it was like you know, i can respond and I don't have to be the one, and it was so. Yeah, i wondered. I want to know about if this is true for you too, that this, that like something that changes it, that lets a lot of life in, instead of the like I will produce a life. I'm actually responding to a life. I feel like a servant. Yeah, yeah, and I can, i can. That resonates. 

Cecilie Conrad: Not just to my children, but to whatever God you might believe in put us here or some people call it coincidence, i don't, But I feel that I always felt this, even before I became a mother that I'm not here to understand the plan or the system or the strategy of this life. That's not my job. To understand it. My job is to understand or to find the next step. I'm just a part of the whole machine And I play a part and I don't know that part And I'm actually happy. I don't know. I don't want to know how it ends. I want to live it And I think that's why we're here, so I'm happy to pummel my way through life, i know that I never understand what's going on. 

Jesper Conrad: to be honest, And I just follow my wife. 

Cecilie Conrad: I don't want to put that out as a quote on Instagram, so no, but actually I don't. I have to feel my way, i have to find my way, i have to try, i have to make mistakes. You said that thing about failure in the beginning. I don't, it doesn't really resonate with me because I don't see this failure. I think when we know what we don't want, we will find out what we do want, and we have to like kind of hit the walls while trying to find the path. And I know that it always happens after the fact that I get what I do, you see it. 

Cecilie Conrad: Strong intuition and sometimes I make huge mistakes, and I think it's part of the journey to just make some mistakes, and we spend a lot of time talking, evaluating what's going on. How did we feel? What do we want to adjust with all of us, not just the two of us, but also with the children, and I think that whole navigation system is beautiful. It's making the essence of life. But you want to say something. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah, yeah, just add on that The times we have been in doubt. now let me start here. Today we know ourselves and have talked so much about our values that walking in life have become a lot easier. But earlier we sometimes could stand in a situation and think, what are we going to do here? And then we, for a period to align ourselves, or whatever you would call it, had figured out what are our values in life, what are the top five things we find valuable, and then, when we got a little weirded out by what is right to do right now, then we looked at our values, for what is it that is important for us? And it's inspired by that. I worked for many years together with Janet Edward, who is an American self-taught, written a book about the passion system, helping people find their passion and stuff like that Fantastic woman. but we used inspired by her, we figured out where are we, what are our values, and now it's integrated that we know what is valuable for us. 

Cecilie Conrad: Now also after we've been homeschooling for I think 12 maybe years or something like that. Our kids are pretty smart. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah. 

Katrina Bieler: So, you've seen the growth. You've seen the growth. 

Cecilie Conrad: They will sometimes say what are we doing? This is wrong. And then they have some great analysis and they'll think, listen, we have to adjust this and that and go this way. 

Jesper Conrad: And I'm like, yeah, you're right And I have something to add to that, which is true more than now. It's more than 10 years ago we didn't send our son to school. We have peeled layer of layer of of what the outside world kind of thought we should do, but that is internalized in many people that they have an idea about, oh, i need to do this, but they don't ask themselves why And they don't often see it's. Oh, it's because this is what I think society wants of me. This is what I think my coworkers or parents want of me. 

Jesper Conrad: So, as we have living, been living outside the box for so many years, there is not a lot of it left. It's still there. 

Cecilie Conrad: I think it's very profound actually. So yeah, not what I don't. I never really gave a what everybody else thinks, but I struggle with what I think. That's worse, that I just not be comfortable with whatever, and I really have to. I was schooled for 23 years, straight from six to something. I was on the third, when I quit university, and it was I don't know, it's really hard to, it was really hard for me to stop because it was then what There's no curriculum Is. 

Katrina Bieler: there's nothing, i am supposed to do in the next three months. 

Cecilie Conrad: Then what am I doing in life? I had to cope with that, but then not asking my children to do the same thing has been really a challenge. I knew it was the right thing, but actually not doing it and keep going in not doing it And handling that. My first homeschool child refused to learn to read, which is just such a milestone. Like at least we just read, but he refused to read and he was very old before he read, and now you will never see him without a book And it's yeah, it's flipped over but it doesn't matter. It was very hard for me in the beginning. I really had my black moments, but I learned fairly quickly I hope fast enough to just talk to the kids about it. I would tell them now I have one of my black days. You're gonna have to help me, i think, all these years. 

Katrina Bieler: Tell me about that, because this comes out of me too sometimes. At the beginning of the year, my son wanted to play violin. Now he says I don't want to do violin anymore. And I see he has an aptitude for it. I see he's like it's possible for him, but he doesn't want to do it. And there's a part of me that wants to say like, well, let's try it for this many more months, or try playing these songs, or like and yeah, there's, i get in the way. And then I see that a party wants to say, no, let him choose his life. And then I say, no, let me help him choose the best life. And I know I That's a slippery slope. 

Jesper Conrad: Do any of you play the violin? 

Katrina Bieler: To get through a black day or to talk to your kids about it. tell me about that, Yeah. 

Cecilie Conrad: Let's start because I talk a lot. Do you have any black days? 

Jesper Conrad: The black days. sometimes it's really good to eat some chocolate. No, no, seriously, Eat some chocolate. 

Jesper Conrad: Have a glass of wine. Have a glass of wine, whatever It gives you the relaxed shoulders. Talk with some friends. There will always be black days. There will be days where we question oh, have we done it good? How is it going with this time? compared to this time? La vie, ooh, did we ruin everything? But that's where it's a good day to be co-parenting two parents together, which we are. 

Jesper Conrad: In all honestly, i did less of the parenting due to me being away eight to 10 hours a day earlier in our life, and even though we have been full-time traveling, i was at home but I still did less of the parenting because I was in front of the computer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course I still do less parenting than Cecilia, but the amount of parenting I do have grown over time, and the last five years I've been there even in the room, because we lived in a bus for a lot of the time. So I've been present, but the test at the same time. So where I want to reach is to say that if both parents are at home, it's much easier to step in and take over. When the other one has a day with less energy, it is much easier for me to say hey, cecilia, maybe you're not there right now and she could control herself. Or the other way around If I lost my temper, cecilia could stop me. So the value of being more than one parent is so enormously important. 

Cecilie Conrad: I think It's been great yeah. It's been really great for both of us, because I lose it sometimes, sometimes it's not there, but now you talk about when you kind of lose your temper. 

Jesper Conrad: No, but it's the same as having a black day, You can see. Ok, now it's today. I need to step up. 

Cecilie Conrad: Because the doubt sometimes will just eat you alive. 

Jesper Conrad: But we have been very lucky. Maybe it's not luck, but I seldom see that we have lost our faith in our own parenting skills on the same day, and maybe it's just natural. In a good relationship You're like, oh, now he's down, i step up And then the day after it can be reversed. So I think that is a big joy of the location-independent work that has become more and more possible. Or there is kind of something wrong with this one family, one house, sitting alone behind the clothes stores. 

Cecilie Conrad: That makes parenting more difficult And talking to other homeschooling mothers can also be hard, especially for these strict Instagram mothers. It can be very hard to be an unschooling KF's mom. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Cecilie Conrad: I can't. I'm not showing up with little nice boxes with food that is decorated and I don't know, white shirts and sharp knives and everything To a homeschool meetup. I'm totally chaotic, walking backwards, can't find a place, too late, everything is you know, and I forgot food and or I brought too much and I can't carry it or whatever. No, and I find it really hard Like for me it's always a risk, if I show up at homeschool meeting, that I could meet one of these mothers. 

Cecilie Conrad: That would put me completely off Where I just feel totally underwhelmed by my own accomplishments And it becomes accomplishments and I feel off and I feel that I'm wrong and I compare and I kind of die and it's not very nice, But if you can find someone to talk to other homes unschoolers And just in honesty. 

Cecilie Conrad: That is the second best thing to do. The best thing to do is to talk to the children. That's been my thing. I always said that the trust we have in each other is the most important thing we have after love. We need to trust each other And in order to trust each other, we have to be true. We have to be authentic. We can't pretend, and I have no secrets for my children or my husband. I tell them how I feel, and sometimes it's not appropriate, sometimes it's really annoying for them and would have been nice enough to know, but I tell them where I am with things and how I feel about them. 

Katrina Bieler: In my experience, not saying what you think or feel, it doesn't actually change that they have to deal with what you think or feel. It just makes it harder because you can't see it. It's like aggression, passive aggression. Put me in the face so I can respond. Don't undermine me. Slowly and quietly. 

Cecilie Conrad: Just let me know that you're really annoyed. 

Jesper Conrad: And children are so fine-tuned in understanding where their parents are in their emotional life. For example, we have had friends who went through a divorce where they decided to not tell it to the children in the start And it was just like that's weird, That's not fair against your children. You know my mom, Will you go through this? There's something wrong with mom and dad. And then they will blame themselves. Is it me? 

Katrina Bieler: That's the thing My mom always says children are excellent observers and terrible interpreters, so they see the problem and then they say it must be my fault. 

Jesper Conrad: I must. 

Katrina Bieler: And so it just really amplifies the problem. But so I wanted to ask two things about. I have three questions in mind. but, like, i've heard you talk on the podcast about having to like not having peers and really having to like go inside and sort of find the grounds to make your decisions from. Or you say, like we know our values now, but I think, like, even if you have people to talk to, you have to do this work. 

Katrina Bieler: Yes, I mean just a parent. Well, you have to go, and I find sometimes I feel a little bit like a crazy lady because I can't pick up a curriculum and run with it, like I'm constantly going back to like what's the truest position for us, what's the? in a sense, i have to constantly like, like, bathe in, like what I know to be true, what I know to be the most important things, so that I can make decisions for us, so that I can look at my kids with those eyes. And so I would love to hear about, yeah, how that was for you to like go do that work. And then the other thing that I want to ask about is should we take one question at the time? 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah. 

Jesper Conrad: Or are they combined? We? 

Cecilie Conrad: can try answers like shortly. 

Jesper Conrad: OK, can. the slow answer is super confronting. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, i mean, i love that you say that, because it's so beautiful to be with people like this, but that beauty does not mean easy, Oh no, no, no, no. 

Cecilie Conrad: We have to say it's not the easy choice. No no, some people think it's like really easy and you can just sit down and have coffee all the time And it's in watch TV and you're not really doing anything. 

Katrina Bieler: And unscrolling is not the easy choice, i'm sure it's the hardest is different than what we talked about before. When you have like a model in mind, like my kids are going to learn that in Greek And that is. 

Jesper Conrad: I call it educational crutches or even parental crutches. It is something you as a parent do to know that you have done right. 

Katrina Bieler: I guess my point is like those are very hard lives, like they're very hard lives, but the hardness of doing the work to like say what you feel, to look at your like, to like take off, you know, to say why is it that I want that crutch and then rip that away and really look at that brokenness or that fear or whatever it is That in the end like it's so hard but then it leads to more beauty, more delight, more joy. Not that the hardness ever like goes away because we're, we're always, but it's like the other hardness to me. It just left me alone and sad. 

Cecilie Conrad: Yeah, And in the long run you would have wasted a lot of life. You wouldn't actually have lived it because you would be this, this I don't know can controller machine thing that would kind of just get everything done in the right way. Yeah, and you wouldn't. you wouldn't get to actually live. 

Cecilie Conrad: Yeah, I feel about it And I think, yes, it's. It's complicated and it's confronting And I have to look at all my demons. And It's hard work as well, because with the unschooling point of view that we at least hold, we have the highest respect for our children And we we I don't even like the word children. It's like it connotes these negative ages and kind of ideas that they are less worthy or less whatever. I, i, i really truly believe that they are. You have as much right to be here and their opinion is as valuable and their choices are their choices to make And I can't. I can tell them my opinion, but I can't tell them what to do. And It's not easy but it's not exactly hard, are they not? now it's been more than 10 years and used to it. My children are very, our children are very, very. 

Cecilie Conrad: They carry themselves very nicely, carry themselves very well who they are, they know what they want, they know when they need help, they know when they want us to shut up and they will tell us. And I think in the long run it might be Slightly easier to be. But I just had, like I just had some onion layers peeled off myself this week And that was not easy. 

Jesper Conrad: And there is this about ageism, which I it's an era I keep repeating and I hope that I repeat it less and less, Maybe with the grandchildren. But it's very easy. It's just to ask yourself would I ever talk like that to another grown up person, Talk like that to my partner? And if you, you put that filter over how you talk to your children? 

Jesper Conrad: it is how you think about it. It is annoying. I mean even you know, just the normal Hey, put on a shirt, it's cold outside. Would Cecilien say that to me? I would be. I would be annoyed if she told talk to me like that. I can still from time to time to my children, but but it's very, very difficult because it is a way that has been imprinted in the way I've been raised And well, I do have a question in this. 

Katrina Bieler: I don't. I want to know what it means to me, how radical it means, because so, for example, I have, we eat our meals together in our home, And partly why, like I realized, there's some things that I that I believe are beautiful and human, like learning how to eat a meal together, like setting a. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't want to make it sound like I daily succeed in a beautiful table, but even just the simple thing of putting the sandwiches on a platter and then setting it out on the table. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, yeah, or I made the decision. We, when my husband's mother, he, she spent all their birthday money collecting silver spoons for them and forks. And then I, we had the silver and I thought, oh, it's silver, i shouldn't use it. And then I said, no, i'm not going to put it in the cabinet, we're going to use it every day, like you know. Like just deciding, like beautiful things should be in our life and we should learn how to be together in a beautiful way. So I mean, are there things that like, like things in your life that you're like? this is a? it's more human to eat together. Is that like or do? or is it sort of like we eat whenever we want, or is it both? It's both. 

Jesper Conrad: It's both. We had the experience in the start, when the kids were away and and and I was back at work, that for families families that lives apart then the meal is something where they need and combine and can talk about that day. That angering that the meal was is less important for us now, as we live together all the time, So we we don't have a need to be angered in the same sense. That said, we prefer to eat together, But that's also logistic. 

Cecilie Conrad: We know, it's not me. The logistics, no, no, but it's also. 

Jesper Conrad: It's also and it's nice to share a meal together and talk together. 

Katrina Bieler: I mean, in a sense it's very cynical to say it's just logistics. 

Jesper Conrad: No, no, no And. 

Katrina Bieler: I say it's also. 

Jesper Conrad: It's also when we live in the, when we we have this nice Mercedes van we traveled in. When we traveled in that one, we prefer to eat together because it's the van has to stop, the kitchen has to be, unpacked. We need to clean up right away. 

Cecilie Conrad: afterwards, stop having a sink, so it's very annoying if someone comes in 10 minutes later, but I think that. So, yes, it's logistics, but I think it's mainly it's mainly family values that we prefer to have a meal together. Our life is ever changing because we're no match. 

Cecilie Conrad: So it's very dependent on the context. As we have a context where many meals, it makes sense that we just do our own thing. Sometimes it just makes a lot of sense to have all the all. That would be two meals together every day. Breakfast is whenever, whenever people wake up. Do I force it, impose it on the children? I'm very radical. But a few things. I say this is a family thing and I want you to be present because I think it's precious that we as a group work very well together And we will not if we don't have these moments of togetherness. We also try to go for a really long walk at least once a week, all day, because this will. We will just all of the conversations will be finished. Yeah, everything will be. You know, we can get around all of the emotions and everything we've thought about and we enjoy doing it with other people, but I prefer that at least sometimes we do it just as five hours. 

Cecilie Conrad: And that's kind of mandatory as well. But I don't have to push my children. They enjoy it and they know how okay, maybe I don't feel like doing it today, but today is the day the van is parked next to a nice trail and I know that you know we are all happy if we do it, so I'll come along, even though I'd rather do something else today, and we separate between time where you can do your own thing and time where we try to be together all five of us. 

Katrina Bieler: I mean in my, in my own life. this was like something to learn that was precious was that there's a moment when there are moments when somebody proposes something to me that's more beautiful than what I want for myself. Like, and it was. it's been beautiful to learn to say yes to something that maybe at the surface I'm like I don't, i don't want to go to this picnic, but I'm going to say yes because I can objectively look and see there's something true here that's being proposed And it, so I can kind of get over my whatever it is and go. 

Cecilie Conrad: Yeah, but there might be some onion layers to peel off when we're comfortable with saying yes to what life has to offer. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, so yeah, that brings up this question that well, let me ask this first. 

Katrina Bieler: I have, you know, i've been talking about unschooling to people in like and first of all, i love what you say living life instead of unschooling because I think that that's really actually open and full and unschooling is maybe a little too negative. 

Katrina Bieler: But, and some other homeschooling moms I know who have a lot of children one has six and one has seven like unschooling it must be way more work. And what they sort of see is like my child's going to say I want to do paper mache and then I have to like organize the paper mache, and then another child's going to say I want to do this and then I have to organize this, and then the child's going to say I don't want to do that anymore And I have to like help them, like dig deeper and go longer, and so they see it as sort of like well, one I think they have. They still have this combination of like they want their children to succeed, and so if the child says I want to do paper mache, then they want them to like take paper mache to the end of the road. 

Cecilie Conrad: And make something really amazing Yeah like really be excellent at it. 

Katrina Bieler: And again in the course of this conversation I realized something about excellence that I don't really desire my children to be excellent for the sake of being excellent. I desire them to know truth and beauty and goodness and to really embrace those things, because I think if something is beautiful and you love it like excellence comes along with it, to the capacity you have it. 

Cecilie Conrad: Maybe excellence is not needed. 

Katrina Bieler: But I want to say something else. 

Cecilie Conrad: The workshops, these children, you imaginary children you talked about, seems like the mother thinks that she's the servant, that she's the one who has to like come up with the craft material and she does, yeah, yeah, let it all out and clean up after it, whereas we're organized From an unending point of view. I would say okay, how would you do that? I'd stay on the couch. I want to do paper my shit. Okay, just clean up after yourself. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah. 

Cecilie Conrad: I'm not going to. I want to learn to speak Japanese. Okay, go do it And I will tell them. do you need my help? But I'm not like I'm not in a library of options for setting up workshops and finding courses and I believe they can do that. They're very capable of doing it themselves. 

Katrina Bieler: And if they're? 

Cecilie Conrad: not. Well, then they can learn. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah, about the excellence, how we perceive what our children should do. As we've been talking about peeling off the layers of onion, i just was just sitting and thinking about how do I still approach other people. It's often that when you come and meet new people, you talk about all the superficial things, about What do you do for work, kind of stuff, dialogue And it's more difficult to it feels more difficult in a social setting with new people to just really talk about life and ask them how they are. You stay on this level of you know. 

Katrina Bieler: My father-in-law loves to say to people are you happy? 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah, yeah, i love that, and that's a really confronting question, yeah. And also sometimes I start with the normal, you know. So what do you do for work? Then I go over to so does it make you happy to work with this? What is it in it that you find fascinating, since you're working? And then we can have good conversations. But sometimes it is very easy to just myself. Even though I've been outside the box for many years, i fall into the trap of just talking about the no good nonsense. 

Katrina Bieler: Just do a call Yeah, it's okay, we have just loads of tips And also actually the house. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we should take care of it. Yeah, and I could continue, but, as we Did, you just third question. Yes. 

Katrina Bieler: I just had a question about. The thing that came in my mind was you know, the forgiveness Like I find that I just find that this is something really essential in my family is, Yeah, to ask for forgiveness from my children when I make mistakes And to let them know that I forgive them when they hurt me And I don't know. Yeah, forgiveness is a loaded word. No, no, no, I have a. 

Jesper Conrad: Me, me, me. Yes, i have a thing about it. I've been thinking about forgiveness and there is something egoistic in wanting to be forgiven. As I see it, when I want to be forgiven, what I actually sometimes want is to erase the wrongs I did. But they have been done. I cannot erase them by asking for forgiveness. So asking for forgiveness for me is something I do for myself. Where maybe I shouldn't ask for forgiveness, maybe I should just say you know what, i'm very sorry, and then do my inner work about being okay with having fucked up. 

Jesper Conrad: I have my With our grown up daughter. I had The way I'm a parent today, the way I'm a father today is way softer, less shouting. In many ways I am a better dad than I was for her, and what I've done is I've went and said to her you know what I would have wished I could have done better and I'm sorry I wasn't. But I do not ask her for forgiveness because that is something I can give my, it's something I need to give myself, because it is me who has to live with what I did And it's It's just me. Yes. 

Cecilie Conrad: Because exactly there I think my point is the most important. I think forgiveness is very rarely needed. I think understanding is what we need. If you understand something, you don't have to forgive it. You just know where it came from, you understand why it happened. And if the person who did it, that would be yourself? Yeah, yeah, yeah, understand, okay. 

Cecilie Conrad: I did this because I was here, i had this point of view, i had these kind of ideas made me do this. I was wrong And I understand now that I was wrong. Of course, you have to go and talk to the person you did wrong and explain, but maybe not too much, because all of the explaining is actually about you And it was the other person that was hurt. So I find it much better that I understand why I did what I did And I offer to the person I did wrong an explanation. I can say I did wrong, i know I was wrong and I'm sorry. Do you want to know why I did it, or do you need from me? That's much more clear, because forgiveness is Can you forgive me? 

Katrina Bieler: Well, i guess I was thinking of forgiveness a little bit differently. So I myself had a very harsh father And he came from a really harsh situation. So I want to say that he did much better than where he came from And I'm grateful for that. But he was harsh And so at a certain point I needed to confront that woundedness in me, the way it affected my life, and then to say sometimes I didn't necessarily feel not angry with him, but I began to say I forgive you for hurting me And that I really feel that that forgiveness. Over time I don't feel angry with my dad anymore. He's dead now, but before he died I was free of anger And sometimes I see him come out in me. But then I can also forgive myself and I can forgive him again. 

Katrina Bieler: And recently I was working on just forgiving people. It hurt me And I was just filled with such a tenderness for my dad and just the tenderness for who he was and what he tried to give us and what he suffered. And I think that I'm more free to have that tenderness to my children as well, instead of sort of repeating that harshness. So that's why forgiveness has become so important to me And I think you're right. You can't demand forgiveness for someone And I get the point about ego egotistical but at the same time, i want to let my children know that I've forgiven them when they hurt me or that when we have a moment where I feel whatever yeah, my son dumped my coffee on me this morning accidentally. I needed to then apologize. 

Cecilie Conrad: Don't do that, not the morning coffee. 

Jesper Conrad: Not the morning. You should have been very angry. 

Cecilie Conrad: I usually say there is zero points for knocking over my coffee. 

Katrina Bieler: But then I want him to know that, like I want him to know that that didn't trump the goodness in him, because he's so good, he's also forgivable for what he makes And that was a mistake. Other times there's a more intentional wound, that happens, but yeah, so I want them to know they're forgivable, that their sins are not the sins they're failing. That's not what defines them. It defines them as something much deeper and very good. Yeah. 

Cecilie Conrad: Well, i think I'll stick my understanding. I think understanding is much better than forgiving. So if I have angry anger inside myself towards someone, you might say it would be a good thing for me to forgive and let go. And that's true. I don't think that my children even should think that they need to be forgiven if they do something. 

Cecilie Conrad: that is not optimal, because we all do things that are not optimal. Sometimes we're too tired, sometimes we're too clumsy, sometimes there is some information we didn't have or I don't know, we didn't think straight or whatever. We did something too fast And I don't think it needs forgiving, because that would put me in a situation of kind of power And I'm like up here and I can forgive, whereas my understanding that this is just part of the flow of life, yeah, yeah, i think it's a much more equal way of handling this. If they feel really bad about something, i think being understood. Yeah, i'm from. Why did it happen. 

Cecilie Conrad: Also because I'm not I'm sure you do very well, but from where I am, i just think if I give forgiveness for, let's say that coffee, would it have been an option not to give it And where would that leave us. You see, my, i think you know I, who am I to to hold that power over other people that I can give or not give forgiveness for? whatever it is, basically whatever it is. I've never been very angry with people, as in, as in very, very. I'm not going to name them, but I have had things going on And where someone told, talked about forgiveness to me and I'm still. I think you're right when it's inside yourself. 

Cecilie Conrad: You have new then you let go of the anger and if that is forgiveness, okay, but that's a dynamic I have within myself. 

Jesper Conrad: You don't even there's like mistakes and accidents, but. 

Katrina Bieler: but there are times when I've, like I've just done the wrong thing And sometimes I did it out of like I know, like maybe out of fear or like selfish, whatever, like usually it's fear underneath, underneath it all, it's often fear. 

Katrina Bieler: But, um, but like, and I've been hurt by people, for whatever their reasons, like you know, like in a certain sense there's sometimes things happening you'll never know, like that person's gone and you don't want them back anyway, like you're not going to ever talk it out. Um, and my mom, my mom, would say to me she's like forgiveness is like, you know, like when you're, when you carry this anger, it's sort of like a stone that you got in your backpack And she would say it's like it says on it you owe me more than you can ever pay. And when you think about somebody who's really abused a child, like they can never pay that back, you can never fix it, but like holding onto the stone, in a sense, like the. She would say the forgiving is not about saying it was okay, it was right, it's about releasing. 

Jesper Conrad: It's about letting go of that stone. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, yeah absolutely The rest of your life. 

Cecilie Conrad: It's in your relation with yourself, yeah. 

Katrina Bieler: Yeah, i think that's the thing that's most important to me. 

Cecilie Conrad: But if it's in your relation with other people, I think it's our situation going on. That's not fair And I don't believe in it. 

Katrina Bieler: So that's the distinction, like my forgiveness doesn't make you good or my forgiveness doesn't Yeah. Yeah, i agree with what you're saying. I think what's most important to me is the internal, internal work of more important to say I understand you, You were too busy And just it is. 

Jesper Conrad: You probably sensed it already, but it's important for me to say when you ask us question and we answer them, we answer them out for from what we believe is the best way to parent. And do we fuck up still? Yes, of course. Yeah yeah, yeah, we don't think like, yeah, we're doing this all the time. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. 

Katrina Bieler: We talked out from our beliefs and how we have succeeded to do stuff from time to time and principles Principles we have, no, but I want to say that this is what I really love about this podcast is I was, like you know, i said to my husband like these people, they don't like chit chat, they get right down to the deepest things And they talk about it, and they talk about it honestly, which, to me, is like I've never felt like. Your podcast is like a to-do list of how to parent or a to-do list of what went on. It always feels like this is something that you can like, take in and think about and it starts a process that helps you be better, just because you're talking about the real and the true things, the deepest principles, that, yeah, from which, like things can grow. It's not a set of rules, it's like fertilizer. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah, it meets a lot. 

Cecilie Conrad: You know we talk to people on Zoom and I feel you know why am I even doing this? 

Jesper Conrad: If there's anyone who's feeling. 

Cecilie Conrad: I'm deliberately unprepared when we do it, because I want to be authentic and spontaneous, but sometimes I feel like an idiot, to be fit, to be honest, and then afterwards I'm like, ah, i could have said that smart thing, but I think the continuous vibe and just talking about things and you're right, we go straight to the point, but it's not a planned point. Yeah, maybe we're back to that trust in life that I talked about before, that I feel like I'm a servant. I just I just walk the next step and I have no idea where I'm going to be. 

Katrina Bieler: I see. What I see in you is this deep affection for reality. And that you realize is that it's not always great, but it you have this like affection for reality and a certain that to responding to reality is the truest thing we can do. 

Cecilie Conrad: I think so. We can start negotiating what is real, but we have to really cold. We're currently living at a castle in France with something like 10, 15 other world schooling families And we promised to do an escape room. 

Jesper Conrad: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Cecilie Conrad: I need to cook before that. 

Katrina Bieler: Okay. 

Cecilie Conrad: Whatever much I'm talking to you, i have to. 

Katrina Bieler: We can reset. Thank you so much for taking the time. It was really good Again. let's do it again. 

Cecilie Conrad: You can build up questions and then like I don't know when we have time, but so much. 

Jesper Conrad: Katrina, it was wonderful having you And I hope that That people out there also could enjoy listening more to our story, as we're. As I said in the start, we often, you know, just talk a lot with the guests and of course we are so curious, so it was for us a big joy also to be able to share some more of our story. So thanks a lot for that opportunity. 

Cecilie Conrad: We couldn't think It's hard to just talk about yourself. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah. 

Katrina Bieler: Well, thank you so much for sharing yourselves. It's really been a pleasure. 

Jesper Conrad: Yeah, and goodbye. 

WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE