
Ask HN: How should I afford my children? - futuredivorcee
I would like the perspective of intelligent, unconventional thinkers
on a matter that has suddenly become important to me, so naturally I&#x27;m
asking HN.<p>I&#x27;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&#x27;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.<p>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&#x27;m an able
writer in English, and a former professional classical musician and
teacher who still performs on a high level.<p>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?
======
joshstrange
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.

~~~
quadrangle
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.

~~~
bioneuralnet
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...

~~~
pattrn
> 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.

------
czbond
Start here - [https://weworkremotely.com/](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.

~~~
futuredivorcee
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.

------
fourmii
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.

------
atlantic
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?

~~~
futuredivorcee
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.

~~~
pavel_lishin
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.

~~~
futuredivorcee
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.

~~~
pavel_lishin
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?

------
itamarst
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/](https://www.gun.io/)).

Reduce your living expenses as much as possible.

~~~
tejay
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.

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

------
trs80
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).

~~~
chefkoch
>A good first step is ridding yourself of a car

in Wisconsin with 3 kids?

------
quadrangle
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.

------
sympathizer
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.

------
waytogo
Out of curiosity: why homeschooling?

~~~
futuredivorcee
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.

~~~
iforgotpassword
(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. :)

------
matheist
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.

------
jason_slack
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.

------
DoreenMichele
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](http://worldwidewebworks.blogspot.com/p/work.html)

------
hluska
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.

------
bioneuralnet
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."

~~~
mackraken
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.

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

------
starbuxman
Take a look at [https://www.skipthedrive.com](https://www.skipthedrive.com).
Lots of coding opportunities for remote workers.

