Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

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Suzanne Gallagher’s professional expertise is marketing and marketing management. She has been a corporate executive, and started a successful business Art and Interior Design business, Wall Design Diva in 1994. In addition, she wrote and published two books, The Fine Art of Wall Design, and More Than Prayer And a Vote. Suzanne’s Republican Party leadership experience includes serving as a Delegate and Vice Chair of Washington County, and Oregon Republican Party Chair in 2013. In 2004 she ran for the Oregon House losing by a small margin. No one escapes the reality of life’s challenges. In August of 2011, Suzanne was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. Her treatment included 4 months of aggressive chemotherapy, followed by three surgeries. The loss of hair, finger and toenails were small inconveniences reminding her of the most important priorities as she embarked on the 2012 Senate campaign. Only three weeks aUer the Primary and one week aUer major surgery, she kicked off her general election campaign with a Flash Mob in Director Square, Portland the day aUer the Rose Fes7val Parade. Eighty volunteers participated and it appeared on television news 5 7mes. During the early 1990’s public schools implemented a K-12 health curriculum to “prevent aids.” Included were lessons on condom use for 12 year olds. Suzanne, President of Oregon Eagle Forum, motivated hundreds of people to a_end school board mee7ngs defending Parents’ Rights. She was also a ci7zen lobbyist in our state capitol and trained others to do the same. Why Parents’ Rights In Education? Suzanne joined with U-Choose, an Issues Forum in 2009. She moderated the forms and gave talks about sexuality education in public schools. She met a teacher who wanted to form an organization and encouraged them to call it Parents’ Rights In Education. Later she participated in creating videos which were used to expose the controversial Adolescent Sexuality Conferences held at the Seaside Conference Center. When the group needed a Director in 2018, she volunteered. Suzanne and her husband Jack have been married since 1971. They live in Tigard near their three grown children and eight grandchildren.

Connect with Suzanne : Website | Facebook

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, October 11th. This is episode number 830, got a lot of stuff on the show for you today. My friend, Suzanne Gallagher, is on the show with me today, and we’re going to be talking about how you can get off the bench and onto the battlefield in the area of education. 

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged. 

Lots of stuff coming up I want to let you guys know about. First of all, I’ve been telling you guys this for a few weeks, but I want to make sure you’ve got it. If you’ve got questions that you want me to address here at the podcast we’ve set up a site for you. You can go to HeidiStJohn.com/mailboxMonday, so don’t email them to me anymore. I appreciate that a lot of you are still doing that, but we really want you to go to the website and submit it on the form because there are just too many coming in for me to manage anymore in email. So again, if you’ve got a question, you want to submit a show idea or a guest idea for me, we’d love to hear it. Heidistjohn.com/mailboxMonday. Please keep your suggestions and your questions short, sweet, and to the point.

Coming up tomorrow, my women’s conference will be here in Vancouver, Washington. Faith That Speaks happens tomorrow morning. Doors open for that at 8:15, so come on out, you want to come early to get a good seat. We’re going to have a great day studying the word of God, talking about what’s happening in the culture. We’re going to eat lunch together. I’m going to take your questions. We do a whole hour, sometimes an hour and a half of Q&A, which is going to be great. 

We’ve got some special guests this time you guys are going to be thrilled with, I know, so come on out. You can still buy tickets at the door, but if you want to get lunch you’re going to have to let us know right now today. So you want lunch, let us know. We’re partnering with Chick-fil-A this year, so it’s going to be great tomorrow. That happens tomorrow, so listen up you guys— that is this weekend here in Vancouver, Washington. Next weekend I’ll be in Lincoln, Nebraska, speaking for a women’s event there. You can find out more about that at HeidiStJohn.com/Events. 

All right you guys. I’m excited today because I met a woman recently who is on fire. Every time I meet women who are out in the culture making a difference, getting off the bench and onto the battlefield it just really encourages me, and I was so encouraged by what she was doing that I asked her to come on the show with me today. Suzanne Gallagher lives here in the Pacific Northwest. She’s the executive director for parent’s rights in education. She’s been married for 48 years, has three kids and eight grandkids, and she is on fire for the Lord. Suzanne Gallagher, welcome to the podcast. 

Suzanne: Oh, thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m excited. 

Heidi: Yeah, I’m excited too. So I came to know about you because I’ve been fairly politically active and active, certainly in the field of education and talking about what’s happening in with what can only be described as a hostile takeover of the public schools. And you have been on the forefront of that battle for a long time. So I love it if you could just introduce listeners to who you are and kind of what you’re passionate about, then we’ll get down to the nitty gritty of what I want to talk about today. 

Suzanne: Okay. Fabulous. Thank you. Okay, so I’m going to try to fast forward all this because I have been alive a long time. I’ve had quite a few more birthdays than you, Heidi. But I got involved when my kids started going to school. That’s when I got involved, and I was always fairly conservative. Came from a very conservative family. 

Heidi: And your kids grew up in Oregon, correct? 

Suzanne: Yes, yes, and I met President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy.

Heidi: He was my favorite.

Suzanne: Absolutely. 

Heidi: I’m a little jealous now. 

Suzanne: Yeah, so I’m a strong conservative politically. I believe in the rule of law. I believe in our constitution and our founding, and the story.

Heidi: So, what? No open borders? 

Suzanne: No, I don’t think so. Pass on those. 

Heidi: What? What? 

Suzanne: It’s so clear. That issue is just a no brainer, isn’t it? It’s just a no brainer. You don’t have a country, as our President has stated, you don’t have a country if you don’t have borders. So same way, I mean, your going to leave your front door unlocked all the time, just let anybody wander in and out as they want? No. 

Heidi: Well, you must be a bigot then if you don’t want people just walk in and out of your house. 

Suzanne: Well, I have a lot of people who don’t care for me much, but that is when we put ourselves out there and make it clear where we stand on these issues, we’re going to have enemies. That’s all there is to it. Some people are kind of surprised by that. They jump into the ring, they run for public office, and they’re just blown away. They just thought everybody loved them. 

Heidi: They thought everybody would loved them. 

Suzanne: Yes. They thought everybody should love them. I mean, after all, they’re blonde and cute and you know, whatever. Then, yeah. 

Heidi: They open their mouth and say something that someone disagrees with, then all of a sudden you got hate mail and, yeah. This is kind of the price right now for getting off the bench. Right? 

Suzanne: Absolutely. So in the early 90s I became very, very concerned about what was going on in the public schools because I had two middle schoolers and a grade school child in the public school. So we’d put them in private Christian school early on then transitioned them into the public school, and I just instinctively believed because the schools are public, that means they’re government schools and we have an elected board, right? So, we have representatives.

Heidi: People like to say that. Like you say, they’re government schools … someone wrote me a couple of weeks ago and, she said, “Stop calling them government schools. It makes it sound hostile.” I’m like, “They are government schools.” Public schools are government schools. Education is not neutral. Education is political, and we’re seeing it more and more. 

Suzanne: Exactly. So these government schools are, they’re bureaucracies. Okay. They’re government bureaucracies. But we have representation, and the representatives are our school board members. So I naively went in to this battle, and it was during the AIDS crisis, remember the AIDS crisis? And that was the very first time that K through 12 sexuality education was introduced in Oregon schools. Probably in many other States as well, but I was living in Oregon. 

Heidi: We’re not talking sex ed, we’re talking sexuality now. 

Suzanne: Yes, we are.

Heidi: We’re talking about homosexuality. And now of course we’ve gone 10 times farther than that. That was child’s play compared to what’s happening now. 

Suzanne: Exactly, and that curriculum was fascinating. I was sitting next to a gal, you can probably relate to this, we were basketball game with our kids in the middle school and I was reading … I belong to Eagle forum in the state of Oregon.

Heidi: Oh, yeah. 

Suzanne: I was President. I was, surprise, surprise, President of Eagle Forum in Oregon.

Heidi: I knew I liked you.

Suzanne: And I’m reading my newsletter, and she’s sitting next to me and she said, “Oh, wow. That’s fascinating. You should be going to the meeting at the administration office. They’re going to be reviewing the AIDS curriculum.” And I said, “Really? When is it?” She said, “It’s Wednesday.” I said, “That’s very interesting because I signed up with the administration office to attend that meeting and they haven’t notified me. I wonder why. I wonder why they haven’t notified me.

Heidi: Amazing. That’s a shocker.

Suzanne: Anyway, so I called them up and I just said, “Well, funny thing, I heard about the meeting. Maybe you guys forgot to contact me, but I would love to come.” And they said, “Oh yeah, that’s right. We see you here in the list.” And I said, “May I come into the office and get a copy of the curriculum?” Now we are advising parents right now. 

Heidi: And this was how many years ago was this? 

Suzanne: This was, yeah, like 25 years ago.

Heidi: Right. So it’s amped up 110% since then.

Suzanne: Exactly. And I was the only one, usually they’ll say to you, “Heidi, well, you know, you’re the only one. You’re the only one, nobody else-“

Heidi: Nobody cares. 

Suzanne: “Nobody cares.” So she said, they said I was the only one who went to the office, picked up a copy of the curriculum, looked it over, and I was prepared when I walked into that meeting. 

Heidi: They weren’t ready for you. 

Suzanne: Okay. Get this. So the very first page, we open it up and I said, “Oh,” and it’s being led by one of the administrators. He said, “Okay, now you have your notebooks. Okay. So open it up to the first page.” It was about kindergarten and it had a picture of the classic, I call them stick figures, but very simple figures of a male, like got a bathroom door. These two figures are holding hands, yes, and at the bottom it had the word monogamy. Do you know any children who are … any children period who call marriage monogamy?

Heidi: No.

Suzanne: I mean, they don’t use the word no monogamy. I mean, usually their parents were married at that time. 

Heidi: At that time. 

Suzanne: Okay. At that time that was the case. And they wouldn’t even understand what monogamy meant. But there was the words monogamy. But even more disturbing is that those two characters were both male. They both had pants. So I said, wait a minute, look at this. And nobody at the table even really noticed that until I brought it and then went, “Oh.” I said, “This is inappropriate for kindergarten kids. They’re not going to understand this.”

Heidi: They don’t even how to tie their shoes. 

Suzanne: Exactly. Exactly. Then we’re teaching them how to wash their hands and so they can avoid AIDS, and they’re like, “Huh?” So then I put together a task force of moms and we went through the entire curriculum page by page.

Heidi: See, that’s what needs to happen now. 

Suzanne: Well, it is happening now. We have analysis of a lot of curriculums, a lot of the, we call it CSE, comprehensive sexuality education. 

Heidi: Yeah, comprehensive sex education. Yeah, my audience is very familiar with that. 

Suzanne: Okay, guys. 

Heidi: We talked a lot about flash here. We’ve been talking about all of it. 

Suzanne: Well, we have an analysis, it’s a 15 harmful elements analysis. These are analyses that are done by protect child health coalition, so we do feature them on our website and they are curriculum by curriculum, so they are available on our website. 

Heidi: So parents hear the term comprehensive sex education, they should just run for their life, because it’s not education, it’s indoctrination. Am I right? 

Suzanne: Absolutely. It’s indoctrination, and it is a form of grooming. I mean, and there’s a kind of a fine line between indoctrination grooming, but you have to conduct indoctrination before a child is even ready for grooming if you think about it, but you are preparing them. That’s why they want to start in kindergarten. 

By the way, I’m going to a national meeting of a lot of similar organizations, some a lot smaller than ours, and most of them are in small areas, but they are getting together and it’s in Indianapolis. The reason that we’re meeting in Indianapolis is because very close by is the Kinsey Institute. And so I know you’re familiar with them.

Heidi: Oh, yes. Disgusting. 

Suzanne: Kinsey, and it is disgusting, and that is … but people don’t understand. We put out a news alert about Kinsey. In fact, the news alert pertaining to that is on our website as well under news alerts obviously. It goes into the description of what Alfred Kinsey did and how he literally performed … he in a group of…..educators. Quote, unquote. I have a hard time spitting those words out because they … researchers, they literally researched on their own offspring, infants. 

Heidi: Good grief. Yeah. It’s disgusting.

Suzanne: Yes. Stimulating them to see, you know, how long it took for a three month old to have an erection, that kind of stupid stuff that is … And then, but then what they were trying to prove is that children are sexual, “sexual” from birth. And that premise is what gives the CSE curriculum writers the license to teach it at kindergarten level because they’re saying, “Well,” … we talk about age appropriateness, Heidi, because we’re moms. But like, my kid doesn’t want to know anything about that. But they’re saying, “Well, but we have to teach them because they are sexual from birth. Kindergarten, the minute we get them.” 

Heidi: Yeah. I think, you know, I’m a mother of seven and I’ve got a couple of grandkids. One of the things that I’m always talking to my oldest daughter about is that our children need to have a childhood. What we’re watching have happen, this is happening in the schools, it’s happening … I mean, at Scholastic, I went out after Scholastic several years ago to say, “Listen, these guys are openly promoting lifestyles that are dangerous and harmful to children,” and they can’t even open their little Scholastic flyer anymore and just get, you know, they can’t find Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel anymore. Now it’s read about a boy named George, a girl named George or whatever. 

A mom wrote to me and she said, “That’s not true.” She said, “My kid goes to a Christian school, Scholastic isn’t that way.” And I said, “Hey, don’t take my word for it,” Sent her a bunch of links from Scholastic, “Don’t listen to me. Listen to Scholastic. They’ll tell you what they’re doing. They’re not even trying to hide it anymore.” And there are parents who I think don’t realize how real the battle is. And it is real. Is it real? 

Suzanne: Oh, it’s absolutely real. And the first thing they want to do … And I met with small groups because we’re forming chapters in school districts all over the country, and I meet with these small groups of moms and they want to believe that it’s not that bad, number one. We all want to believe that it’s not really that bad. But the next step is they want to believe that they can just sign an opt out form and then that’ll take care of it, then I can get back to real life. So they’re looking for-

Heidi: Except for it’s in everything.

Suzanne: It is in everything. In fact, Kate Brown-

Heidi: The governor of Oregon.

Suzanne: Our lovely governor in Oregon. 

Heidi: And you use the word lovely loosely.

Suzanne: I know. 

Heidi: Lars Larson sued her. 

Suzanne: He did?

Heidi: Yeah. He sued her. We’ll talk about it later, but yeah. 

Suzanne: Oh, that’s fantastic. I’d love to talk about that. Oh yeah, absolutely.

Heidi: I’m like, “Look at Lars, look at him go.” 

Suzanne: So she passed this law mandating–I have in here on a flyer–classroom instruction on homosexuals, lesbians, and transgenders. Pro LGBT lessons will be sprinkled throughout the school subjects such as history, geography, economics, and civic lessons. 

Heidi: Because we need that in economics. 

Suzanne: We are going to be saturated. The public schools are saturated, not just … so you cannot opt out then. How are you going to opt out? And they know it. They’ve done it purposely. There is an agenda here. 

Heidi: Absolutely. And when parents listen–you and I were talking about this the other day–when parents hear people like you and me talking about this, I think it’s very easy for our eyes to glaze over and just go, “I don’t know what to do. This is in the schools. It’s everywhere. It’s even in our churches now. And what do we do?” And one of the things I loved about you and the reason I invited you to come on the show is that you’re not just sitting around crying about this. You’re doing something. You’re doing something. You are the president for Parent’s Rights and Education. You guys are starting chapters now, right? 

Suzanne: Yes. 

Heidi: So talk to listeners about that…

Suzanne: Thank you.

Heidi: Because I really want parents, I want them to feel like they have a voice. And one of the main things that we’ve done here for many years is just to help parents, you know, I’ve never been the person who was like, “You got to homeschool your kids or you’re sinning.” But I have gotten to the point in the last four years where I’ve just said, “The barn is on fire.” At what point do we take our kids out? At what point do we say, “You know what? We really tried. It’s not working,” but then to stay engaged. You know, just because you pull your kids out doesn’t mean the parents shouldn’t stay engaged. 

I just went to the Battle Ground schools and reviewed their sex education curriculum, signed up for the thing. Yeah. And they don’t make it easy. Right? You can’t just go down to the … you should be able to just drop in. 

Suzanne: They should have it online. 

Heidi: “Hey, my name’s Heidi. I live in your district. I have kids that would attend this school. I really like to see your curriculum,” but you can’t. It’s not easy like that. And parents need to know what they do. So tell us, tell listeners what it is your doing and how parents can get involved. 

Suzanne: Okay. So initially when our organization was founded in 2011 I was not actively involved in a lot of it except it help name it in the very beginning and mentor them slightly. But I was doing other things, so I was called back into action almost two years ago. A little bit less than two years ago. 

Heidi: And I love to, I’m going to interrupt you because you’ve been married for 48 years. 

Suzanne: Yes. 

Heidi: You could actually stay off into the sunset and go to Cabo and you’re not. 

Suzanne: Well, I like to go to Cabo every now and then. 

Heidi: Yeah, I do too. But you’re engaged in this battle. I mean, you could make a case for it. My kids are done. They’re grown, but you realize that and that’s … I try to tell people, parents, listen. Grandparents, get off the bench. We need your voice. Right?

Suzanne: Here’s the thing, Heidi. It’s not just about our individual children. Because I will hear that from so many parents. 

Heidi: They’re tomorrow’s judges. They’re tomorrow’s. This is tomorrow. 

Suzanne: These are our leaders. The way our nation was founded, and I told you I was a conservative. I’m a David Barton follower.

Heidi: Me too. WallBuilders.

Suzanne: Exactly. WallBuilders, and we have a responsibility, and we have a responsibility as Christians because we founded this nation. People who say this is not a Christian nation… 

Heidi: They don’t know the history of our nation.

Suzanne: We’re not talking about is our constitution is Christian. So the premise, the inspiration for our constitution was 90% plus came from scripture. They set it up and they knew, and we have quote after quote after quote of the founders saying, “You’ve got to pay attention here. You’ve got to be involved.” We have been shamed out of the public square by the left, and we bought it. We bought into it that we don’t have a right to say anything that is absolutely not true. 

Heidi: That’s right. 

Suzanne: So we have a responsibility as citizens and primarily as Christian citizens to have a voice in the public square. We are taxpayers. We pay a lot in taxes over the years. I mean, think of all the money I paid in taxes. 

Heidi: Yeah, well in Oregon and Washington we’re paying more and more and more and more in taxes. 

Suzanne: Exactly. And even though you run a home school….

Heidi: I still pay for the public school.

Suzanne: Yes you do. 

Heidi: Absolutely.

Suzanne: Yes you do, and you have been, and you will continue because that, the agency of force, government, is forcing you to do that, to contribute to that school. Okay. So our literally, I do believe, and I’ve written about this, I wrote an op ed and I published it, this is a national crisis. It is a national crisis. So we do attract people to our organization who are like me, who have children and grandchildren, and they have seen the progression over the years from that first AIDS curriculum introduction all the way to now where we have full blown LGBTQ indoctrination K through 12. 

Heidi: Yeah, it’s so sad. Yeah. 

Suzanne: So my role in my stage of life right now, hopefully I can answer your question, why am I doing this? Well, I cannot know what I know and do nothing. 

Heidi: Well that’s what I’m telling the listeners here. You guys can’t unhear this stuff, right? 

Suzanne: Can not unhear. 

Heidi: Once you know, you got to do something.

Suzanne: Everybody I speak with, everybody I speak at events. Everybody I talk with, once they know it, they’re stuck. Now, there is a great book out there. I will give a plug for Mary Rice Hasson. She has written a book called Get Out Now. If you haven’t read it…

Heidi: I’ll link back to that in the show notes. 

Suzanne: Yeah, right. That is a great analysis. It’s the most contemporary overview of the situation in public schools today and she really nails it and she’s done a lot of research. So I would encourage people to read that. Again, once you know it, you have to do something about it. The challenge is, do you stay or do you go? That’s the big question. It’s always been that question. It’s been the question for you. It’s for parents all along. 

Heidi: Our daughter was in public school in Oregon, and we pulled her out. We pulled her out in the 90s after I observed some things that were just untenable for me as a mom, and I never wanted to … I was never like, “I’m going to homeschool my kids.” I wasn’t that mom, but when I saw what was happening to my daughter in first and second grade and she was coming home asking me questions that I had hoped to never have to answer until she was 12 or 13 or 14, and I’m having to answer these questions when she’s seven. I remember my husband and I just saying, “This is untenable. We can’t do it. This is wrong for her.”

Suzanne: Well, you would expect to do that, Heidi, if you were living in a neighborhood and your child went out to play one day and then came back into the house spouting, you know, obscenities, and what would you say to your child? You would say, “Where did you get that?…”

Heidi: We do not talk that way.

Suzanne: “Where did you hear that? We do not talk that way in our house.” So that is happening now coming from the public schools, so we’re dropping them off there. We’re leaving them there and having them hear that all day long. Mary Rice Hasson in her research pulled up some statistics about people of faith, and this is one that I like to share with Christian audiences because they don’t realize how this indoctrination K through 12, how it really will…

Heidi: It’s targeting Christians for sure, yeah.

Suzanne: Yes it is. Yes, it seriously is. And in fact they are leaving the church. These kids, you’ve taken them faithfully to church. You have read the Bible with them. They have been involved in the youth groups. They are leaving the church once they graduate, and this is high school. Once they graduate high school, I think … I’d have to double check, but I think it’s like 5%. It is incredibly low the number that stay in the church. And if that doesn’t get your attention, I don’t know what will. Because see, we think, “Well, we’re a good family.”

In fact, school board members, school board Presidents, superintendents will say to you, I’m talking about liberal ones, “Well, you come from a good family. Well, you care about your children. This will not have any effect on them.” Oh yes, it will. 

Heidi: Oh, absolutely. And they’re doing it. It’s absolutely purposeful. One of the verses that I like to quote frequently here at the show, and most of the listeners are familiar with it, is out of Luke 6:40, and the Bible teaches that when a student is fully trained, he’ll be like his teacher. Parents need to understand education is not neutral. It never has been and it never will be because education is the impartation of ideas and worldview. Like, if I go to teach a group of people I’m going to come from a particular point of view. You come from a Christian worldview. I come from a Christian worldview, but a lot of these people that are in the school systems, not only is it anti-Christian and anti-God, it is absolutely anti-parent, and the parents need to understand what is at stake. 

So what you’re doing is you guys are sounding the alarm. I’m looking at your website right now about Glisten, which for goodness sake, the Kinsey Institute, Planned Parenthood comprehensive sex education, which is nothing but a vehicle for all of these people. Like Planned Parenthood, I know that in the flash curriculum that the Battle Ground school district is looking at adopting abortion was listed 25 times as health care practice for girls, for girls. I mean, they’re normalizing this for young girls. And I remember just talking to my husband over dinner and my heart is just grieving, but we’ve got to move beyond the grief process and to action. So, that’s what you’re doing. That is what Parents’ Rights in Education is doing. 

And this is not for people who have their kids in public school. This is for people, like if you’re a homeschooler, if your kids are in private school, get involved in this battle. So, how can they do that? 

Suzanne: Absolutely. They can go to our website. There’s a tab on the site that says join us and they fill out the form, and we will plug them in. Now, if there isn’t anybody in their area … this is a new initiative for us. Okay? So all this time since 2011 there was no real effort to grow the organization. That is my initiative. We started in January, just like made the decision, so we’ve been setting things up on the website so that we can take that, and we decided not only were we going to grow, but why would we limit it to Oregon? Because sometimes you’re not a prophet in your own land. I know you probably experienced that. 

Heidi: Yes, I do. I know, right? 

Suzanne: It’s like suddenly you’re a celebrity when you go to DC. 

Heidi: Yeah, I can go away from Oregon and Washington and people will come out in droves. But when I’m here they’re like, “Oh, it’s just Heidi.” Yeah, nobody cares. 

Suzanne: Just Heidi. I’ve seen her weeding in her front yard. 

Heidi: That’s it. Exactly. I saw her at Walmart. 

Suzanne: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So why would we limit ourselves? And we don’t have a real hierarchy as far as the organization side of it. What we want to do is empower people and we want to provide them with all of those tools that they need to really look strong. And we are stronger when we all work together instead of having small groups like, I don’t know, Spring Water Moms Who Care, or something like that. So we’re providing the umbrella. We’ll provide you with handouts, with all of the branding materials that you need. 

Heidi: Scripting. 

Suzanne: Yes. All of that. You can get anything you need to know. Anything you need to know how to say, it’s right there on our website. It’s described. So as we add States … Now, Washington is the first state that we’re going into, and they’re fired up. This is a group we’ve been tracking with for a little while, but we weren’t ready for them yet. They said, “Can we use your logo?” And we went  … my board goes like, “No, we’re not ready for that. We haven’t even conquered Oregon.” And I thought, “Well, why would I wait to conquer Oregon? I mean, that’s never going to happen.”

Heidi: No. No, it isn’t.

Suzanne: So we have to work it from … and you know what, it helps. If we can stop Washington from adopting this horrible curriculum in Washington that we have already had for six years now, it’s been in Oregon for six years. We didn’t stop it. But if we can help Washington to stop it, if we can help any other state. I get calls from Ohio. I mean, all over people are inquiring. “Do you have anybody in Wisconsin? Do you have anybody in Virginia? Do you have anybody?” I mean, the speaker that came out from DC, she asked me, she said, “Well, do you have any chapters in Virginia?”

Heidi: Well, I think parents are starting to realize, and you could argue that it’s a little bit late, but I do believe that the only reason that the radical left is able to push this indoctrination is because good people have been quiet, and they absolutely depend on our silence. They can’t do what they do as long as we get off the bench. The only way they can do it is if we’re silent, and I’m telling people get off the bench. 

Suzanne: I agree. Here’s what they … okay, so think about the system of a school. It’s 12 years, right? If you go through the school system in any area, it’s 12 years, K through 12, and they know that once your children are out of the school, you’re bye-bye. I’m talking about the parents. I mean, even if you are very active. And actually I did that. I did that. After six years…

Heidi: How did it work for you?

Suzanne: Well, it didn’t work very well because after six years of writing soap boxes in the newspaper … and I mean at that time, okay, I’m really dating myself. We didn’t have email. 

Heidi: No, I remember when there was no email.

Suzanne: I would make one phone call and we’d have a hundred people at a school board meeting. That’s what took place in Tigard, and that was a big AIDS push. Okay, so passing out condoms in school and all of that. Well, then I just got burnt out. I got burnt out because it was too hard to keep it going. Now I think it’s different because we have better communication, but they’re counting on that, that Susanne Gallagher, she’s going to go underground at some point. Right? Which is what I did. I started a business. I have had a successful art interior design business. I’m still on the internet, WallDesignDiva.com, anyway…

Heidi: I love it. 

Suzanne: It’s fascinating. Yes. But so I built that business, but God was preparing me for this because I learned all of the things that I’m applying now to this organization as far as you know, like how to look corporate, how to be corporate. But they’re planning also that my kids would grow up, then pretty soon they’d all be out of the schools, so they count on that, that you’re going to get burnout, then once your kids are grown you’re going to quit. So we cannot allow that. I mean, we’re not done. We still have a responsibility here. 

Those people, as you mentioned earlier, they vote and they are creating progressive activists out of our kids. That’s a whole nother issue that doesn’t have anything to do with CSE, but they really are. In fact, if you go on the website, it’s called Advocates For Youth.

Heidi: Advocates For Youth. 

Suzanne: Check out Advocates for Youth. Advocates for Youth is a Planned Parenthood website that was created by them for students who are looking for more information about sex, and we can help you is of course they’re always trying to help our kids, right?

Heidi: Right, so helpful. 

Suzanne: To get abortions, et cetera, et cetera. So helpful. And if you look across the top of the site and you see the different tabs, there was a tab saying join the movement. Now, this just makes my blood boil and I see this stuff on the internet. But they do direct kids to these sites. Now though, so I signed up for their newsletter and the last couple have been advocating doing away with ICE. Picketing, you know, picketing the ICE …

Heidi: Yeah, I’m looking at their website. Our bodies, our lives, our movement. 

Suzanne: Our movement. Yeah. See? So it is about getting the kids all ginned up. Why do you think now they walk up to a microphone at a school board meeting and shake their fists and demand. Then they keep, you know, they’re putting students on school boards, on library boards, students who know nothing. 

Heidi: Well and parents are … I think parents need to be aware that this is happening then they need to get involved, run for school boards, start going out, finding out what’s … go to your local school, say, “I want to see the sex ed curriculum.” They have to show it to you. They have to.

Suzanne: By law. 

Heidi: By law they have to show it to you, then you guys can get involved. They can join a local chapter of parent’s rights in education. They can stay abreast of what’s happening. There are lots of great organizations out there. Mass Resistance is doing a great job with the Drag Queen Story Hour. But you have really kind of, I think, hit a hotspot here in just saying, “Listen, we don’t want to just talk about this. We want to empower parents so they can get off the bench and onto the battlefield.” So I love this. I’m going to link back to it in the show notes today, and hopefully you’re going to start hearing from more and more parents around the country who are ready to say, “All right, I stuck my head in the sand long enough and now I’m ready to get out there and let my voice be heard,” because it matters. 

And people, you can be kind and still speak the truth. We’re not advocating for people to be bullies because we’re being bullied. We’re being bullied from the other side. 

Suzanne: Yes we are. Yes, I had all kinds of …

Heidi: Well, yeah. Me too.

Suzanne: Stories about that. We truly are. 

Heidi: And it really is a battlefield, and people need to expect that, but the Bible teaches us that God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. And it’s time for us to be who God says we are.

Suzanne: It doesn’t mean we hate people. The schools are for everyone. The public schools are for everyone, and they are not going to go away. That’s the thing. I mean, you can’t just wish them away. They have power and money. 

Heidi: Yep. Nope, that’s exactly right. Well, Suzanne Gallagher, thank you so much for being … Where can people find you online? Is it Parents Rights in Education? 

Suzanne: It’s ParentsRightsinEd.com. 

Heidi: Parents rights in Ed. 

Suzanne: Just ParentsRightsinEd.com. 

Heidi: All right, and I will link back to that in the show notes today. I really appreciate you coming. It’s been a joy to have you here. 

Suzanne: Thank you, me too.

Heidi: I wish you the best. We’re praying for you. 

Suzanne: Thank you so much. 

For more information on Suzanne Gallagher and everything that’s happening with Parents’ Rights in Education go to the show notes today, HeidiStJohn.com/podcast. Also, I want to let you guys know that the new shirts are here for the season. The hashtag #offthebench is on the new Ragland shirts that are in the store, HeidiStJohn.com, so go and check it out. We’ve got the pro-life pendant there. It’s absolutely beautiful. You guys are going to love it, and you can make a statement just by wearing a shirt. The hashtag is #offthebench. Have a great day everybody. Stay faithful. I’ll see you back here on Monday. 

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

 

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

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I am a home organization and efficiency expert. But don’t be tricked, I’m one of the most organized, messy people you’ll ever meet. I am a homeschooling mom of five kids ranging in age from 6 – 17 years old. We have three boys and two girls. Aside from family and chocolate (Wait, did I mention that I love chocolate?!!) I am passionate about encouraging and inspiring families by offering simple solutions for a more joy-filled life.

My husband and I have been married for 22 years. He’s the analytic genius in the family. I’m the creative extrovert. My family and I call San Diego, California home I am a down-to-earth writer and an energetic speaker. I love sharing my adventures in motherhood and home life on my Simply Joyful podcast, and on social media as @KristiClover.

Connect with Kristi: Book | Website | Instagram | Facebook

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody. This is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, October 4th. This is episode number 827 and as promised, my friend, author and speaker Kristi Clover is here with me today. We’re going to be talking about her brand new book, M.O.M.–Master Organizer of Mayhem. You guys are going to have fun with us today. 

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right you guys. So a couple of little housekeeping things before we get going with Kristi today. You know that my women’s conference, Faith That Speaks, is coming up in the Vancouver area on October the 12th from nine to five. This is going to be a great day for you guys to come on out and get encouraged about your walk with the Lord and how you can get off the bench and onto the battlefield. How your faith can actually speak from your life of the grace and the mercy and the healing that comes from Jesus.

So come on out, Faith That Speaks, October 12th. Saturday, October 12th. More information is on my website, heidistjohn.com/events. 

Also most of my staff is flying out for that event, and so come on out and you can meet them. They’ll be here from New Jersey and Oklahoma and Texas. So I’m excited for you guys to meet the women that really help me behind the scenes and are a huge part of the heartbeat of MomStrong International. All right, without further ado, I want to introduce a friend of mine to you. My friend Kristy Clover is an author and a speaker. She’s also just a wonderful human being who is really good at home organization.

She’s got a couple of kids we’re going to talk to you guys about and a really sweet man that she calls her husband, I believe his name is Steve. Kristi, welcome to the podcast girl.

Kristi: Aw, thank you so much for having me, and yes, Steve, he is my man.

Heidi: Steve’s your main squeeze. You guys have five kids together, right?

Kristi: Lot of kids. Yeah so just a couple.

Heidi: Just a couple? Hey man, Jay’s always saying once you got over two you’re outnumbered.

Kristi: Oh yeah. You go into zone defense at that time…

Heidi: You just kind of, yeah. So the range and age of your kids is what? I can’t remember.

Kristi: Oh yeah. So grant is 17 and then Blake’s 16, Wade is 11 and then my girls Ashlynn and Kaitlin are eight and six so…

Heidi: So six to 17?

Kristi: Oh yes. Six to 17 is a gap. From teens, Grant just started his first job at Chick-fil-A.

Heidi: Hey that should be everybody’s first job.

Kristi: It’s so amazing, they’re just great. So yeah this is week two for him.

Heidi: Has he started to say, “My pleasure.” at the house.

Kristi: No, I keep teasing him though.

Heidi: Yeah, you’re like if you say, “Clean your room.” and he should say, “My pleasure.”

Kristi: Exactly, I think it’s good practice for everyone. Everyone should go and do a little bit of training at Chick-fil-A just to develop that habit.

Heidi: I mean, I think before you run for an elected office, you should work at Chick-fil-A. It would totally help your communication skills.

Kristi: Yes.

Heidi: Maybe we can get along with people. I don’t know, that’d be so weird.

Kristi: I know. Really again, everyone should do it.

Heidi: So you and I, I’m trying to figure out when we met the first time, and I can’t remember.

Kristi: Where was it. I met you back at CHEA, so that’s Christian Home Educators Association in Pasadena, California. And we met, you were speaking and I was sitting in the audience. I’m like, man, that would be really fun to do. I think I ran into you in the hallway at some point I’m like, “You know what? I think I want to do what you do. I love it.” Then you’re like, “Awesome.”

Heidi: Awesome, hey you know what? We need more people out there speaking the truth. There’s a lot of room around the table. I always feel like every time I get an opportunity to have an author or speaker on the show, I always feel like there’s so much chaos in the culture right now. That the more Christian voices that we can hear that can help bring up a mom back to center and say, “Hey, no, this is the way, walk this way, nope walk this way, over here, over here.”

Kristi: Exactly.

Heidi: And then you’ve got people who’ve been doing this for a long time, like my friend Dr. Dobson, and they’re looking for more help and more voices and so I’m thrilled. I’m thrilled with what you’re doing, girl.

Kristi: Well thank you, and I get so discouraged when I hear women who are interested in kind of getting out there and whether it’s writing or podcasting, just whatever it is. And they’re like, “Oh, but there’s already so many people out there.” And I’m like, “Do you not know that God made you unique and you have a unique voice.” And like come on, join the party.

Heidi: That’s Right.

Kristi: Join the chaos.

Heidi: It’s totally right, and those voices are unique. I think the hard thing, and this was certainly been true for me, because I’ve been doing this for a long, long time, and I feel like the hard thing sometimes is just finding your unique voice. I think sometimes it’s easy to, we hear somebody and we, “Oh, we want to do it like that person.” But that’s not necessarily how God made us. Our voice is different. I had a season, I think I talked to you about this a while ago, when I had so many people telling me what to do and how to do it, that it really stole my voice from me and I tripped up and sort of fell over myself because I wasn’t listening to the Lord anymore. I was listening to just voices of people who I felt were important, saying, “Oh no, don’t talk about that.” And, “Oh be careful.”” But we got to listen to the Lord.

Kristi: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that is the key, because I think it’s too easy to feel like, “Oh this is the standard, this is the cookie cutter that I need to fit into.” And yeah, we can’t do that. It doesn’t make me happy and if I’m not authentic and real then that no one’s going to like that.

Heidi: Yeah right. Yeah, you do you. You do you.

Kristi: Yeah I do me really, really well, and so when I do me, then everybody’s happy. Well, I don’t know. Sometimes not, maybe “me” needs a little bit of a filter.

Heidi: I love it.

Kristi: Oh in fact, I have to tell you something before you move on. Okay, I laughed so hard because I said something in an interview and I came out and I told Steve, I’m like, “Man, I don’t know if I said that right.” Maybe I was kind of pushing the envelope because I’m not necessarily the girl you’d come to to get political or get controversial. I have no problem talking about it and going there, but I did in this interview and I kind of giggled and I was like, “Oh, I don’t know.” And he’s like, “honey, if Heidi St. John says half the stuff that she says, I don’t think you’re ever going to be controversial.” So I was like, “Okay good, you’re right.”

Heidi: “I feel better now” and hopefully people won’t lob little voice grenades at you over Facebook. So when that happens, give me a call. Well we could sit here and talk about all kinds of things all day long, obviously, because that’s who we are. I really want to introduce listeners to the book that you just wrote, which I was really happy to write an endorsement for, which I super tickled, made it to the back of the book.

Kristi: It did.

Heidi: That’s always like whenever you write an endorsement, you’re secretly hoping that it makes it to the back of the book. Like it’s nice to be in the front cover, but the back of the book is where you really want to be. And I love this because it’s so practical, you like to organize and I feel like there are seasons when moms will feel really on top of the organization and then you go into another season where you’re just like, “Whoa”, and you kind of feel overwhelmed. And this book is just chock-full of practical simple ways to calm clutter and just reclaim your joy. Because I feel like you’re really good at just telling moms, “You’re going to be okay, you’re going to be okay. Just hold my hand and let’s walk through the Lego mess together and you’re going to be okay.” So you’re talking about helping moms stay on top of their day and really make it to the end of your day with a fair amount of joy, like just a happier home, right?

Kristi: Oh yeah. It’s so funny because I always giggle when people are like your subtitle says joy. Like really, housekeeping? House organization, joy? Right.

Heidi: Right. It does bring joy though.

Kristi: It does, but even beyond that, I want women, and families really, just whomever is in your home. I want you guys to all stop thinking that your house has to be perfect. I love… See, let Joanna Gaines be Joanna Gaines.

Heidi: Right.

Kristi: You be you. You know that is the thing.

Heidi: That Joanna.

Kristi: I love Joanna Gaines, but my house is not going to look like hers 24/7 and I guarantee you her house doesn’t look like it does on TV 24/7.

Heidi: No, it doesn’t.

Kristi: And Jeanys got five kids now so she gets it. She’s in there with us.

Heidi: I’m thinking it only looks like that like two hours out of the day.

Kristi: Oh yeah.

Heidi: I give it two hours max.

Kristi: Yes, it’s just hard. Everyone needs to realize it’s hard. And I always joke that if you ever see something online, just imagine what it looks like behind the camera. Like behind the person taking the shot. That’s where the mess has been moved. But yeah, I want women to experience joy by first letting go of their expectations of perfection. I want them to be more efficient in their home and I think when you start tackling those little jobs that are driving you crazy in your house, then that’s where the joy starts coming in.

Heidi: Yep, I think it’s true and ain’t nobody very flourishy in chaos. Like we just don’t flourish in chaos, at least I don’t. I’m the girl that has look just… I need my house to be relatively clean or at least it doesn’t have to be perfect I don’t want to be tripping over things all day long. And what I really don’t like is the stack of mail that’s in my office that just kind of pile, pile, pile, pile, pile until like one Saturday I got to get in there and actually take care of it.

But you came up with what you called 10 foundational rules, and I thought it was interesting because I love that you call them foundational because as I looked at them, I was like, “Oh, that’s foundation.” Because if you don’t get those things right, then you don’t have anything to build on. So how did you come up with them and can you share with listeners just a little bit about those 10 foundational rules?

Kristi: Yeah. Well, what’s really crazy about this is that 13 years ago is when I first started speaking on this topic. I actually sat down, I was asked to speak on home organization. I remember I laugh a little bit thinking like— “okay, why?”

Heidi: That means that you’ve got to organize your home.

Kristi: I know, I’m like— “this person’s been to my house”— but I think it was…what I’ve come to kind of understand is that the reason they wanted to see that is because I had a husband who traveled, I had two tiny children at that time and my friends would come over on like a weekday and see the house just normal. Toys out, dishes out or whatever. But they’d come over a few days later for like a party or something that we’d be hosting and the house is completely cleaned up and they… I remember one friend actually, she’s like, “Okay, where is it?” I’m like, “Where’s what?” She’s like, “where’s all the stuff?” And I’m like, “Well I just kind of have these systems.” And I think that’s what kept throwing people off is that I had these systems. So when I sat down to write this talk, M.O.M.–Master Organizer of Mayhem, I kind of asked myself like, what are the 10 things?

And I didn’t set out to write 10 but that’s how it kind of ended up. So what are some things that when I’m actually doing all of them at the same time, probably the most—so I’m not perfect at this. In fact, I’m really bad at a few of them like the baby steps, I am horrible at because I think I’m a little ADD in how I approached my home organization. I’ll start a project in one room and then see a project in another room and then I’ll get distracted.

Heidi: I think that’s a thousands years old. Isn’t that the if you give a mom a mocha kind of a thing?

Kristi: I have not head that, that’s perfect.

Heidi: I’ll send it to you because I actually wrote something called, “If you give a mom a Mocha.” And it’s probably been 10 years since I wrote it.

Kristi: Oh my goodness.

Heidi: Just in the throws of having seven young children at home. They were probably teens at that point because Savannah’s 28 now goodness sake.

Kristi: What? Oh my goodness.

Heidi: So I know, let’s not talk about it. Anyway, I wrote this like if you give a mom a mocha, kind of like if you give a mouse a cookie kind of a thing. The truth is I’ll go upstairs and I’m going to go put something in laundry and I see something in laundry that needs to go down to the kitchen. I go to the kitchen, oh my goodness, I got to do this in the kitchen. It’s kind of… It’s a technique, I think. Let’s call it out a technique.

Kristi: That’s right. That’s our organizational technique for creating chaos and projects throughout the house.

Heidi: That’s right, exactly.

Kristi: All at the same time. Yes, and that’s really when I am following, especially that baby steps rule and taking it one thing at a time and breaking things down, it really helps. And that’s where the 10 rules come from. I kind of giggle because I introduce decluttering in that section. So decluttering is definitely one of those foundational things, but I don’t get into decluttering systems until the second part of the book. Because if you don’t have those foundational things, it doesn’t help. Think about it, you can organize all that you want, I can show you great ways to use your space a lot more wisely and more efficiently, but if you are just organizing stuff that should be in the trash can, that does not help you.

Heidi: Hey, and this is tough. I feel like people fall into one of two categories. They’re either the person that throws everything away maybe to the point where they overthrow things away.

Kristi: Oh yeah, I have some friends that do that.

Heidi: Or we’re kind of hoarders, worried about— “but what if I need that?” “Maybe I do need that third colander because you just never know when you’re going to have 28 people at your house and you’ll have to be rinsing things all over the place”.

Kristi: I know and I think that is one of the weird dilemmas is that we do that “just in case” thing. Like, “Oh no, just in case”, and we’re actually in the process of renovating. I stopped saying remodeling. We are renovating our house.

Heidi: Renovating that has such a Renaissance sound to it.

Kristi: Right, it’s so fancy. I’m like “we’re in the middle of Reno”. My kids are like Reno? But it actually really forced me to take a look at —what do we need? Like, what are the bare bones that we need and then I was moving everything else out of the kitchen and the kitchen was my, I didn’t realize how much I was somewhat hoarding in my kitchen because I hid things up high and far back that I couldn’t see. And so I was like, Oh yeah, if I need it. But then when I was taking everything out I’m like, “I really don’t need this.” And so I was just…

Heidi: And you don’t even remember that it’s there because when you put them high up and far back, three years is going to go by and then one day you’re going to go, “I should clean my kitchen.” And you’re going to go, “I had no idea I had that.”

Kristi: Oh yeah. Like a panini press. I don’t even think I ever used it but I had a panini press just in case. That would have been really fancy.

Heidi: Yeah I got rid of mine. I think I bought it at the Goodwill and I sent it back there.

Kristi: Exactly. Well, and that’s the beauty is that that’s one of the approaches I have with decluttering. Is that I stopped thinking about like, just donating, and I call it blessing because if we can turn that around, the whole KonMari method of like “does it spark joy?”

Heidi: “Does it spark joy?”

Kristi: How many of us have stood in front of our closet and been like, “Yep, nope nothing in here is sparking joy.”

Heidi: Nope, nothing. Get rid of all of it.

Kristi: It’s like “start over!”. But when we look at our things as blessings, like “this isn’t really something I need right now, so I wonder if it can bless a friend?”. When you find things that still have tags on it and you’re like, “And I’d never fit into that and I’m going to stop trying to achieve that goal and pass them on to a friend”. Or it maybe it just got hidden. I found a cute kid outfit that had tags and it didn’t… My child had grown by a few years and so I passed it on to friends and same with just things you’re getting rid of.

Is why not take it to Goodwill. Actually, we go to Salvation Army for all of our donating and so we take it there and it’s really neat to even hear stories about people that go into consignment shops or go into Salvation Army stores and find things that they really needed, and it was because someone was willing to let go of it.

Heidi: All right so go over, we’ve got a few minutes left. Can you go over like just say the three of those foundational tips? And then I kind of want to do a breeze through the table of contents here because I always think that’s interesting. When I go to get a book, the first thing I do is look at the table of contents.

Kristi: I know. Yeah, me too. It’s funny because they wanted to take out my little, I put the rule and then I had like the little subtitle for the rule and they’re like, “Oh let’s take that out.” I’m like, “Oh no, no, no, people need to know what that is.”

Heidi: No, they do. I love it. It’s right in the table of contents. So those 10 simple rules that will change your home life. So I love this one because this is something I talk about all the time. Rule number two, Don’t forget your top prioritiesL choosing which balls to drop. Talk to the mom who just can’t drop anything.

Kristi: Yes. So that is the hardest thing is we try to do it all because we think everybody else is doing it all and that just doesn’t work for anybody because no one is truly doing it all. You and I can attest to that because if it looks like I’m doing it all, it’s because I’m doing things, one thing at a time and it just might just all come out at the same time. But, in life we need to have priorities. So we kind of have, in the Clover house, we kind of do this prioritizing with our four F’s because we’re the Four Leafs.

So we do faith, family, friends, and fellow man in that order. So when we sit down, especially right now in like the beginning of a school year, or just beginning of the year is good too, but anytime you have big shifts in your schedule and things are getting added, we like to take a look at what’s coming into our schedule because— I’m sorry, but you can’t get to your house if you’ve got a busy schedule.

Heidi: That’s right, preach.

Kristi: Yeah. So we try to be really selective about what we allow into our schedules and into our home and just all of that because you cannot do it all. And so we try to pick what’s really best and sometimes it’s been hard through the years. I mean we said no to Awana.

Heidi: What?

Kristi: Awana! You’d think like, “Oh, Awana is so awesome.” But we were doing Bible study at home and we were doing Bible memory at home and it was one more night that we were all out and my husband was still traveling at that point. So we just decided it was not wise for us to do that. We’re a big sports family, we had to take basketball off our plate at one point because we had too many moving parts. And so when you are allowing that space, you can actually allow some breathing room, and when you have breathing room then you will feel up for maybe trying to tackle other things in your house.

So that’s one of my big things is trying to encourage people to really look at, not only their priorities with what they’re allowing into their schedule, but even in their home. And with that, we have to prioritize what we’re trying to get done in our house because it’s nice to have the whole house clean and tidy all at the same time.

Heidi: That’s so nice.

Kristi: It is so nice and when it happens, it’s like you need to do yourself a little good middle happy dance and like turn some music on and don’t knock anything over. But we’re looking at that, like Steve and I have kind of come up with this thing. I had him pick two things and I picked two things. For him, counters are like his drive you crazy nails on a chalkboard to him, in his little heart— if the counters are just super cluttered, which is hard because I am a pile person. I struggle with that.

Heidi: Flat spaces are your nemesis.

Kristi: Yeah. No, so I have to be careful. I cannot add in my closet. I can’t put a chair in there. I can’t put anything cute for me to sit on because it will become a dumping ground and I just know that about myself so I don’t have that. But for him counters are a big thing and then knowing that there’s a game plan for meals is really helpful for him. Even if it’s pizza, he just wants to know that we have a plan and that’s something he doesn’t have to think about or if he is supposed to be the one like—you’re on grill duty. So you know, that’s important to him. For me, because maybe we started off just a house with three boys and a husband—toilets. Yes the whole bathroom is great but like seriously I just want the toilets and the area around the toilets clean.

And floors, I don’t stepping on things like you were saying earlier, like tripping on things drives me badly. I am on the move, I am on the go and I’m not always looking where I’m going. So that was a really important rule, that’s why it’s number two. It was number one in the original but my first rule since we didn’t really talk about that is gleaning and tweaking and that was really important to me and I think that’s kind of what makes my technique a little different. Is that I feel like as moms we take way too much time to try to reinvent the wheel and why don’t we look at people who are having success with something and not feel guilty over it and not feel like—and even don’t feel like it’s the end all be all. You have to tweak it to work for your family dynamics.

So those are just two of my fun little rules but….

Heidi: I love it. And really, you have the first part of the book are those rules. Planning ahead, overcoming laziness.

Kristi: I didn’t want to put it in there but it’s true. If my house is really messy, It’s usually because I’m being a little lazy.

Heidi: I love it because you went through these rules but then you put systems in place, which I really love. De-cluttering systems, organizing systems, storage, chores. My goodness, I always laugh because I’ve been talking about… I wrote a book called The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight a long time ago because a lot of the same stuff in it. And I’m laughing because I’m like—the chore thing. Really, I’ll do a chore chart for my kids and it’ll work for about three months. And you have to just go, “Well it looks like it’s time to change it up.” Instead of giving up, just change it up.

Kristi: Exactly, and that’s exactly what you have to do. We’ve been laughing because our little chore chart doesn’t work in like renovation mode.

Heidi: No.

Kristi: And we’ve been going so hard and fast with the book launch that I’m like, okay people like just listen to what I’m assigning to everyone. But that is one of the major things we need to kind of shift here probably this next week. It’s just making sure everybody’s very clear in what they’re doing. And that’s really what chore systems are about, is just figuring out what is working best because not every kid is going to jive with understanding. You might have some kids that need a visual, they might need to see exactly what it is.

Heidi: I’m going to give you a visual.

Kristi: That’s right.

Heidi: That’s right. Well I love this. I love it because there’s a whole section in here on why it’s so important to train your kids to help you around the house and I have been amazed on how controversial that has become. Or just having your kids help. Every time I post about it, somebody will say, “I can’t believe you’re not letting kids enjoy their childhood.” And I’m just like, “Really, right now.” Because I’m not training children, I’m training adults and I love, you call them little interns. :Hey I’d like to give you a laundry internship” and this is how it’s going to go.

Kristi: I had a post where I mentioned, I don’t even know, I think it was a hashtag chores systems. I didn’t even say chores, I just said training your kids to help.

Heidi: Oh, don’t say train. “Is it a puppy or a child? We train puppies Kristi, get it right.”

Kristi: Oh right. Well no, I was accused of like slave labor. How dare I, and I was like, excuse me. I’m like, “so is it kindness to send my child out into the world and not know how to do laundry and not know how to cook?”

Heidi: Yeah and just not equipped.

Kristi: I know because I think how hard it was for me to learn some of the small details I didn’t learn in my childhood. I was raised my single mom and I learned to do a lot of things but there’s obviously things I didn’t learn and so it was hard learning how to do all of those other little fine details and yet the things that I was really good at, that I had to do on my own, It was awesome.

Like I can iron a shirt and iron a pair of pants in no time flat because I had a lot of ironing that I had to do. Not so much anymore.

Heidi: No, well now it’s like we get the wet washcloth and throw it in the dryer with the shirt and hope that the wrinkles come out. That’s my new method.

Kristi: I had somebody tell me ice cubes, they put ice cubes in the dryer. I’d never thought of it. Yeah, that’s what they do. Ice cubes. Never heard of it before.

Heidi: That’s a great idea.

Kristi: I know, I have not tried it yet.

Heidi: I will do almost anything to get out of ironing. Almost anything. I mean, not anything, but pretty close.

Kristi: Jay’s like “anything?”

Heidi: Right. Anything?

Kristi: I know. I saw your recent picture of you two making out on a couch.

Heidi: That’s right baby. I know we just had our 30th anniversary.

Kristi: That is so awesome, congratulations.

Heidi: It was really good. We actually took a day and we went into Portland and this guy is like an ACLU, you know, like a protestor and he saw us on the sidewalk cause we were walking in the Pearl District and, and it was so beautiful, sunny day, gorgeous in Portland. And he said, “Hey, you know how you make your sunny day even better?” And I was like, “No”. He said, “Help me sue the government.” I said, “Oh.” I said, “I’m actually a lifelong conservative who voted for Trump, you probably don’t want to talk to me.” And he was like, “Yeah, you’re right.”

It was great. I think he was looking at me like, “there are conservatives in Portland? I had no idea”. “I know, I can’t believe it, it’s amazing”. I’m like, yep, we’re here to stay and we’re out! 

Golly. Well, Kristi you are a delight. Your new book is fantastic. I was so happy that I got a chance to endorse it and if people want to find it. If they want to get a copy of your book, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Kristi: You can get my book anywhere books are sold, but if you want more information and just want a see every place you can get it, all in one spot. They can go to my website, which is KristiClover.com/mombook

Heidi: Ooh, I like that, that’s great.

Kristi: Isn’t that cute?

Heidi: I like it. Well, this is great. For those of you who are looking for help getting organized and actually, I think you’re going to put this book down feeling like “I could actually do it, I can do it”, which is really the point. So Kristi Clover, you are fantastic. I wish you all the best. I hope the book does fantastic.

Kristi: Oh, thank you so much and thanks for having me on your show. This was so fun.

Heidi: It was fun. We’ll do it again. We won’t wait until you write another book. We’ll do it again.

Kristi: Please don’t, I’m taking a little break right now.

Heidi: I don’t blame you. 

 

All right. Thank you friend. For more information on Kristi Clover, please visit her website, KristiClover.com I will link back to all things, Kristi Clover in the show notes today, and if you want more information about where I will be, please go to Heidistjohn.com/events. As always, we’d love it if you leave feedback for the podcast over at iTunes and if you have a question that you’d like to see addressed at mailbox Monday, go to my page, Heidistjohn.com/mailboxmonday and fill out that form and we will answer your question on the air. Have a great Friday everybody, and I’ll see you back here on Monday. 

 

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Heidi St. John
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11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

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