Faark The Shoulds (& Alchemising Education)

Running Your Own Race

We’re in a world where advertising campaigns tout standing out, standing above, extra-ordinary individualism and “going your own way” but everywhere around us in society reflects collectivism, community and the relative safety of homogeny.

So, when you’re looking for cues from society, which is it? 

Are we meant to be part of the herd or out front, leading the charge? 

Is there a third option where we can don the HP invisibility cloak and not be witnessed (read: judged) by others at all? And if we could be invisible, is that just so we can live a perceived quiet, undisturbed life, free of shadow influences?

As intuitive wisdom comes through the natural aging process, parents have the invitation to fark the shoulds and choose instead, to run their own race. At the start, this may feel scary, overwhelming, and even, delinquent. 

Running your own race can show up in a myriad of examples:

questioning and holding to account our education institutions;

advocating and decision making that are child centred;

celebrating the unconventional rather than the popular.

In this episode of Alchemising Education, QuantiMama Jodi and Curious Quinn unpack what it is to run your own race, sparking curiosity and questioning the status quo with equal parts passion and laughs. 

Get ready to experience listening-gasm after listening-gasm and as always, fark the shoulds. 

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QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

It’s no secret that in today’s modern world, there are a million and one absolute opinions to effectively parent your child and with natural spiritual and emotional evolution, thank goodness too, because the ultimate winners, when we improve our parenting, are our children. 

This conversation is all about (a beginners’ guide to) being a Quantum Dad, with QuantiPapa McGIll in the proverbial hotseat (just where Jodi loves him).

What is a Quantum Dad?

How do men, in this modern world, full of demands to be this, that and everything else, also level up their parenting?

How do we as parents now, avoid and eliminate enshrining the less-so high vibe parenting strategies gifted to us by our parents?

What does “being a Quantum Dad” look like in the everyday setting?

It’s another lively, honest conversation, with QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiPapa McGill that considers the small and big moments in our parenting journey, always intent on raising happy, secure and connected kids that have real resilience, emotional maturity, a sense of whole self and a practical dose of Farking The Shoulds. 

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Welcome back to Season 2 of the Faark The Shoulds podcast, kicking off in fashionably late style with this Alchemising Education episode.

If the parents “get to decide” then it’s only fitting that the kids “get to choose”!

Join QuantiMama Jodi and the ever-curious Curious Quinn for another Fark the Shoulds conversation on Alchemising Education.

What does child-led or child driven education look like? 

Does it have structure?

A tangible and intelligible program?

Or is it just a free-for-all shermozzle that fosters unruly, wayward, undisciplined children; houses in disarray and home educating parents in the foetal position, tearing their hair out, struggling to track and trace their child’s progress?

Sorry not sorry to burst the bubble of hyperbolic generalisation. Child driven education is so much richer and rewarding than one could quantify, even with a dedicated half hour conversation.

Jodi and Quinn chat about the foundations for success in their kids’ education architecture:

Support

Trust

Structure, rhythm and natural boundaries

Natural learning times as devised by the learner (a learning in itself, one might say)

Empowerment

Trials and life tests

Reassessment and agility

Shepherding (rather than Sheepherding) our charges and 

Being the custodians, not architects, of their education.

They also explore the idea of resilience and the misconception that it only comes from surviving trauma, challenging the idea that kids need to face adversity, in the absence of safety, security and a loving environment to build resilience. 

In a world of abundant options, even in the home education sphere, hear from two Mums walking the talk on their decision to fark the shoulds and place their kids firmly in the driver’s seat of their learning. 
Turns out that kids aren’t the only students when it comes to education.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

What’s with our preoccupation of being extraordinary?

Where does the addiction to extraordinary come from?

Does it start in-utero?

Is it naturally expressed in the child or a product of parenting hopes, dreams, programming and pressure?

Do our kids prosper or persevere in the pressure pot to be extraordinary?

Are there any more “P” words we could possibly integrate here (read on, dear one, as we peruse…)?

QuantiMama Jodi and Curious Quinn take a dive into what an addiction to the extraordinary looks like for today’s children and query, is it worth striving for?  

Curious Quinn, a mum to two driven, motivated kids that have wanted to be extraordinary and QuantiMama Jodi, a mum who happily settles for mediocrity, potentially as a disservice to her kids.

Together, they explore: 

·      the responsibility of parents; their role/influence, social expectation drivers and personal desires;

·      how children can form self-limiting beliefs, increased intensity and restrictions in the pursuit of extraordinary; 

·      how does the addiction to extraordinary impact one’s sense of self?  

·      is it possible for our kids, striving for the highest outcomes, to maintain a balance of rest, play, nourishment and joy in learning?

·      what are the warning signs of kids heading towards overwhelm and what can we, as parents, functionally affect?

Ordinary or extraordinary, this conversation will spark in you, a deep knowing of what is in the best and most aligned interests of your kid. 

Get listening, get questioning, get introspective and as always, fark the Shoulds.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

“This episode is a love letter to our beautiful soul sisters and soul brothers, with whom we have shared the most extraordinary, vulnerable, encouraging and heart-centred gatherings. Thank you, from the whole of our hearts, for these enriching, transformation encounters.”

Womens’ Circle & Mens’ Circle

So, what the fark is circle?

What happens there??

Is it really just a bit of whale music, goat sacrifice and nude-ing-up???? 

Hear from QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiPapa McGill as they reflect on their respective experiences of gathering in Womens’ and Mens’ circles. Hear of the practice, the unfolding, the magical moments and rawness of being in a space that asks nothing of you except your honest presence.

As always, an authentic, illuminating and inspiring conversation; demystifying this wonderful and simple way of connection in community and not one single goat was harmed in the creation of this conversation….

What are you waiting for? 

Fark the shoulds!

Go find your tribe!

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Alchemising Education - The Parents Decide.

In this episode, QuantiMama Jodi and Curious Quinn Alchemise the faark  out of Education once again, discussing the beliefs and fears many parents face when they begin to recognise the real value in advocating for their kids.  

That white coat fever is a bugger, with parents often assuming that scholars, academics, experts & researchers know more than they do.  That may be so in the general sense however not when we’re talking about our actual offspring.  Jodi & Quinn chat about the ways in which we, as parents, often underestimate our capabilities and overwrite our inner wisdom.   

So are parents giving away their rights and the opportunity to be the lead role in their children’s lives?  

Is school refusal or hesitancy a sign that your kid lacks discipline and structure or an increasing alarm, bell, ushering in an opportunity to listen to the kid and ask them what they truly want?   

Do we as parents feel confident enough to ask that question? 

Are we ready for the answer, whatever that might be? 

Are we looking at the whole picture? 

Are there tell-tale signs that we’ve been dismissing or ignoring? 

What is our intuition/heart/inner voice/spidey senses whispering to us?

It becomes clear through this conversation that in honouring our kids’ needs, we must choose, first and foremost, Love.   Farking the parenting “shoulds” of fear, social stigmas, doing the ‘right thing’, choosing the convenient option, treading the known pathway and not rocking the boat, we must, instead, listen to our own intuition, knowing that we, as parents, are the decision makers and ultimately, the parents get to decide what is right for their child.  

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Wisdom: now and then. 

Although getting older is synonymous with getting wiser, what does that really mean?

Do you make better choices in your daily life?

Do you experience a shorter refractory period when things/people/events/life gives you the shits?

Is your overall sense of life purpose and well-being clearer and assured?

Do you, on a daily basis,  have more moments of peace rather than farkery?

Does this filter through to your daily life, kids and parenting?

Taking stock of life's lessons and the ensuing A-ha moments and epiphanies seems a feature of middle age,  of which QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiPapa McGill are clear members.  

In this conversation,  McGill reflects on his reflections, giving voice to the overlooked and assumed, helped,  as always, with a healthy framework of 'farking the shoulds'. 

We are wiser than we credit; often it's just a matter of employing it in both the now moment and longer view. 

And wisdom will always Faark The Shoulds.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Healing the Hurt-Learning Traumas

Being a kid is all about having fun, right?  And as parents we want positive, uplifting, nourishing experiences for our kids to grow and love their learning.  

But what happens when our kids have experiences that leave trapped emotions in their bodies and create a low-vibe belief that is unhelpful or worse still, increasingly corrosive to their sense of self.

In this Alchemising Education episode, QuantiMama Jodi and Curious Quinn ponder this and how “learning traumas” are experienced and processed by our kids in the school system; a system seemingly built for efficiency in addition to supposed learning outcomes needed to be “successful” adults. 

Highlights include: 

-       What does a learning trauma look like?

-       If schools are a business, then who are the clients and who determines what success and the outcomes look like?  

-       Is the learning environment about creating efficiency in the system or creating experiences that are student-focused?

-       What’s important to becoming a good human?  

-       What creates the pressure in learning environment and how to address the dis-ease?  

-       Recognizing which Education Shoulds need to be massaged and which just need to be farked.

Alchemising Education… no right or wrong or BS one size fits all; just an opportunity for curiosity and adaptation, facilitating education’s restitution that can be swift, comprehensive, relevant and lasting!  

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."
Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee's powerful words, like the proverbial "whisper" have morphed over the years to be a slightly bastardised but more succinct phrase of "Be Like Water, My Friend" which is voiced, often, in the Quanti-household. 

Water, life giving, life saving, immersive, corrective and restorative, features a great deal in QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiPapa McGill's lives and is often credited as being one of their life's natural anxiolytics. 

How does water feature in your world? 
Do you feel the nurturing and rebalancing effects? 
What are the ways you integrate  connection with nature? 

From the philosophical parallels of "being like water" to the practicalities of connecting with water, join Jodi and McGill for this chat (that initially identified as Episode 12 but, like water, flowed into Episode 13) on ways their connection with water has impacted their daily living, life-changing moments and the 'ripple' effect of these big and small experiences.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

In the Faark The Shoulds school, Alchemising Education is one of the core subjects; a non-negotiable, if you will. 
Deep gratitude for the perspective afforded by the last three years of farkery, which revealed plain and simple, for many parents,  the actual truth of our kids real education experience; Wizard Oz's curtain reveal. 
A homogenised, streamlined, one-size-fits-most approach to shaping kids into like-minded thinkers, with the most genuine of intentions but resulting in a product that ultimately has left the "clients" quietly dissatisfied with the execution. 
Join QuantiMama Jodi and Curious Quinn, two middle class, tow-the-line kinda gals who had their respective rude awakening to the education system being not quite what it's cracked up to be and pulled the ultimate middle class renegade move by reexamining and respectively reimagining their kids' education models. 
They're not here to preach; just spark curiosity and questioning in the disquiet that gently accompanies parents these days: can we do better? what's needed? am i equipped to change this? ... all the while knowing, our kids are worth it!!

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.