CHISWICK, WEST LONDON – Homeschooling sometimes has a reputation for forming weird children.
“How do you socialize your kids?” they always ask us when they hear we homeschool, assuming school is the only way to make sure children aren’t weird.
Maybe some parents use homeschooling to isolate their children from the rest of society, but we don’t. We love meeting and connecting with other people. You could say it’s our family’s prime directive…
This weekend, Postcards reader Shaun and his family invited us over to their house for lunch. We ate a feast together around a big table while we shared stories and jokes.
Here we are saying goodbye to our new friends before we rode away on our bicycles… (Here in London we don’t have a car, so we get around on bikes.)
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Saying goodbye to Postcards reader Shaun and his family
“Drop Out” Family
Greetings from London…
My family and I are a hobo family.
Three years ago, we quit our jobs, our schools, our possessions, our daily routines… And we hit the road with a suitcase, looking for adventure and new friends.
We’ve now become a sort of “drop out” family… a family without any daily obligations that “parties” every day, meeting people and having educational adventures.
We’re currently in London, living at my mother’s mansion, and “partying” as much as we can…
Partying in London
On Friday, for example, we toured Hampton Court Palace, a 500-year-old castle that belongs to Queen Elizabeth.
Here we are in the rose garden…
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Miles, Penny, and Dusty in the royal rose gardens
Here we are in the royal apartments…
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The kids explore Queen Elizabeth’s Hampton Court Palace
And here we are in the clock court. They installed that clock behind us in 1540, before Copernicus and Galileo figured out the Earth revolves around the sun…
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In front of the nearly 500-year-old clock
Special Day
Today, my cousin came over to our house with his wife and daughter. We hadn’t met their daughter yet because she was born during COVID-19, so it was a special day.
Here’s Miles helping his cousin learn to walk…
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Miles helps his cousin learn to walk
And here’s Dusty playing with her…
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Dusty plays with his cousin
This week, we head to the British Museum, the most popular tourist attraction in Britain. It’s also the oldest national public museum in the world, founded in 1753.
And we’re meeting more Postcards readers…
Our decision to drop out and “party” may bankrupt us, ruin our marriage, and completely screw up our children’s futures. But at least they won’t be weird… and these Postcards won’t be boring…
– Tom Dyson
P.S. People often ask us how we get by financially living like this. Well, we’re living off our savings. We’re going to make them last as long as we can, we hope, by making smart investments in the capital markets.
(We’re currently holding gold, silver, and shipping stocks. And we have big whole life insurance policies – which I call “Income for Life” – to make sure we leave something to the kids when we’re gone. I explain it all in more detail… including how you can follow our lead with your own wealth… in this video presentation.)
I also receive a salary for writing these Postcards. If it all goes wrong, and we end up broke, well, that’s okay too. It will all have been worth it.
Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [email protected].
FROM THE MAILBAG
Readers loved the Dyson family’s trip to Oxford… while another reader says good education is more about the people we meet along the way…
Reader comment: One of the benefits of being English and living far away from England (and the U.K.) for many years, as you and I have both done, is that you appreciate the beauty of places like Oxford much more.
Reader comment: Thanks for the photos of Oxford and your comments about them. I was a student there (studying Sanskrit!) over 40 years ago, and I haven’t been there for at least 20 years, so it was a delight to see those beautiful old buildings. The next time I’m in England, I will definitely make an effort and go there again for the day. Thanks for jogging my memory.
Reader comment: When considering how to educate your kids, one should not lose sight of the fact that much of the fruit of an education is the handful of exceptional people you meet in the process. I expect my life would be degraded, and my business results would have been considerably less fruitful, if I hadn’t “collected” great friends and partners along the journey.
Tom’s note: As always, thanks for your messages! Please keep writing us at [email protected], and I’ll do my best to answer your questions in a future Friday mailbag edition.