PAM: Welcome! I’m Pam Laricchia from livingjoyfully.ca, and today I’m here with Caren Knox! Hi Caren!
CAREN: Hi! I’m so excited to see you!
PAM: Oh, I am so excited too! Caren is a longtime unschooling mom, and I’ve known her online for many years. I’m so excited to finally get a face-to-face, almost face-to-face chat in. To get us started, Caren …
Can you share with us a little bit about you and your family?
CAREN: Sure! I am a single mom, and I started unschooling when my husband and I were still together, but not too long after we started, we separated. That had nothing to do with unschooling! And both dads are very, very, very supportive of unschooling. I think that’s probably all I’m going to say about that, but I feel very lucky in that aspect, because I couldn’t have done it as a single mom without their support, or maybe I could have, I can’t say, but I’m definitely grateful for that.
I have two sons. Evan is now 25, and Seth is 19. They are both currently working. We have had a lot of upheaval recently. I worked full time once they got old enough. I had been at a job for over thirteen years, working from home for the most part, more and more as they got older. And I lost that job, and very shortly after that found out we had to move. So, surprise! So, we are all working. I’m working two jobs now. Which, I absolutely love both of these jobs. And they are working. Evan works at a restaurant and Seth does too…just a different type. We are trying to get to a more stable place right now. Yep.
PAM: So, everybody is working together.
CAREN: Yes, exactly. They are very gracious about that as well.
PAM: That’s lovely. That’s something that, just to digress a moment, you know. The kinds of relationships, right, that we build up in our children and within our close family network really are helpful when other things come in, right? When challenges come up, you’ve got., like, let’s work through this. You’ve got those relationships to help you work your way through, because challenging things come up for people—sometimes two very challenging things at once. You can’t control those kinds of things, but it is so helpful, isn’t it, to have those strong relationships to fall back on? Building and working together, to work out how are we going to keep going.
CAREN: Absolutely. And just today in a mindfulness group I go to, people were talking about how to stay centered and mindful if you’re super busy and you have to wash dishes in ten minutes, and you have to duh duh duh duh duh. And, of course, there’s this thing to look at, ‘do you have to’, like do you really have to? And a lot of the points that I made were about the daily practice of mindfulness and gratitude for what’s right here.
If you practice that daily, then when you get in that very happy place, you can better access that type of calm center. And it’s the same type of thing with unschooling and parenting—that being present, calm, supportive, with them for years and years means that, as things were kind of, what felt like, falling apart, we made it through that without needing to move away from each other. Because there was some anger or some little things, of course we are all human. But there’s that underlying love and care for each other that we all three know is there no matter what. We are confident that that love is there. And it’s a little different from the way I was raised.
PAM: Yeah, yeah that foundation, right?
You’re building that foundation of love and trust and connection that can carry you through in the times where you need to be using it instead of building it.
When you need to be relying on it, and that’s my reason as well, it was the unschooling that led me there, it was my wish to unschool well, and learning about that, and learning what helped the most, that led me to figure out what led me to being present and being calm. That whole mindfulness piece just tied in so nicely, and the gratitude piece too, in that there is always good stuff, even in the bad.
That’s one of the things that I loved diving into with The Unschooling Journey book, because that’s one of the things that you discover over the years is that even as bad things happen, even as challenges… let’s go with challenges, even as challenges come up, later on, when you look back, you can see that, ‘oh, look what we’ve figured out, look what we’ve made work,’ and overtime, you see that happening time and again. It helps, as challenges come up again, to go, ‘I have no idea where we are going to end up, but I know we are going to be….we are going to end up somewhere and we are going to figure this out.’ I found that very helpful. OK, so, let’s go back to the beginning.
I’m very curious how you discovered unschooling and what your family’s move to unschooling looked like?
CAREN: OK. When Evan, my oldest, was quite young, I read a book called You Are Already Your Child’s First Teacher and in that book, which was just a very gentle parenting book, and a very supportive of letting your child explore freely. Not really using punishment, and saying yes as often as possible. If I’m remembering correctly, they were in Waldorf schools, which to me sounded so beautiful and lovely and spirit centering for a child, and this was before the internet was so ubiquitous. So, checking books out of the library, or ordering books out of a catalog called Chinaberry, yeah…
PAM: I remember that!
CAREN: Yep. So, to find out about Waldorf, sort of reading as much as I could, and I sent off for… I’m trying to remember the name of the organization…they are still active actually…it’s something like AERO … they are not called that anymore, I don’t think.
So, in one of the books I read, it said, hey, you can contact this agency, and they are Waldorf, and they know lots of things. So, I sent that off, my thought was to go to school to become a Waldorf school and help to open a Waldorf school. If you’re not familiar with Waldorf, it’s a kind of school that, when I look at it now, it’s like putting cotton batting around your child. It’s very protective. Things like…you tell stories with the children, but you don’t get them to look at books or maybe even read books until they can read, until they are passed a certain age.
Try not to play recorded music, but you try to get them around people who play music for fun, so that they get an idea of what’s tangible and real and right in front of them. They play with natural playthings, not plastic toys with batteries. They say they educate the heart and the mind. And what I loved about it is…Evan was just a very sensitive person and he still is. And I wanted to protect him in that way, you know? I wanted the world to not be harsh for him.
And as I was opening it up and I got this AERO catalog, there was something in there about a Sudbury Valley school. And it was also interesting. And that’s another school where there’s not a curriculum. The school has some agreements with the students, but it’s basically student run. It’s a democratic school, meaning every person there has a vote on the way that the school is run, and because students outnumber the facilitators, it’s really students making the majority of the decisions.
So, I sent off, again, in the mail, for books about Sudbury Valley, and they sent the video, and again, I was just struck by how beautiful! I mean, I wept watching this video of kids who were absolutely free to do as they wished. There was no one standing over them saying, “Oh, but you have to learn bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh.” It was understood that they would learn everything that they needed to learn from exploring what they loved, living life, exploring with the other kids.
The idea of a Sudbury school is that kids learn from each other. It’s very much about that. So, then I thought, “Oh, well maybe I want to start a Sudbury Valley school!” So, I started getting a group together here in Charlotte, North Carolina. And a group of parents, and before that could really take hold, and I learned so much about Sudbury Valley, I immersed myself in it, and completely understood why things were the Sudbury way, things were not, that I didn’t want Evan to go back to school.
So, to back it up a few years—being single, I needed to earn an income. Some friends of mine from La Leche League had kids who went to a preschool- it’s a lovely, magical place for kids in that, again, it’s not super controlling. They do have the kids sorted by ages, so it’s not like Sudbury, and there are activities and things, but it’s about play. It’s play based, and it understands kids’ development , and accepting that kids are where they are and you can’t push them to be where there not, and again it’s just a really nice place for a preschool.
And they thought I would be a good teacher there. So, I worked there, when I worked there, in a preschool, and I thought, “I don’t want him to go to school,” especially as a five year old. It just seemed too harsh for him to be away for six hours a day in a building. I mean, I know schools are different now, but for the majority of time, kids are in a room, and I just thought that’s such a weird way to treat these beings who want to explore, you know, like with their whole bodies and their whole selves.
But I didn’t think I could homeschool. I thought homeschooling meant we would sit down at the table and we would have a curriculum and I would have to force them to do work, and I didn’t want our relationship impacted negatively in that way. He did go to a charter school here which was, the idea for that school was much more open and organic, but because it got a lot of very special needs students, they changed into more rigid and more controlling. And really, for some of the students, that’s exactly what they needed and they blossomed.
But I saw Evan losing his spark, you know, literally. I felt stuck, you know? We’ve got to go to a school. But we don’t have a Waldorf school here. We don’t have a Sudbury Valley school here. And that’s when I really thought about starting the Sudbury Valley school. Just wanting him to regain his excitement for learning and life. I thought, while they’re getting this Sudbury Valley school together, I’m going to just keep him home. And a friend of mine who I was talking to who homeschooled her kids, said, “You know, there are so many different ways to homeschool!”
I didn’t know that! And, at the time, I went to the public library to get on the computer, and again it’s before everybody had a computer in their home. So, I went to the library and one of the first things I ever put into a search engine, pre-google, was the phrase, “ways to homeschool,” just that phrase, and unschooling came up! And I read it, and I completely didn’t understand what it was, I thought I did, and I thought- we can do this! We can do that while we are trying to get the school together! My idea of unschooling at the time, because my parenting at the time was still very much informed by how I was parented, was sort of hands off, kind of. Like, so I thought—’I’m a disorganized person’, I thought, ‘Oh good, here’s a way that I can homeschool, and I don’t have to be organized!’
PAM: Yep!
CAREN: So, you know, my kind of thinking about what unschooling would look like, that Evan would come to me. By then we’d had Seth too, they are six years apart. I thought that they’d come to me and say, “Mother, darling? I’d like to learn about electricity!” And I’d say, “Of course, my son!” And we’d go to the library, we’d go to the power plant, and we’d talk to electricians. More than just reading about it. It didn’t happen. It doesn’t happen that way! For the most part, maybe some do. Much, much different than that!
While we were, you know, whatever you’d call this not-unschooling thing, ‘cause I realized that we really enjoyed being together, and for them to get up, you know, Monday through Friday, at whatever time was deemed necessary, would really mess up a lot of the lovely things that we had going on. Even if they were going to a Sudbury Valley school where they get to finish whatever they started in their own time in their own way, it would really mess up whatever they started at home, you know? That’s why I read more about unschooling, and I got onto the unschooling email lists. And we thought, “Well ok, we’ll do this.” You know? WE’ll do this.
PAM: Oh, that is so fascinating! That’s really interesting, Caren. I hadn’t heard the background stories before. So, cool about how you were wanting to do something different and eager to start the school so that you could have what you were looking for, because that’s a big piece of it, even with unschooling, right?
We don’t have something we are looking for, we will dive in trying to create it, right? So that was really cool. And I do love the observation that, about so often, that’s the first observation of unschooling, right? It’s like, ok, hands off, just wait for the kids to come and ask! That is the very common first impression as you start learning about it. And then as you said, you decided to learn more. And that other piece of realizing that Sudbury was, it was almost like schooling in that environment, it was in a separate environment than home, right? And that you still have to get up and go to a different place! Still have those kinds of parameters. And then it’s almost like they are living in two different environments, two very different environments that they have to manage.
CAREN: And to be Sudbury, it’s very much about not having parents involved with the school. Which I understand, because not very many adults really get how kids learn, and so I can see parents being involved and being in school a lot and they’d be saying, “I’ve got these books! Let’s sit down and read!”
PAM: Trying to direct…
CAREN: You know, the facilitators try to understand—most parents wouldn’t fully understand why that is. And they had a requirement because it’s about that community of kids, that the kids really commit to being there a certain number of hours a week. So,there were things that were not that great.
PAM: Yeah, no, it’s great to understand those aspects when you are making that choice, right? They do make sense when you are in that environment, but those are the choices as part of it.
So, and I want to come out a little bit to do more learning about what, how unschooling really worked, what was the most interesting ‘ah-ha’ moment for you around that time, as you did the bulk of your deschooling.
CAREN: I thought, and this was after going to an unschooling conference, which truly made the biggest difference in my unschooling. It was Live and Learn in Black Mountain, North Carolina. And literally being with parents who are living radical unschooling, just opened my eyes to so much. And seeing the teens and young adults who were amazing, just amazing people, I thought, I really want to get this. And so, I went—I had taken time off of email lists, because to me they just seemed very contentious to me at the time, and a lot of arguing and a lot of it just didn’t seem healthy to me. I had stepped away from all that.
But after going to the conference, I wanted to stay connected to people I had met, and I wanted to learn more. So, I signed back on. And I would say the biggest ah-ha for me was, the way I worded it at the time was, “I don’t need to worry. There is nothing they have to learn.” And that made sense to me. And it allowed me to just let go of, ‘What about reading? What about this what about that what about that?’ I got that from reading on the email lists, and also by being with my kids and seeing how they were learning. I think I thought that, you know, even if they reach adulthood and they aren’t great readers and their handwriting isn’t that great, they can still create a life, you know, really successfully. And that’s too was part of reading the Sudbury Valley stuff was reading their outcomes. So, that allowed for that to happen, I just literally, it felt like it clicked in my head. You know?
PAM: Like you felt the weight release. It’s like, “Oh!”
To me, for me, that was tied in with realizing that they are always learning, which you figure out by watching your kids. They are always learning! They aren’t going to stop learning just because they are eighteen! And they don’t have to learn these certain things by this certain age. They have a lifetime to do it! It’s like, yeah, it can just come up! Such a huge difference. The timeframe is our lifetime.
That’s another layer to peel away around the idea of curriculum, right? Because at first, you’re still yeah, yeah, no curriculum—you follow the curriculum and they learn these things. But you still have, in the back of your mind, just what a curriculum implies, which is that there is a certain set of knowledge or skills that one should have by certain ages. So, that’s the deeper layer of releasing the curriculum, understanding that it too is artificial. That they really can learn whenever.
CAREN: Around that same time, I think this is when my mom moved out of our childhood home, I’m not so great with timing of things, but I think that’s it.
She sent me a box of my stuff from the attic. And there was a good bit of schoolwork in there. And there were papers and essays and stuff in there that I had gotten As and A pluses and 100s, and I remembered none of it. I didn’t even remember researching whatever it was. But I spent, how much time? Doing this work? And it, again, the timing of that was like, ‘Oh. OOOOOHHHH.” Right? You know.
PAM: Yeah, that’s great.
So, I’d love to dive into our topic of healing and unschooling. And I was curious, was your healing something that you were working on before you found unschooling, you’d found that school, Sudbury school journey, or was that kind of a need that you uncovered though moving to unschooling? Does that make sense as a question?
CAREN: It does! So, it was definitely before I had kids. I had lived with depression since I was about 17 or 18. I had been to therapy for that. I had tried medication once, and I just hadn’t had that great of an experience. And I, whew, I don’t know where my brain just went, but it’s back now. I was using drugs, I was drinking alcohol and smoking pot, and not anything harder than that until I dropped acid. And the very first time that I dropped acid I had this amazing experience of feeling that everything really is one. Like very deeply feeling that. And I’ll just tell you this. Looking at the clothes I was wearing and taking them off like, “What is clothing about really? We don’t need clothing! And tossing my jewelry away like, “Oh, this is all so unnecessary.”
I was on a mountaintop outside of Boone, North Carolina. And it was a beautiful summer night. And thank goodness, a friend was there, a few friends were, and this particular friend was taking care of me and wrapping me in a blanket, and he said, “What you’re feeling really is real, like that’s IT, but you can’t get there through drugs, like you can’t stay there with drugs.” And I was like, “How do I get there?” And he was like, “You’ll find out. That’s your thing. You have to look within.”
I had no idea what the phrase, ‘look within, even meant. It was a very, I don’t know how to say it except to say I was out of touch with myself. I was very much in my head. I made choices and did things based on what people would think of me. I couldn’t even tell you what I wanted. I would say what I thought the other person wanted me to want. Very much not in here, and that experience, combined with shortly after that, I attempted suicide, and I obviously wasn’t successful, and those two things together.
Then, as I recovered from my suicide attempt, I read the book, Be Here Now by Ram Dass, where he talks about his experience dropping acid and experiencing oneness and wanting to explore it more. And I thought, “Ooo! This has happened to more people than me!” And he advocated meditation and finding a teacher and, you know, different things, and I got very much into meditation.
Getting into meditation brought me to knowing myself more, and it brought me to where I really didn’t want to use drugs anymore at all, at all. Even caffeine, it was like, “We shouldn’t need these external things!” And I joined a twelve step group at that time, I’m no longer involved in that, so from there, you know, healing and working the steps, looking at myself, learning about myself. At that same time, I was seeing an exceptionally good therapist, who taught me what looking inside meant, kind of showed me how, walked me through doing that.
So, definitely, before kids, I had started that journey. I actually thought I was never going to have kids. I really thought I was going to become a guru and go live on a mountaintop away from people. Come to find out, that was my attempt to not live in this body, you know? That was my attempt to escape this particular world we’ve created. I didn’t know that at the time! And then, I got pregnant with Evan, And, yeah. I’ve been in therapy off and on now for…
PAM: Yeah, you mentioned to me, before I knew that you had been in and out of therapy and had explored a number of different therapies and you mentioned meditation and what not.
So, I was just curious, what did you find helpful for you?
CAREN: Well, meditation is still helpful for me. It’s still…I am still discovering things about that. And about being mindful and what that means. In the 80s, I think it became kind of popular to look at your inner child and do inner child work, and there are parts of that that I kind of think are taken a little far, but looking at that perspective of the young me that I can still be in touch with has been very, very helpful.
And when things are kind of not in great control, and not making good choices, I’ll realize that, “OK, my eight year old has been in charge for the past few weeks, so we’re eating donuts and cheetos for a meal because that’s how it goes. OK, it’s time for me to be in charge.” And that sort of thinking process is very helpful.
And reiki- I heard about reiki and I thought it was fake and weird, and I googled it and I was like, “Pshaw- riiiight.” but then I met someone, and the moment I met her it was like, “Oh, here’s my other half. I’ve been looking for you!” She was a master, and a mutual friend of ours took her class and had very amazing things happen that brought me to tears to hear. So, I thought, “Ok, I’ll try this reiki class,” and I did, and it just opened me up in a very interesting way. The reiki has been very powerful in terms of learning it and opening my mind up enough in order to learn it.
Some personal growth things- there’s a blogger named Steve Pavlina and I stumbled upon his work, and it’s not all a super great match, but there’s so much really good stuff that he has learned about personal growth, being true to who you are, not hiding who you are, that I got a lot out of his work also. I found his work close to the same time that I went to my first unschooling conference, close to the same time that I got—oh, I can’t remember the word, um, attuned—that I got attuned to reiki healing. This was all happening around the same time. This was a big, big time of learning.
How did you find your healing weaving in with unschooling?
CAREN: Because I wanted to be more present with the kids. Because I wanted to not react in harmful ways. I think knowing that there’s healing, like, I can look at whatever that trigger is and heal that! Like, that was huge for unschooling! Just trusting that this isn’t who I am. That I can grow, and I can change. A huge piece of that was learning to be vulnerable.
And I said before, I thought of unschooling as kind of hands off. To really understand and know Evan and Seth, I had to open up to that, to their being, and I was very protective. You know, as I child, I endured pain, and I protected myself and my heart, you know? And wanting to deeply connect with my sons. I had to learn how to crack that open. And doing that helped me really accept who they are without judging, and help them be more of who they want to be or who they already are. To provide them a support to really be who they are meant to be in the world. And that’s…
PAM: And I was just going to say, that’s such a cool reason.
That to really recognize who they are- it helps so much for us to get to a vulnerable or comfortable place, recognizing who we are, and being able to be that person, because they can sense what we become with layers and protections over the top of us, and they learn that they should do that too, it feels like, right? So, you get those layers reflected back at you, you know, because that’s how they are learning to be in relationship with another person. With you. That’s what they’re learning.
So, when we do the work to actually see and understand ourselves, and get that self awareness, and it is so vulnerable to get to the spot where you are going to bring your real you. Depending on our experiences growing up we can build a lot of layers on top of that to protect ourselves, truly and needfully! You know? But that work to get to our gooey centre, you know, whatever you want to call it, right? And to bring that to our relationship with our kids, because, they haven’t yet- they certainly may have to have some layers. Like, you know, my kids went to school for three years, etcetera. But for us all to have this safe space, this safe unschooling space. And I was going to say home? But we take it with us! Because it’s our relationship…it’s how we are together! Right? It’s that trust that you build! That honesty, etcetera. You know what I mean? And it’s just, it’s so valuable for everyone.
CAREN: Yes. In so many ways, too. Because that work affects my other relationships in the world, and the way I show up in the world, and…
PAM: It’s true. It was all to learn. Unschooling was kind of the impetus, right? I mean I know you, in your situation, you started your healing journey before you came to unschooling. Unschooling took it another layer deeper.
CAREN: Several layers I think!
PAM: A few layers deeper- absolutely! And then, then you can be that person of where you get that understanding of yourself, and that acceptance of yourself, which we learn through accepting our kids!
I mean, for me, so much of what I learned about being human and treating myself graciously was through doing that for my children, and then realizing, this is for humans. This is the way we should all be treated, right?
CAREN: Including myself, right?
PAM: Exactly. Yes, including ourselves.
CAREN: I’m very good at saying, “Who you are, you are perfect, exactly as you are.” Except for me. I’m not that way. I’m a horrible person! And actually, I’m only recently letting go of that story, that’s I’m broken and wrong, which is so beautiful and freeing.
But I think the desire to, as you said, create that safe space, and I think Sandra Dodd called it maybe the unschooling nest, that yes, I wanted that unschooling nest, and I wanted my kids to know that unconditionally, they have home. I think that so many parents think that well, their bosses are not going to be nice to them, and the world is a harsh place and, you know, you need to prepare them for that. So, they kind of, they close off, you know? And they are not so kind to their kids!
What I have found is that that solid base of kindness and them knowing they have a home, they have a soft nest to come to no matter what! That’s what they need to survive the harsh world. Which, is where these people live! But what a privileged thing to say! I mean, for where I am, currently in the US, and people talk about the harsh world, and you know they are meaning that people aren’t that kind. It’s not harsh like a lot of other countries. I mean, they have things. The majority of the people in my life are very kind and very generous, and I’m so sad that that’s not true, apparently, and that people need to steel their children for a rough life ahead. And for the, you know that argument that, you know, their boss won’t do that for them. I’m not my kids’ boss. I’m their mom! You know? I don’t want to have an employer/employee relationship with my kids. They are my kids!
PAM: And I think that the point that you make is just so valuable! In that, making them a harsh person, getting them used to harshness in preparation for it? That just really escalated that relationship, whereas giving them that wholeness, that kindness, that knowing that they have, in their back pocket, a safe, wonderful, loving place that they can go to, they can absorb that. Because we are always speaking with them about individuals, they know, this is that person. This is that person’s personality. Your boss, your co-workers, whoever it is, they realize this isn’t their whole world. You know, I have in my back pocket this wonderful place.
You know…they aren’t taught, “You have to fight back! It’s a power thing!” And that escalates too, making things harder at work, or in whatever situation, right? But to try to explain to people that, “No, this soft loving nest, and knowing that it’s there, that’s how we learn to understand and accept other people and their affect on other people.” Not accept that as in that’s ok, but that they’re understanding that that’s a person, it’s not about me, it’s about them. That understanding can help them deal with that so much better. I think! That’s such a great point! I’ve never thought of it that way! Very cool.
Alright, last question, Caren.
Looking back at this point now, what do you most appreciate about having chosen unschooling?
CAREN: Primarily, my relationship with Evan and Seth. It exceeds anything I could have imagined, in terms of compassion and support and love and presence.
PAM: I love those words.
CAREN: It’s, and that plays out, too. Again, you know, opening up to that vulnerability, becoming open hearted helps others outside the home. Even momentary interactions are made better by the full presence of my whole self. I can feel and I know it and I’ve experienced it. I’ve said before that, if I had learned what I learned through unschooling about acceptance and patience and generosity, that my husband and I would never have separated. And I’m not…I don’t…A lot of people have a lot to say about that particular subject.
PAM: It’s important stuff. It’s valuable.
CAREN: Yes. And it’s true. It’s true. And last year, I spoke at the Free to be Unschooling conference, which is in Phoenix. I met several people, and then the conversation, and a circle chat is the way that I did was to talk about my own experiences in my own thoughts, and
And then different people shared different things about things that they have learned or have passions about.
I highly recommend circle chat, highly recommend, I wish I had one once a week with other unschoolers. It’s just the best. But in that, a mom was saying that, I think it was her son’s friend really loved potatoes. Like all kinds of potatoes, like fried, mashed, baked, whatever. So, when he came over, she gave him as many potatoes as he wanted. I guess his parents thought well, that’s not so healthy. So, when he came over she would give him as many potatoes as he wanted. And she said something so beautiful, and I know her first name is Alyssa, I hope I find out—I mean I have her last name and everything. But she said she healed herself. By being generous to this child, something in her healed as well. And she said something so wonderful that has stayed with me.
Because we know that the healing goes forward. We know our kids are more whole and less damaged and they live by these values of compassion and understanding and patience and vulnerability. We know that goes forward, that their relationships will be better for that. If they have kids, you know, their relationship with their kids will be better, their kids will be more whole, and what Alyssa said is that it also goes backwards, because she was healed with that generosity. And learning that for herself, and I believe that it heals the past as well.
PAM: Wow.
CAREN: Partially our view of it that we have more compassion for what we went through. But I also believe, in a very real, energetic level, that it heals the past as well. And it heals it well! Learning how to be generous to your kids, and how to be vulnerable with your kids. And how it’s safe for them to know that you love them. That’s not a dangerous thing. And it heals the world.
PAM: That’s beautiful Caren. And what a wonderful way to end. I want to thank you so much for sharing your stories today. It was such a wonderful conversation. I’m so glad I finally got the chance to chat with you face-to-face!
CAREN: Me too! It was really nice to connect. So, thank you! Talking about all this stuff, if other people benefit from that, then awesome!
PAM: Ok, before we go, where is the best place for people to connect with you online?
CAREN: Boy! I’m on Facebook! I am not loving Facebook right now. They can send a message. I may not accept friend requests—I’m not…I’m just having a weird thing with Facebook right now!
PAM: That’s no problem!
CAREN: I would say most of the time, reach out through messenger. I don’t keep a blog or have a website, so that is kind of it right now.
PAM: Thank you so much Caren, and have a great night!
CAREN: Thank you! I hope you do too!
PAM: Bye!