The Charlotte Mason Motherhood Podcast

Introducing Charlotte Mason Motherhood! The podcast that strives to bring the Charlotte Mason method to life. This project is almost a year-long in the making. I’ve wanted to start a podcast for years, but never had the time to dedicate to it. Now that we have solid habits formed in the home, and formal lessons have a wonderful rhythm, I have more time to dedicate to bigger projects like this one!

Listen to the CMM Podcast Trailer

About the Charlotte Mason Motherhood Podcast

I’m Larissa. I’m a follower of Christ, a wife to one, and a homeschool mother to two. Prior to homeschooling my children I was a Kindergarten teacher. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in English and my Master’s in Education, but everything I’ve learned about motherhood and homeschooling, I’ve learned on my own. I first found Charlotte Mason when I decided to lean into the nudge to homeschool back in 2019. After researching various homeschool methods, Miss Mason’s work is what spoke to me. I particularly loved her view of the child as a whole person, her use of living books, and her insistence upon time spent out-of-doors. While I used to walk down a street and look around, oblivious to my surroundings, I now stroll, and I take notice. I name the trees I encounter, identify the birds, feel the direction of the wind on my face. Charlotte Mason didn’t just give me the tools to home educate my children, she taught me how to live and not merely exist.

I’ll never forget reading Mason’s first volume, and feeling like she was speaking directly to me. On the second page of the very first chapter of her book Home Education she writes: “We are waking up to our duties, and in proportion, as mothers become more highly educated and efficient they will doubtless feel the more strongly that the education of their children during the first six years of life is an undertaking hardly to be entrusted to any hands but their own.”

I had such a strong feeling that I wanted to homeschool, but I was sort of oblivious on where to start. All I knew was that I would have to figure it out, because I didn’t want to entrust my child’s education into anyone else’s hands but my own!

Why am I starting a podcast about Charlotte Mason? 

There is just so much wisdom to be gleaned from her work. But almost daily I’ll get a text or message from a friend or fellow mother who wants to dive into Mason’s methods, and has no idea where to begin. 

So many of us discover Mason in the trenches of motherhood with very young children, and we don’t have time to sit down and study her work. It’s taken me years to read her volumes… but now that I’ve done it I want to make it more attainable for other moms!

At the end of the day, we can’t truly live out the Charlotte Mason philosophy until we develop a concrete understanding of her “why”. What do those of us who want to homeschool but won’t need to start formal lessons for another five years spend our time doing until then? How do we learn and apply the Charlotte Mason philosophy in our own homes? We know Mason’s methods are solid, but what does her philosophy look like day-to-day in a real home, with real kids and a real + human mom? That is why I created this podcast. To help teach you what I’ve learned about Mason through reading her work, but also through living it. 

I’m hoping to, as Karen Glass puts it: “Examine afresh in the light of current thought.” Because even though Mason’s words were written over a hundred years ago, they still resonate with me so much and I am constantly surprised by how realistic and natural her approach to education is.

Because after all, Mason herself calls education “an atmosphere, a discipline, a life”. So, everyday mothers, there is so much to be done before you sit down with your children in the school room. And so much of it starts with us. If you want to learn more about Mason’s approach and a practical application of her methods for the everyday mom, I hope you’ll join me in this season of learning and growing.