Milva McDonald is the mother of four amazing adult children, all of whom homeschooled for all or most of their child and teenage years. She started homeschooling in 1991, after reading an essay by John Taylor Gatto and realizing school and the PTA weren't for her. For three decades she worked for The Boston Globe and boston.com writing and reporting about arts and cultural events in Boston. Other pursuits over the years included running a folk music coffeehouse, organizing countless field trips, facilitating creative writing groups for kids, passing hors d'oeuvres at fancy parties on weekends, and performing in several editions of The Christmas Revels. She sings in The Halalisa Singers and blogs at apotlucklife.com