“The only place that I feel the happiest, if I am not with my kids, is when my kids are at Waldorf.”
That’s how Leo, a mother of two and a 12-year resident of Louisville by way of Venezuela and Argentina, describes the place her children spend their days. Not “fine.” Not “good enough.” The happiest.
It’s a strong thing to say out loud as a working parent — that admission of what it feels like to hand your child to someone else’s care. But Leo says it without hesitation, and by the end of our conversation, it’s easy to understand why.
A School Found Through Friends Around the World
Leo didn’t stumble into Waldorf education through a local recommendation or a Google search. She found it through her global community of friends — many of them, like her, originally from Venezuela and scattered now across the world.
“Every time I would talk to my friends and ask them, ‘How are the kids? Where are they going?’ I would say four times out of ten, I would have friends telling me that their kids were at Waldorf.”
That pattern intrigued her enough to dig deeper — into the history, the international association, the global framework that ties Waldorf schools together across countries. For a family that has already lived in three countries and isn’t ruling out a fourth, that consistency mattered.
“It’s almost like a local school with a global footprint… I wanted to make sure that we continued on the same educational framework rather than starting over.”
But Leo is quick to add that the decision wasn’t made lightly or alone. Before they toured a single classroom, she and her partner sat down to name their family’s values first.
“This is a journey that you, as a parent, have to sit down with your partner and write down what the values are in your family — what you really want to pursue when it comes to your kids’ education. That’s really going to guide your decision on where to go.”
Three Things That Drew Them In
Once their values were clear, three things kept surfacing as Leo and her partner toured schools: nature, technology, and community.
On nature, the contrast was jarring. Touring other schools and daycares, she found that most offered barely an hour of outdoor time across a full day.
“It blew my mind. I’m from Venezuela — we are pretty much nature driven. We’re used to going on hikes, visiting the ocean, playing outside a lot.”
Waldorf’s answer — closer to three hours outdoors daily — was, in her words, an immediate yes.
On technology, the family had already decided, well before discovering Waldorf, that they wanted to raise their children with as little screen exposure as possible. Finding a school built around that same philosophy felt like confirmation rather than coincidence.
And then there was something Leo didn’t expect to need: support for herself, not just her children.
“We need support just as much as the kids do. Our experience with Waldorf hasn’t been, ‘Your kid is doing this, here’s a checklist for home.’ It’s been, ‘How can I support you as a parent?'”
From Worm-Fearing to Worm Farming
If you want proof that a child’s relationship with the natural world can shift, Leo has a story for you.
“My kids were scared of touching worms. I gave them six months at Waldorf, and they came back — not only do they now touch worms, they collect worms.”
Her daughter, once afraid of getting dirty, is now, as Leo puts it, “fully in nature… all muddy, and the happiest ever.”
“It only sounds silly because it’s become so far removed from who we are as a culture, generally.”
Beyond the dirt and the worms, Leo has watched her children develop something less visible but, she believes, more important: the capacity to process their own experiences through imaginative, self-directed play. After a small scare in the car one day, she later overheard her daughter retelling the whole event to her stuffed animals — narrating it, working through it, in her own words.
“I think that allowing the kid to experience life and then re-experience it through play, rather than just turning on the iPad so they can repress those feelings — they need to let it out. The way Waldorf allows kids to be creative through storytelling is important to process our emotions and our experiences in the world.”
A Village for the Parents, Too
One of the threads Leo returned to again and again was how much the community — not just the curriculum — has shaped her as a parent.
She points to the school’s peaceful parenting class as an example: a space where parents gather, share struggles, and receive guidance from a facilitator who never tells them what to do.
“That’s the other thing about Waldorf that I love — it doesn’t impose what you need to do. It always starts with, ‘I wonder… what would happen if you tried this?'”
Book recommendations passed between parents and faculty have become lifelines on exhausting workdays.
“Having these tools that just give us little nuggets — you don’t have to read the entire book, just go to this page — that has been so helpful.”
She’s noticed the shift in herself: lighting candles to wake her children gently, singing through morning routines, slowing down in small ways she didn’t grow up with.
“There is a part of me that feels so inclined to receive this level of care that I wish I’d had as a five-year-old. Even though it’s for my kid, it’s also for me.”
Speaking Spanish, Celebrating Everyone
As an immigrant raising bicultural children, Leo didn’t fully realize how much she needed to feel culturally seen — until Waldorf gave her the chance.
“I am welcome here. They’re welcoming me to read a book in Spanish… the celebration of different cultures and languages — that just normalizes, for my kids and I’m sure for others, that it’s normal to speak another language.”
That welcome extends to her family’s spiritual life as well. Leo and her partner describe themselves as spiritual rather than tied to one religion, drawing from Catholicism, Buddhism, and other traditions they’ve encountered throughout their lives. At home, they celebrate Shabbat, Easter, Christmas, and Ramadan — not as outsiders borrowing traditions, but as a family choosing to honor what each one offers.
“We believe in the tradition that is serving people who believe in that… it’s okay to think of yourself as a spiritual family and to honor the celebrations that allow you and your kids to feel more human, more connected.”
She’s found Waldorf to hold that same openness — welcoming families across race, culture, and belief without asking anyone to choose a single box to fit into.
Is Waldorf the Right Fit? Leo’s Honest Take
Asked what she’d tell a family considering Waldorf, Leo doesn’t lead with a sales pitch. She leads with a question back:
“Maybe the question isn’t ‘Is Waldorf for me?’ but ‘What am I willing to change in my dynamic with my kids that Waldorf is going to support me in doing?'”
Her honesty extends to where families might struggle, too. If a household leans heavily on screens for dinners, car rides, or quiet time, she’s candid that the adjustment will be real.
“It’s not something the school can simply solve for you. You have to commit to the way of raising the kid. This is an ecosystem for the kid to thrive — not just your responsibility as a parent, and not just the school’s responsibility.”
It’s not a judgment, she’s careful to add — just an invitation to be honest about whether your family is ready to grow alongside the school’s values, even gradually.
A Closing Thought
Leo talked about one of Rudolf Steiner’s founding hopes for Waldorf education: that raising children with this kind of integrated, connected, whole-being approach could be part of building a more peaceful world.
It’s a big idea to hold next to something as small as a worm farm in a backyard, or a five-year-old narrating her own fears back to her stuffed animals. But maybe that’s exactly the point — that the small, daily acts of connection, creativity, and care are what that larger vision is built from.
As Leo put it simply:
“I’m happy to be a voice for any parent who is open to exploring Waldorf education — which is not just here in Louisville. It’s worldwide.”
If her story resonates with you — whether you’re weighing a similar decision for your own family, or simply looking for more of this community in your own life — we’d love to welcome you in for a visit, a conversation, or simply a walk through the garden where the worms are, very happily, still being collected.
