“It’s Worth Paying a High Price for It” | Interview with Dr. Emese Tölgyes-Busz
In this episode, we talk with Dr. Emese Tölgyes-Busz, a lawyer and expert in education and human rights advocacy, about homeschooling and questions surrounding family-based education. The conversation covers her personal journey of faith, her Hungarian and international experiences with homeschooling, and the opportunities and challenges she sees in this field in Hungary. The discussion also offers insight into how homeschooling can shape family relationships and children’s development.
Part 1 — Introduction and Emese’s Background
Viktor Szabó:
Dear listeners, I warmly welcome everyone to the CHC, or Christian Homeschool Hungary, podcast. My name is Viktor Szabó, and my guest today is Dr. Emese Tölgyes-Busz, a lawyer and expert in education and human rights advocacy. Hello, Emese, and thank you for accepting our invitation.
Dr. Emese Tölgyes-Busz:
Hello, Viktor. Thank you very much for having me. I’m also very grateful to be here.
Viktor Szabó:
First of all, I would like to ask you to tell us anything about yourself that you would like to share with our listeners—whether it is about your family, your work, or your favorite activities. I’ll give you the floor.
Dr. Emese Tölgyes-Busz:
Thank you. I will probably start with the most important thing.
I grew up in a secular family, but from a very young age I was searching for someone whom I felt was behind everything. I was so amazed by what I saw around me—the beauty of nature, the leaves, the birds—that somehow I knew there had to be a Creator behind it all.
And because there was no one around me who knew about God or wanted to talk to me about Him, this search increasingly became the main focus of my life as I grew older.
Eventually, it became quite intense. Even when I was ten years old, I was desperately searching for who was behind everything—whether that person loved me, or whether it was some stranger who was simply playing with me; whether this person knew me personally, or whether I was just insignificant.
And then God found me in a very personal way.
It was not in a church, not through some kind of liturgy, and not even through the Bible, but through a personal conversation with a friend.
At that point I began personally addressing Him. Before that, I had addressed many other things—UFOs and all kinds of ideas I had come across—and I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I thought, “If He answers, that would be wonderful. If He doesn’t, then we move on.”
And eventually, through that simple act of reaching out, God began to answer.
Of course, I was not easily convinced. I always found explanations for why it wasn’t really Him—that it was just circumstances, coincidences, or something else. I always had an explanation.
But after a while—the part that is truly difficult to explain—I came to realize that my explanations were just excuses. The very person I had been searching for my entire life was the One who was calling me, answering me, and speaking to me.
I was incredibly happy when, first through my friend and then through the Bible, I learned that He truly loves me, that He truly exists, and that what I had sensed about creation was true. Everything fell into place.
I began with this because, on the one hand, this is the most important thing in my life. Since then, I have tried to arrange everything around Him, as far as I understand and am able to do so.
And also, when I think about the Christian homeschooling community, I believe that the people who are interested in this organization—and especially those who listen to our programs—are people for whom this matters deeply, perhaps more than anything else. So I wanted to begin there.
Professionally, I was originally a teacher. I first became a German teacher, and after spending a year volunteering in Ukraine, I decided to study law. I completed my law degree at ELTE University.
By the time I finished all of that, I had already become a mother. I got married, and our first son was born.
Later, I moved to Luxembourg, where I worked as a lawyer-linguist in the Parliament. After some time, I realized that I could not successfully ride two horses at the same time—the “mother horse” and the “career horse”—at least not in that stage of our lives.
So we decided that my husband would focus more on his career, while I would stay home with the children.
Within a few years, we had two more sons, and from then on I was at home with them for as long as they needed me, essentially until they grew up.
The story of homeschooling is something I can tell separately, but having three boys really made our family complete.
Viktor Szabó:
Thank you very much. Actually, you have already touched on the second topic I wanted to discuss: homeschooling.
Let’s talk a little bit about that. First, I would be interested to know how you first heard about homeschooling. The next question I had written down was whether you yourself homeschooled your children—but from what you have said, the answer is clearly yes.
Could you tell us a little about when this started and ended, what it looked like in practice, and how the parents participated? Was this something you mainly did, or did your husband also help in some way?
And for those listeners who are unfamiliar with homeschooling, who have no experience with it, or who do not know anyone who has done it: how would you explain how homeschooling is similar to the kind of education someone receives in a state school or a church school, and how it differs? How would you introduce this idea to them?
Part 2 — Discovering Homeschooling and the Experience Abroad
Dr. Emese Tölgyes-Busz:
Yes. The first question is how I encountered homeschooling.
Like most children growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I was educated in the state school system. I did not have any particular problems with it, or rather, I did not struggle or suffer because of it. I managed well, I had friends, and I did not know anything outside of that system. So I simply accepted that this was how things were.
However, when our own children started attending kindergarten and school, I became much more sensitive to situations where they were hurt, treated unfairly, or when I simply felt the pain of being away from them for so much of the day.
I did not really know what was happening to them, how the adults around them were treating them, or what experiences they were having. Sometimes I noticed things that worried me, and I did not feel completely at peace about it.
So I tried to find practical, local solutions to spend as much time with them as possible.
The school was nearby, so during lunch breaks I often brought my oldest son out. We would sit in the park, eat sandwiches, talk together, and then I would take him back when the lunch break was over.
But on the one hand, this required an enormous amount of energy. By then he already had younger siblings, and there was a lot of organization and effort involved. Somehow, I felt that even with all this, I still could not give them what I really wanted to give them.
Of course, when you are looking for a solution, you try to find a better school. We tried several schools: one nearby, a Catholic school, one farther away, and one with a more project-based approach.
We tried many different options, but I never felt that we had found the right one.
At that time, we were living in Brussels, and there was an international church community there with many American families and missionaries. Through that community, we met a family who homeschooled their children.
We had no idea what homeschooling actually meant.
However, we became interested because we saw that, for some reason, they had the freedom to spend the whole day with their children—at least one of the parents did. And we really liked that.
They took us to their local co-op.
This was a group where homeschooling families gathered once a week. The high school students worked through online curricula, the younger children sang and played, and there was a huge collection of books—a library full of textbooks and educational materials.
When I saw that library, I was genuinely amazed by the quality and variety of the resources available.
Everything was designed so that a parent could use it with their children without having a formal teaching degree. Parents could learn together with their children, or the children could work independently.
The resources gave parents everything they needed to confidently guide their children through the learning process.
And when parents did not feel competent in a particular area, there were other parents who had expertise in that subject. They could come together and help one another.
There was always a good structure and support system, but at the same time there was tremendous freedom:
- each family could decide what interested them,
- they could decide where to invest more time and energy,
- they could discover when their children learned best during the day,
- they could decide when to go on field trips or educational outings.
What would be called a school class trip in a traditional school became something families or groups of friends could organize together.
The children had a wonderful community: like-minded parents, children of similar ages, but also mixed ages.
So I really loved what I saw, and I felt: “This is what I have been looking for. This is what I wanted.”
But we did not yet have the courage to take the step, and we did not even know what we needed to do.
In a sense, we felt completely lost. We did not see anyone around us—either in Europe or in Hungary—who was doing something like this.
So we waited another year, thought about it, and said, “Maybe this is not our path, even though it would be wonderful.”
Then eventually things worked out so that the following year we were able to travel to the United States. The family we had met had since moved back there, and we asked them whether they could help introduce us to this completely different world.
They were very kind.
They connected us with mailing lists, groups, and homeschooling communities—groups that often met once a week.
And that was when we truly began to see what an incredible opportunity this was.
A few parents could come together, or many parents. There were places where there were hundreds of children, and there were places where there were only twenty or thirty children across all the age groups.
But everywhere, one thing was common: the parents shared similar values and perspectives.
For example, in many of these groups, none of the children had their own phone before the age of fourteen.
That was a tremendous sense of security.
We could allow our children to go watch a movie at another family’s home, attend an afternoon gathering, or even stay overnight, because we knew that the other parents shared similar values. We knew that nobody would expose them to content that we would object to.
So what we experienced was that we were not isolated at all. Instead, we had a wonderful community and enormous freedom.
Depending on each child’s individual personality—even within the same family—I could guide them in completely different directions while still staying within the same overall framework.
For example, if we went to a library with three children who had three different interests and were at different ages, each one could find something that interested them. With some help from the librarian, they could find materials that would keep them learning for hours.
It was exciting. It was fascinating.
It is amazing how much children can remember when they are genuinely interested in what they are learning.
So that was our first impression.
Later, after several years, we returned to Hungary and tried to continue homeschooling there.
That was a much more difficult task—not only legally, but also because of the general attitudes and understanding surrounding homeschooling.
Most people—I do not want to give an exact percentage, but a very large proportion—even among parents, do not really know what homeschooling is. They look at it with suspicion, worry, and fear. They wonder: “How can this possibly work?”
Sometimes I feel as though we are sitting inside an aquarium in the middle of the ocean, unable to believe that there is life outside the aquarium, even though it is actually within our reach.
But when one day the bird flies out of the cage and looks around above the mountains, there is no longer someone who can lure it back by saying, “The cage is better for you.”
So I think it would be very valuable if people could look beyond the traditional school system and see what possibilities exist outside those institutional frameworks.
I do not want to describe schools as cages or restrictions, but beyond the traditional institutional structure of schooling, there are opportunities available to parents.
Of course, this also involves responsibility—but freedom always comes with responsibility.
And I believe that if there is something worth taking a risk for, this is one of those things.
Viktor Szabó:
Thank you very much.
Actually, this was exactly what I wanted to ask about: after you returned home, what kind of reaction did you receive? You have already touched on it, but could you give some examples of the fears or criticisms you often heard from people around you, or even within your own family, regarding homeschooling?
Part 3 — Socialization, Concerns, and Advice for Hungarian Families
Dr. Emese Tölgyes-Busz:
I think the number one concern—the absolute winner—is socialization.
I have heard this from teachers I have spoken with—I also have a teaching degree and I taught in schools—as well as from parents who are simply thinking about this as parents.
The first concern that usually comes up is: “But won’t the child become isolated? How will they have friends? How will they socialize?”
What I can honestly say is that after seeing how much richer the socialization opportunities can be in homeschooling, I see it very differently.
In a traditional school environment, children mainly interact with their own age group, plus the adults they encounter—the teachers, which is a different kind of relationship.
But in homeschooling, the social environment includes their own parents, the parents of their friends, their friends themselves, and people of different ages.
They are not limited only to children born in the same year. There are younger children, teenagers, and even adults who may return to help, or older siblings who accompany younger ones.
So it creates a much richer social environment—and all of this happens in a safe setting.
It is not a situation where we do not know what is happening to our children, who their classmates are, what kind of influences they are encountering, or what expectations they are facing.
Even with teachers, nine out of ten may be wonderful, but if the tenth person is someone the child has a difficult relationship with, that can still cause significant harm. Unfortunately, we know there are also negative examples.
In homeschooling, the parent is present. The parent has a significant role in choosing the environment where the child participates and the community they become part of.
That is why I believe it can be a much richer and much safer option.
And this is not even mentioning that on the other days of the week, when there are no formal learning activities, families often organize many other things:
- field trips,
- visits to zoos,
- picnics in nature,
- shared meals,
- informal gatherings.
These are relaxed, joyful times.
Meanwhile, parents can talk with each other, share advice, and support one another. Older children learn to care for younger ones, and children learn to play together across different ages.
So I believe this offers a much richer opportunity for socialization—in the best sense of the word.
It is a much more holistic approach to social development.
Viktor Szabó:
I completely agree.
Let’s suppose that some of our listeners are not homeschooling, but especially after hearing what you have shared, they find the idea appealing.
What message would you give them?
First of all, is homeschooling currently possible in Hungary? If so, under what framework?
Who would you recommend it to?
Are there situations where you think it is worth seriously considering whether this is the best method or the best approach?
What do you think about this? What would you say to those listeners whose interest has been awakened?
Dr. Emese Tölgyes-Busz:
In Hungary, this is not yet a common or established practice. And at the moment, I do not know how the laws will change in the future.
There was a very positive period in the 2010s when small learning groups and alternative private schools began to flourish. There was a real period of growth.
Many parents became involved in some way. They tried it, participated in it, enjoyed it, and saw that it was something that could genuinely work.
Many people also began creating educational materials, so there are resources available for homeschooling younger children as well as older students.
However, the range of available materials is still relatively limited.
I think it is very important that this expands, because under the current legal situation it is either not permitted or extremely difficult, complicated, and uncertain.
A parent cannot simply say:
“I would like to educate my child at home under these circumstances, with this plan, with these qualifications, and with this approach,”
and then be certain that permission will be granted.
The old category of “private student” technically no longer exists, but in terms of the substance of the issue, there is still no guarantee that a family will receive approval.
There are pathways. There are determined parents. There are groups.
But I believe that the first step in Hungary today could be for families to find one another—to find the parents who are interested in this and who feel called toward this path.
Parents who have understood that they have a greater responsibility than simply bringing their children to school and then trying afterward to figure out what happened there, repair things, supplement what is missing, or sometimes even undo certain influences.
Rather, they want to take a much more active role.
I believe that anyone who feels this strongly should connect with others who share similar thoughts.
Our fears become much larger when we carry them alone, and our ideas become much richer when we do not have to develop them alone.
So my first recommendation would be this: create and join communities where parents can find each other.
I think it is practical if people are also geographically close to one another and can build local connections.
Even just two or three families finding one another can create a very strong community.
You really do not need many more than that.
There are places where a group of that size is already like a large family. It can function as a local homeschooling community.
So I think this is also our goal: to try to be a place, a platform, where people who want to think more about this, learn more about it, and support each other can find one another.
Legal change is a slower process.
We have been working for a long time to reach the right people. Several times we have succeeded, but then the relevant decision-makers have changed, so it is not an easy task.
But we are working on it.
I believe that if there are more parents raising their voices, sooner or later they will be heard.
Viktor Szabó:
I agree.
And here at CHC, one of our goals is exactly to help make this possible: to give a face to this small community and to those parents who may have been sitting at home, perhaps quietly wondering whether there is a better way, whether there is another path.
We want to help them connect with one another and build community—preferably also in person.
Of course, that is somewhat challenging, since you and I are currently living in different countries, but this is the goal, and we would like to take steps toward it together.
Thank you very much, Emese, for sharing your experiences with us.
Part 4 — Looking Back: Would She Choose Homeschooling Again?
Viktor Szabó:
I have just one more question, or rather a group of questions.
If you could start your life over again, would you choose the same path?
Is there anything you would do differently with the perspective you have today?
And finally, overall, what do you think was the greatest benefit of homeschooling your children?
Dr. Emese Tölgyes-Busz:
I would do many things differently.
It would be wonderful if I could start over again, but that opportunity is not available.
However, what I would never give up—and what I would not do differently for anything—is homeschooling my children.
I truly believe that it is worth paying a very high price for it.
They are incredible treasures.
It is amazing how deeply you can come to know them and how deeply you can love them.
My children are already adults, but even now, as adults, we still have this deep, loving, trusting relationship.
It contains all those small moments that I tried to write down in a journal whenever I could.
But when you are with them every day—when you are at the sandbox, at the playground, or in all kinds of everyday situations—you can only try to remember those little moments, the funny things they say, the unexpected comments, and then write down in the evening whatever is still fresh in your mind.
But when you have the opportunity to truly live alongside them all day, I genuinely feel as though I had two childhoods.
It was such a wonderful experience to go through those years with them.
And learning was the same way.
At school, I never experienced learning as such an incredible adventure of discovery as I did when I learned together with my children—and when they themselves were learning.
It is amazing how much these things can capture your attention: all the fascinating discoveries, all the information that becomes exciting when you genuinely want to know it because you are interested.
And being able to explore these things deeply together with your children…
There are so many things that I only truly understood as an adult because I studied them with my children—not only things about life, but even things from the curriculum.
So I can say that this is the part I have never regretted.
I truly believe it was worth it, and I believe it is worth paying a very high price for.
Viktor Szabó:
Dear Emese, thank you very much for being our guest and for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us.
Dr. Emese Tölgyes-Busz:
Thank you as well.
Viktor Szabó:
And to our dear listeners, thank you for your attention. We hope you will join us again next time.
May God bless us all.
Blessings and peace!