I know. I know.
If you just felt a surge of recognition — either “yes, SAME” or “who does that??” — this post is for you. Because wherever you landed on that reaction tells you something important about the kind of homeschool mom you are. And knowing that is the first step to becoming a better one.
What Type Are You?
There are two kinds of homeschool moms. (Okay, there are probably seventeen kinds, but bear with me.)
The Type A mom lives and dies by the plan. She has a curriculum binder. Actually, she has several binders, and they are labeled. She knows not just what her kids are studying this week, but what they’ll be studying next spring — and probably the spring after that. She’s already accounted for the weeks they’ll be traveling, the holidays they’ll observe, and the grace week at the end of each semester. She is running a very tight ship, and she is proud of it.
She also loses her mind when someone gets sick in week three and the whole schedule falls apart.
The Type B mom is the one who walks to the back door on a Tuesday morning, looks at the sunshine, and says “Pack up, we’re doing school at the park.” She leans into rabbit trails. She’ll spend three weeks on a unit study about ancient Egypt because one of the kids got really into mummies, and honestly? They learned more that way. She’s not stressed about finishing the book. Public school doesn’t always finish the book either. Her kids think learning is magic.
She’s also not totally sure what grade level her kid is in for math, and college application season is going to be… a lot.
Neither of these moms is doing it wrong. Both of them are missing something.
The Gifts You’re Already Giving
Here’s what I love about the Type A mom: she is teaching her children that work is a gift. We live in a culture that treats effort as optional, that says follow your passion and the work will feel effortless. But God never said that. He put Adam in the garden to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15) — before the fall, before sin, before anything went wrong. Work was always part of the design. The curse didn’t create work; it just made it harder (Genesis 3:17). When a Type A mom teaches her kids to show up, put in the effort, and finish what they started — she is giving them something real.
And the Type B mom? She is teaching her children to see. To notice. To find God in the details of a butterfly wing and the sweep of a thunderstorm and the way history is actually just one long, unfolding story that He has been telling since the beginning. The psalmist says “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). A Type B mom’s classroom looks a lot like that sky. Her kids grow up knowing that the world is alive with meaning if you’re paying attention.
Both of these are extraordinary gifts. The problem is when we only give one.
The Pitfalls You Probably Already Know
If you’re a Type A, you may not want to hear this, but: you can make kids hate school. Not because you’re mean, but because the standard is unrelenting. When only the measurable matters — the grade, the test score, the completed checklist — kids who learn differently start to feel like they’re failing. And some of your kids will be motivated by the gold star at the top of the paper. But some of them won’t. Some of them need to run around outside for an hour before they can sit still for twenty minutes, and if you can’t make room for that, you’ll spend years fighting the wrong battle. When the plan falls apart — and it will fall apart — a Type A mom can spiral into what are we even doing here territory faster than you’d think.
If you’re a Type B, your pitfall is different. You are so good at making learning feel like living that you can accidentally skip the part where your kids learn to work when it’s hard. Grit is a skill. Sitting down and doing the thing you don’t want to do because it needs to be done — that’s a skill. And it doesn’t develop on its own. Neither does the ability to sit at a desk for eight hours, take a test under pressure, or meet a deadline. At some point, real life requires those things. The earlier your kids start practicing them, the better.
So What Do You Do About It?
You don’t become the other type. You borrow from them.
For me, this looked like seeking out voices that weren’t like mine. A few years ago I started listening to a podcast hosted by some very Type B homeschool moms. I listened on purpose, because I knew if left entirely to my own devices, school in our house would be rigorous and thorough and completely joyless. It was that podcast that gave me ideas — how to use games to practice math skills, how to build a unit study around something your kid already loves, how to let a subject breathe instead of marching through it at double time.
It also looked like how we did history in elementary school. One day a week, we got together with friends. We used Story of the World and later Mystery of History — both narrative, both story-driven. The kids colored coloring pages while my friend read aloud. They did projects. They did not take tests. For a Type A mom, this felt terrifying. It felt like I was shortchanging them. But you know what? They learned a lot – including history is interesting. And now that they’ve moved on to middle school where there are real tests, they have a foundation of memories to build on and so far they are still finding history enjoyable.
That was me challenging myself toward Type B. And it was one of the best decisions I made.
If you’re a Type B, your challenge looks different. You don’t need to start color-coding binders — but you might want to take one honest look at what high school transcripts and college applications actually require, and start loosely mapping backward from there. You don’t need a fifteen-year plan. But maybe don’t wait until 9th grade to think about it. And if you have a kid who is wired Type A — who wants a checklist, who needs to see the plan, who feels anxious when things are too open-ended — give her one. My weekly planner template was built for exactly that kid. Let her check off her work each day and see her little Type A heart sing.
The Both/And
I am like a spider in the middle of a web of details. Seven kids, a full-time job, a husband who planted a church — I have to keep track of an enormous number of details, and the Type A in me genuinely makes that possible. I’m grateful for it.
But I’ve also had to learn that being in the middle of the web doesn’t mean I control everything on it. Some things need to be loose. Some days need to be spent enjoying the beautiful weather. Some history lessons need to be read aloud with coloring pages and absolutely zero tests.
You don’t have to become a different kind of mom. You just have to know what kind of mom you are — clearly enough to see your own blind spots, and humbly enough to borrow from someone who sees differently.
That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom.
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