Homeschooling: The Dream, The Chaos, and The Honest Pros & Cons
If you’ve ever found yourself watching a homeschool mom on Instagram teaching her kids Latin while baking sourdough and building a backyard greenhouse, you might have thought, “Should I…homeschool?”
And then you remember you once cried trying to help with a fourth-grade math problem, and you slowly back away from the new Pinterest board detailing the new home classroom you were going to make in the living room.
Homeschooling is one of those hot-button topics that brings out strong opinions and even stronger coffee. For some families, it’s the perfect fit. For others, it’s a one-way ticket to burnout and resentment, with glitter glue stuck to the carpet forever.
So, whether you’re considering it, already doing it, or just love a good pros and cons list with a side of humor, let’s break down the real deal with homeschooling.
We’ll go one pro at a time, balanced, staggered, and judgement-free (mostly).
Pro 1: Personalized Learning at Its Finest
One of the biggest perks of homeschooling is tailoring your child’s education to their unique needs, strengths, and interests.
Want to spend a week studying marine biology because your kid is obsessed with jellyfish? Go for it! Want to turn a chemistry lesson into a fun meal? Sure! Need to slow down and spend three extra days on multiplication? No problem. Kid wants to write a comic book instead of a five-paragraph essay? Approved (so long as they do actually know how to write the essay).
At home, learning can happen at your child’s pace, not the pace of a class with 25 kids and one overwhelmed teacher trying to print things during her planning period.
Con 1: You Are Now the Teacher, Principal, Lunch Lady, and Janitor
Guess what? That flexibility comes at a cost. You are now doing it ALL.
You’re in charge of developing or finding a curriculum for each subject, not to mention lesson planning, grading, recess duty, snack inventory, tech troubleshooting, and being the one person who keep everyone from crying during a spelling test. (Spoiler: sometimes it’s you who cries.) You also have to turn off mom-mode and grade in an unbiased manner, not help by sounding out words during the spelling test and sometimes, be the “mean teacher”.
Also, there’s no “send them to the office” option when your student decides to have a full meltdown because the dog chewed their notebook, nor is there a way to explain that during school hours, home is school, so no, you can’t have your iPad while we’re learning to read a map
Pro 2: You Can Ditch the 7:00AM Chaos
No lunch-packing marathons, no lost shoes at 6:58AM, no frantic “where’s your backpack?!” Or “what do you mean the diorama is due today?!” Echoes through the house.
Homeschool morning can start slow, with pancakes and pajamas and possibly a nature walk instead of a bell schedule.
The school day starts…and ends when you say it does. That means you don’t have to have school on a set schedule five days a week. Learn about dinosaurs at the museum of natural history, learn about the oceans at the aquarium, and yes, even have school only a few days a week so long as every subject is being covered.
You’re the boss now. (Feels good, doesn’t it?)
Con 2: Your House Is Now PERMANENT School Zone
Hope you like the smell of crayons and the sound of someone shouting “I’m DONE!” From the dining table every ten minutes.
Because homeschooling means your kitchen table is a math desk, your hallway is a book depository, and your “quiet time” is a mythical concept from a past life. Also, where do all the glue sticks go? Seriously! Where?
I feel like this is a good place to add that homeschooling takes hours upon dollars of finding activities online, printing them, grading them, ensuring you have all the materials you were sure you had…but have no idea where, and that’s before we even talk about extracurriculars for socializing.
Pro 3: More Time for Real-Life Learning
One of the best parts of homeschooling is learning beyond the textbook. We’ve all said it at some point “They should have taught us to [blank] at school instead of some math I’ll never use.” Well…you still have to teach the math, but the blank is no longer out of the question.
You can:
Teach about balancing a checkbook and taxes (at the right age)
Cook as a science and math (measuring) lesson. (Bonus: You get lunch out of it!)
Take field trips that aren’t tied to permission slips and matching t-shirts
Let your kids follow their curiosity in a way that traditional school schedules just don’t allow
It’s the kind of hands-on learning that sticks and doesn’t involve scantrons…the type of teaching every teachers wishes they could do.
Con 3: Socializing Takes Work (And Coordination)
Ah yes, the question every homeschool parent gets asked constantly: “But what about socialization?”
And while yes, homeschoolers do make friends, it’s not automatic. You have to plan it. Sign up for co-ops, park days, drama club, whatever. And hope that your child’s new BFF doesn’t live 45 minutes away and only likes Minecraft.
Also, you might end up with a week that’s more Uber driver than educator.
But here’s my unpopular opinion: kids who go to school also need this, when do they actually socialize? Their singular 15 minutes recess? Lunch while they’re trying to eat as quickly as possible to beat the bell? On the hallway as they run from one side of the building to the other? Every student needs extracurriculars and possibilities to socialize, not just homeschooled ones.
Pro 4: You Get to Learn Alongside Your Child
Ever wanted a second shot at learning history without falling asleep at your desk?
Homeschooling gives you that.
You might find yourself genuinely excited about what you’re teaching, reading novels you missed, doing science experiments that actually work, making dioramas the way you want to, and not how it’s dictated by some silly rules, solving math problems you ones avoided, and even realizing that yes, there is a reason we need all this knowledge, even if we don’t use it daily.
Bonus: you’re showing your child that learning never stops. And that grown-ups Google things too. But yes, you have to know how to look something up in a book, too!
Con 4: Sometimes, You Just Want to Clock Out
At a traditional school, there’s a clear end to the day, not that teachers get told as much with all the work they take home, but that’s a conversation for another time. At home, there isn’t really a stop time. Everything you do can be a lesson, so the school day doesn’t actually end.
When you’re the teacher and the parent, it’s hard to switch hats. Dinner might be late because math ran long. Arguments over chores blend into arguments about sentence structure. And someone is always interrupting your bathroom break.
You never get to wave goodbye at 3:15 and say “See you tomorrow!” then go home and consider calling in sick because they live there, and so do you…sick or not.
Final Thoughts: It’s Not All or Nothing
Homeschooling isn’t better or worse than traditional schooling, it’s just different. It’s beautiful, messy, flexible, exhausting, freeing, and sometimes ridiculous. I don’t want to avoid mentioning, that if you’re buying a curriculum and taking field trips often, it can also be expensive.
It’s early mornings in pajamas and late-night Googling “how to teach long division” It’s museum days and meltdown days and sometimes both in the same hour.
So if you’re thinking about it, know this: You can do it. You can love it. You can hate it. You can do both on the same day. You can change your mind. That’s the beauty of education, it doesn’t have to look any one way.
Just maybe stock up on coffee. And glue sticks.
(Seriously. WHERE do they all go?!)
