14 Things I Hate About Homeschool Math (and Why It Still Matters)

(And the Sneaky Ways It Keeps Teaching Me Anyway)

Table of Contents (Because we all skim—no shame here.) Peek Inside

Some days, homeschooling feels like a dream.
The cozy mornings, the freedom, the rabbit trails that turn into real learning.
And then… there’s math.

Math is that kid at the co-op who doesn’t make eye contact, insists you’re wrong, and still eats all your snacks.

I’ve tried to make peace with it. Really, I have.
But after twenty years and five boys, I can say with full confidence — math and I have a complicated relationship.

Here’s my unfiltered list of 14 things I absolutely hate about homeschool math… and a few reasons I still keep showing up anyway.

1. It always needs me when I’m out of caffeine.

Have you noticed math crises never happen at 9 a.m. when the day is fresh?
Nope.
They appear at 2:47 p.m., right when I’m deciding if reheating my coffee for the third time is too optimistic.

Fractions don’t care about your energy level.
They just sit there, waiting.

2. It reveals all my insecurities.

There’s nothing quite like trying to explain something you barely remember.
“Okay, so we line up the decimals… or maybe we don’t? Let’s… check the answer key.”
One minute I’m a confident homeschool mom.
The next, I’m a middle-schooler again, terrified someone will find out I’m faking it.

3. Every curriculum swears it’s the one.

You know the promise.
“No tears! Hands-on! Mastery-based! Spiral! Easy for parents!”
And then week three arrives and someone (me) is crying.

Homeschool math programs are like relationships — they all start with potential until real life shows up.

4. It takes forever.

You can plan for thirty minutes of math, but somehow it always takes seventy-five.
Someone forgets their pencil. Someone loses the book. Someone decides now is the perfect time to ask existential questions about penguins.

By the time we find where we left off, lunch is cold.

5. It’s cumulative — like laundry.

If they don’t get something today, it’s waiting for us tomorrow, multiplied.
Missed multiplication tables in third grade?
Congratulations — you’re still paying for it in seventh.

6. It’s personal.

Writing essays and reading history are intellectual.
Math is emotional.
It’s where kids discover how they handle frustration, failure, and the long road to understanding.
And that’s beautiful…
but exhausting.

7. I can’t bluff my way through it.

You can fake enthusiasm for grammar.
You can wing a science experiment.
But math?
Math will find you out.
There’s no “close enough” in long division.

8. It makes my kids act like tiny philosophers.

“Why do we even need math?”
“Who invented this?”
“Isn’t Google a calculator?”

No one warned me that middle schoolers could debate the existential purpose of numbers.

9. It ruins perfectly good days.

We’ll have the sweetest morning — pancakes, Bible, laughter — and then someone says the word algebra.
Suddenly, I’m standing in front of two people crying and one hiding under the table.
All because I mentioned variables.

10. It makes me jealous of other moms.

Somewhere out there is a woman who actually enjoys teaching integers.
She probably color-codes her planner and has fresh coffee.
I both admire her and want to switch lives for a week.

11. It never feels like enough.

Even on good days, I wonder if we’re doing it right.
Are we behind? Ahead? Sideways?
Is my child ready for algebra? College? Taxes?
(It’s fine. They’re 12.)

Homeschool math keeps me humble — and slightly unhinged.

12. It tests my patience more than any other subject.

When a child insists, “I did it in my head,” but clearly didn’t…
When someone erases a hole through the page…
When I say, “Check your work,” and they just stare…
I can feel my eye twitching.
Patience is my least favorite math lesson.

13. It keeps changing the rules.

Long division isn’t long division anymore.
Fractions are suddenly visualized in boxes and grids.
There’s an entire new way to subtract that involves… what now?
Apparently, I graduated before Common Core — and my kids know it.

14. It refuses to stay in its lane.

Math leaks into everything.
Cooking, building, shopping, time management.
And maybe that’s what I hate most — I can’t actually escape it.

But Here’s the Thing…

Somewhere between the sighs and the sharpened pencils, I realized something:
Math is doing more than teaching my kids numbers.
It’s teaching me faithfulness.

Every equation is a chance to slow down, to connect, to remind them (and myself) that struggling isn’t failing — it’s learning in progress.

Math is where my kids learn to persevere, to stay kind when they’re frustrated, to look for patterns, to start over.
It’s where I learn to let go of perfect outcomes and celebrate small wins.

It’s our shared humbling ground — and maybe that’s the real lesson.

So yes, I hate homeschool math.
But I also love what it’s secretly doing in us.

Because when my son finally lights up and says, “Ohhh, I get it now!” —
I remember why we’re here.
Not to master the math.
But to grow the people doing it.

P.S. If math has been rough lately, let’s go back to the basics.