If I had a dollar for every time someone told me parents are too stupid to homeschool, I would not need a curriculum budget.
Strangers say it casually. Online commentators say it confidently. It shows up in TikTok videos, in park conversations, in the grocery store check-out line. The assumption is always the same. Parents are underqualified, undereducated, and incapable.
Spend five minutes in a comment section where homeschoolers are the punchline and you will see it. The insult is as predictable as “what about socialization?”
“Parents are too stupid to homeschool.”
I have thoughts, so let’s talk about why this claim is insane.
Why It’s Unhinged
First, the claim assumes that teaching is mystical.
As if explaining multiplication to a ten-year-old requires a laying on of hands and special guidance from the credential gods. As if reading a book alongside your child requires intellectual priesthood. As if helping your teenage outline a research paper is a feat beyond ordinary adults.
Most parents already teach constantly.
They teach their children how to speak.
To read.
To manage money.
To drive.
To navigate conflict.
To understand consequences for inappropriate actions.
But somehow algebra is where their brain collapses?
Don’t get me wrong. Teaching kids how to read, how to format essays, and solving for x is difficult. But hear me out…
The insult only works if you believe teaching basic material to a younger student requires a level of genius most adults don’t possess. It’s not a serious argument. It’s a weaponized insult designed for credential worship.
Why It Fails Logically
Here is where the argument collapses on itself.
The claim that parents are too stupid to homeschool only works if you also believe that the superior education comes from the public school system.
That’s the inference that the “properly educated” should make.
But most homeschooling parents are graduates of the public school system. Coincidentally, so are the people making the insults.
So which is it?
If public education is so intellectually superior, why are its graduates incapable of replicating foundational material for children younger than they are?
And if those graduates are incapable, what does that say about the superiority claim?
You can’t simultaneously argue that the system produces educated adults and that those adults are too incompetent to guide learning for their children.
The system either works and produces educated, capable graduates, or it doesn’t.
Pick one.
The “too stupid” argument tries to hold both positions at once because maybe the point is not intellect but conformaty.
Where It Comes From
This argument doesn’t come from evidence. The surveys conducted by the US Department of Education and other sources have found that homeschooling parents tend to be slightly more educated than their non-homeschooling counterparts, and the students of homeschooling tend to score higher on standardized tests than their public school students.
Given this data, that argument is not just rude; it’s frankly dumb. But it convinces me that maybe all the talk about having a population of intelligent and contributing members isn’t the point. Isn’t it strange that the moment you step a toe out of line and act outside preset norms, that you get dogpiled on?
Education theorists like John Taylor Gatto argued that institutional schooling trains compliance more than curiosity, not rewarding nonconformity but managing it.
The philosopher Michel Foucault wrote extensively about institutions shaping behavior through normalization and discipline.
Schools don’t just teach math and reading, but societal systems.
Either way, calling someone stupid is faster than questioning whether conformity is getting confused for competence.
Links
That’s Just My Thoughts…What’s Yours?
Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments below!
Gel Pen Learning 
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