Before we get into it, let’s do what any good Tiger Beat era quiz calls for: grab a pen, keep a tally and try not to overthink it.
What Type of Mom Are You? (A Completely Unscientific Quiz)
1) Your child has a meltdown in the grocery store. You:
A. Kneel to their level, validate their feelings, narrate the experience back to them in a calm, measured tone.
B. Abandon the cart, get everyone in the car, drive home in silence.
C. Hand them your phone and a snack. Problem solved.
D. Make eye contact with a stranger and mouth the words “I’m sorry.”
2) Your approach to after-school activities is:
A. Scheduled, optimized for college application appeal.
B. Whatever they ask for, within reason, no more than two at a time.
C. We tried soccer. We tried gymnastics. We’re currently really into dinosaurs.
D. Unstructured play is a form of enrichment according to the reel I watched.
3) Your feelings about screen time are:
A. Limited, educational, earned.
B. Fluid depending on what kind of day it has been.
C. If the show is on, dinner is getting made.
D. I have opinions about this that I keep to myself.
4) Your child’s lunch contains:
A. A balanced meal, a handwritten note and one treat in a reusable container.
B. Whatever is in the fridge that they will actually eat.
C. A Lunchable.
D. I forgot to pack it. Purse snacks for the win.
Scoring:
Mostly A’s: You are giving Tiger Mom, Helicopter Mom or possibly Dolphin Mom energy depending on the day. Your calendar is color coded, everyone knows their marching orders.
Mostly B’s: Solidly in Gentle Mom or emerging Beta Mom territory. Doing it your way, no apology required.
Mostly C’s: Silky Mom, proudly. Mainstream, efficient.
Mostly D’s: You are a Scrunchy Mom at best and a woman surviving at worst.
Now that we have established absolutely nothing about your parenting style, let’s talk about why we are all being sorted into categories in the first place.
The internet loves a label. And society is somewhat obsessed with micro-labeling every possible type of mother. We have the Tiger Mom: high standards, achievement above all else. The Helicopter Mom: hovering at all times, swooping in so nothing goes wrong. The Crunchy Mom: organic everything, cloth diaper and co-sleeping advocate. The Silky Mom: loves the purple monkey playmat, pro-sleep training and has the best packaged snacks at the playground. The Scrunchy Mom: sometimes referred to as the Type C mom, she lands somewhere in between the two. Then there’s also Gentle Mom, Free Range Mom, Snowplow Mom, Dolphin Mom (I thought this one was a joke when I was doing research for this article, but alas, she exists).
And the newest category, Beta Mom. A Beta Mom lives by a code of fewer activities, more neighborhood play and evenings that adults can enjoy, too. This new classification of mom has gone viral thanks to a recent Wall Street Journal article. Beta Moms were born out of a response to decades of more intensive parenting styles, a la the Tiger mom, leaving modern moms to question if the extra effort of the more traditional parenting styles amounts to “better” results.
And then there are dads. No categories, competing philosophies, online communities debating whether a father is Crunchy or Silky based on his diaper brand preferences. No WSJ trend pieces about the Beta Dad. Just dad.
I’m not here to assign blame, declare a winner or pledge my allegiance to any one style. I’m simply making an observation… It’s a lot of boxes for one woman to be sorted into.
Every classification of mom exists for a reason and most of them were created by moms, for moms, as a way to find community and feel less alone in our preferred approach.
But it is worth pausing on the sheer volume of it all. The sorting, the labeling, the quizzes, the trend pieces, the comment sections where (typically women) debate the merits of each category with the energy of people who have been told their choices require defending.
Maybe we have been fed that narrative? Or maybe we are all just moms, doing our thing, caring for our kids in the specific way that works for our specific family, in this specific season of life.
But where is the fun in that?