The Fairy-Tale Promises of Montessori Parenting

“Giving my 4-year-old a random food without explanation to see what he does,” an automated voice says at the start of a TikTok from the parenting influencer known as LauraLove. She hands her son, Carter, a container of ricotta cheese. He announces quickly: He’ll make stuffed shells.

Carter seems incredibly prepared, standing on a platform to reach the stove. He seasons the beef, cooks the pasta, mixes the filling, and stuffs the shells. Sure, his motions are clumsy and he goofs off while he works. But the end dish looks pretty good. Even more compelling, though, might be how Carter responds to his mistakes. When he drops a stuffed shell upside down, he makes a joke. When he splashes egg on himself, he doesn’t flinch. “I got a little wet,” he says. “But that’s fine. That happens when you’re cooking.”

The whole video—Carter’s demeanor, the equipment he stands on, even the choice of activity—is filled with the hallmarks of Montessori parenting. You might recognize the name Montessori from the group of schools known for prioritizing child autonomy and learning through play. Though the parenting approach is not officially affiliated with Montessori education, you can think of it as a sort of DIY descendant, in which people apply many of the same concepts in a new realm. Recently it’s become highly visible, in large part because of social media. (LauraLove, for instance, has nearly 8 million followers.) Now Montessori influences pervade the design of playrooms, popular toys, and even the general ethos of self-sufficiency that defines many modern child-rearing theories.

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I was curious about the philosophy’s appeal, so I spoke with seven Montessori-parenting adherents. Some were stay-at-home parents; others had to balance caregiving with paid work. Many told me about being nervous first-time parents who just wanted a child-rearing style to rely on. Indeed, Mairin Augustine, a researcher who studies parenting, told me that applying Montessori educational ideas to raising kids can amount to good parenting. (Even if it is dressed up in impressive branding and comes with a whole lot of merch.) But while Montessori parenting can be rewarding, it can also be particularly expensive and labor-intensive.

Of course, TikToks like the one of Carter cooking leave a lot out. Clearly this wasn’t his first time in the kitchen. (LauraLove does have other videos where she teaches her sons to cook, and admitted in a comment that she gave Carter “a little help here & there,” but said he “remembered & did most of it on his own.”) As any parent will tell you, such videos just aren’t representative of what cooking with young kids is typically like.

“Make time for your child to do things in her own way and at her own pace,” the Association Montessori Internationale’s parenting website preaches. A lovely idea, but not exactly a practical one for many parents. When making muffins, for example, Nicole Kavanaugh, the creator of a Montessori-parenting blog and podcast, told me that she might be eager to dump the batter into the tin, “but my child might want to sit and whisk.” Waiting for a kid to finish can be logistically disruptive, but for Kavanaugh, the greater struggle was often mental. She described literally sitting on her hands to stop herself from intervening in one of her children’s tasks.

Depictions of Montessori parenting, particularly on social media, can make it seem like a prescription for idyllic family life—they suggest that your kid, too, could be cooking fancy Italian meals at age 4, and that tantrums could be easily defused by empathetic conversation, and that your home could also be effortlessly tidy, if you just adopted Montessori. But raising kids isn’t so simple, and even parents who are willing and able to invest the money, time, and emotional work in this method may find themselves disappointed when expectations butt up against reality. Ultimately, no one can escape the hard truth: No matter how hard you work to organize a playroom, you can’t eliminate chaos or uncertainty from parenting.

The Montessori approach to parenting is rooted in a respected pedagogical system started in the early 20th century by the Italian educator Maria Montessori. She preached that kids were innately orderly, focused, and self-motivated, and should be given freedom to choose what they learn. She believed that play is educational, and she filled schoolrooms with what others saw as mere toys. She found value in housework, too, and had students do chores as part of their lessons. She lamented that the world was not built to be accessible to children—and she created a school that was. Its philosophy lives on in the many modern-day schools that bear her name.

When Simone Davies, the author of the popular book The Montessori Toddler, discovered the approach about 20 years ago, Montessori schools had already started to proliferate in the U.S. Yet Davies, who is based in Amsterdam, struggled to find any books that explained how to implement these principles at home. But over the past decade, Kavanaugh told me, platforms such as Instagram and YouTube have become a “breeding ground” for Montessori parenting. Those platforms are visual, and the philosophy lends itself well to striking aesthetics: The playrooms tend to be clean and minimalist; watching a 2-year-old chop vegetables is mesmerizing. “It was just this perfect storm,” Kavanaugh said. Add the tie to a prestigious educational brand, and it’s no wonder the approach has taken off.

But much of what is labeled Montessori today has little meaningful association with the original philosophy. Because the name was never trademarked, anyone can use it. (The Association Montessori Internationale, which Maria co-founded with her son, offers certifications to schools and teachers, but those are optional.) So-called Montessori toys abound: See, for example, the Pikler triangle—also billed as a “Montessori Climber,” despite having been created by a different pioneer in early education—a sort of glorified ladder that sells for as much as $299. The Montessori aesthetic has become so heavily marketed that if you mention Montessori on a parenting board, people may think you mean beige wooden blocks, not a radical pedagogical approach that centers children’s needs.

The actual parenting philosophy is adapted from Maria’s educational principles as well as comments she made about parents’ role in child development. At its core, Montessori parenting is defined by three main features. The first, and most important, Davies told me, is a gentle and respectful way of interacting with children that does away with traditional discipline and encourages independence. The second involves creating what is known as a “prepared space”: a well-organized area for kids to play in, with child-size furniture and objects that are all within the child’s reach. The final element is facilitating specialized activities depending on the kid’s age, which can be educational play or helping with chores—like cooking.

Psychologists generally agree that the ideal parenting style is “authoritative” and is characterized by high levels of warmth and control. That means “having consistent messages about what I want from you, but knowing that I love you,” Augustine told me. Many of Maria’s ideas fit nicely under that umbrella. Certain fringe Montessori beliefs are not evidence-backed. (For instance, Maria notoriously preached that cribs, the safest place for infants to sleep, were inhumane cages.) But the overall approach is largely aligned with that authoritative-parenting ideal.

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Still, Montessori parenting’s promises can be lofty. One parent claimed in a 2014 issue of the American Montessori Society’s magazine that her 3-year-old twins regularly cooked dishes such as scrambled eggs, biscuits, butter shrimp, and fried rice for the whole family—and then cleaned up afterward. “It may seem that I am talking about a magical, mythical fairyland that parents can only dream about. But this fairyland is real, and it is called Montessori,” she wrote. A similar siren call echoes through all of the pristine playrooms on social media as well as the assurances in books such as The Montessori Toddler that you wouldn’t need to punish your child if you just learn to “cultivate cooperation” with them.

The parents I spoke with who answered that call weren’t necessarily expecting perfection, nor were they completely drawn in by social media’s illusions. Still, when Montessori didn’t work as expected, they tended to be disappointed. Many blamed themselves, but few criticized the philosophy itself. Indeed, Montessori has a principle that makes it customizable but also impossible to disprove: “Follow the child”—which roughly means Be responsive to your kid. So, for example, if a kid doesn’t like a Montessori-style activity a parent spent hours creating, that doesn’t mean something’s wrong with the activity; that means the parent didn’t understand their child’s needs.

When Sara Srinivasan, a mom of three in the Detroit area, had her first child, she knew she wanted to raise him the Montessori way. She knew of some impressive adults who had gone to Montessori schools. So Srinivasan read up on Montessori-parenting principles. She made PowerPoints that mapped out how different Montessori-approved activities corresponded with a child’s developmental milestones. Then she gathered the materials she’d need to carry out these activities: an object-permanence box, a series of handmade mobiles, and more. In all, Srinivasan estimates that she spent at least four to five hours each week doing these activities with him.

The extent of Srinivasan’s labor may seem unusual, but she’s not a complete outlier. The average parent today spends hours more each week with their kids than they did a few decades ago, even as more mothers have entered the workforce. This trend, which emerged in the mid-to-late 20th century, is known as “intensive parenting.” It’s expensive, hard work and entirely focused on the child’s needs, Jenna Stephenson Abetz, a professor at the College of Charleston who has studied family communication, explained to me. Montessori parenting as it’s often practiced today could be seen as one more manifestation of this trend.

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The philosophy asks a lot of caregivers. Take the emphasis on “practical life,” which in layman’s terms means having kids do chores with you and is supposed to teach them life skills—not exactly a revolutionary idea. But carrying it out the Montessori way can be arduous. For instance, The Montessori Toddler’s section on preparing kitchens for kids is filled with lists of recommended child-size materials to buy. And this is in addition to the book’s general guidelines on organizing spaces for children, which remind parents to make sure activities—such as chores—are “beautifully arranged,” “attractive,” and “inviting.” When finally doing the task, parents should be ready with cleaning materials to wipe up any mistakes, the book recommends. The promise is that all of this will save time in the long run. But that payoff can seem awfully distant, especially after so much effort spent trying to make your most boring chores appealing to children with short attention spans.

This level of patience isn’t just for chores; it’s for everything. Successfully getting kids out of the house with shoes and jackets on, minimizing shouting, and embracing mistakes are necessary parts of living happily with kids. But Montessori parenting takes these virtues to a new level. For example, the philosophy recommends that parents let their kids use glassware; watching dishes break if they drop them is supposed to teach kids about the consequences of their actions. But is that lesson worth the danger of children cutting themselves on broken glass, or the price of repeatedly replacing cups and bowls? “Let go of your own feelings,” one Montessori worksheet advises parents. But how can one fully honor a child’s emotional state without honoring one’s own?

By the time Srinivasan had her second and third children, her approach to parenting had transformed. With her attention more divided, she didn’t feel as organized. So she did away with her firstborn’s earnest Montessori program. She noticed that her second baby was eager to play with his big brother, and her third wanted to help around the house—so she let them. She still used some of the same materials, and she still felt like a Montessori parent, even if she’d toned down the intensity. “I feel way more well versed with the spirit of Montessori,” she told me.

Srinivasan said that she thinks she created such a committed regimen for her first kid because she didn’t trust herself. “I was taken in by some of the beautiful playrooms I would see on the internet. And I wanted the same sort of peaceful, orderly place,” she said. But, as Srinivasan came to learn, that isn’t always attainable.

Indeed, for new parents, Montessori’s appeal seems to lie in its structure. Parenting is messy; Montessori is orderly—and the implication is that it can bring order to your life, too. Make your surroundings harmonious, and your kids can then carry out elaborate, enriching activities. And nothing can disrupt this peace for long, because if your child is unruly, you can follow a Montessori-inspired series of steps to—respectfully—quiet their tantrum.

These expectations quickly crumble in real life: Of course Montessori can’t eliminate chaos. But approached realistically, Montessori’s principles can serve as a trusted playbook for coping with the chaos, as Srinivasan and many other parents I spoke with discovered.

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Kathryn Rucker, a film editor and mom living in Chicago, also relied on Montessori principles to help her deal with the stresses of being a first-time mom. When her 2-year-old son threw a tantrum every time she turned off the TV before dinner, Rucker responded with Montessori-style scripts, which encouraged her to play it cool instead of getting angry. (Although many adherents agree that Maria Montessori probably would have recommended banning screens, Rucker allows them in moderation.) But no matter what she did, the tantrum recurred each day. “For a long time, I was like, ‘This can’t be working,’” she told me.

However, as Rucker observed her son and attempted to understand his perspective—to follow her child—she realized: Her most annoying tasks made her grumpy every time she had to do them. The same thing was happening with her son. “Why wouldn’t he get more grace than me?” she wondered. When Rucker noted this, her son’s outbursts no longer seemed so concerning; instead, they felt almost natural. This epiphany hasn’t put an end to the tantrums, but she does feel as though she understands her son better.

Montessori is remarkable for the extent to which it takes children seriously, involving innovations small (art hung at kids’ eye level in their own rooms) and large (putting play at the center of children’s education). The parenting style encourages kids to express themselves—and sometimes, for toddlers, that self-expression involves throwing fits. No amount of respect for your children’s emotional life can change that. The implication that Montessori would make parenting orderly and predictable was always doomed to fail. But the philosophy does give parents something to steady themselves while living through the havoc of helping someone else grow up.