Thursday, September 19, 2013

Homework Shmomework

Sitting here thinking about my child's math homework, most notably the note a teacher wrote asking I make sure my kid does the backside of her math sheets nightly. Yeah. So, when did it become my job to make my kid do her homework? My mother never helped me with mine. I either did it, or I didn't. Mom had a million TV shows to watch which she'd circled on the free weekly TV guide in our local newspaper. She had every night planned out from Masterpiece Theater to Love Boat. I knew that. Don't f#ck with Mom's shows. Real simple.

Okay, so I actually do help my kids with their homework every night. But I don't feel like I have to. I just want to. I want them to do well. It makes me happy to see them getting good grades. Learning is awesome, but it's hard and a little help can go a long way. But never, ever have I entertained the thought that it's my actual job to make them do their work. Hell, I'm already a cup and saucer behind on the dishes, and a Fruit-of-the-Loom underpant away from finishing the laundry, then it's bedtime, and then it all starts again tomorrow. Homework ain't my duty. It's my kids'.

What's your thoughts on this, comrades?


photo credit: Cayusa via photopin cc


10 comments:

  1. I guess that's why I don't have kids - I don't need another job.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So true. The worst is that it feels like I'm having to do my homework all over again. I loathed it then, and I loathe it now.

      Delete
  2. It's not your job to do it. It's your job as a parent to make sure they do their homework every night and that includes the back of the math sheet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I adsorbed all the requirement that came flooding down from the schools for my grandchildren a year ago, and came to the same conclusion as thirty years ago, when their mother was in school. Not my job! If you need help, ask your teacher. That's her job. Or his job.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree. I want to help and enforce but in the end believe it's not my responsibility.

      Delete
  4. Homework is pernicious. Do your work at school, stay late if you have to, and then come home and talk to your family, play some sports, see your friends.

    When ours were as young as I think yours are, the school suggested that we should spend a certain amount of time a day reading together as a school thing. Reading has never been a school thing in this house. This point was politely but forcefully expressed, and the subject was never mentioned again. Our son continued to read by himself and we talked about his books like civilised grown-ups.

    I came close to being thrown out of school, my wife was home educated for a while, my son was thrown out of a school and home educated for a while. My wife has a PhD, I have a Masters and our son has a degree and is considering a Masters in part-time study alongside his job.

    Teachers have been known to think they're more important than they are.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, very true. It's a hard line to teach kids to respect their teachers but also maintain their own beliefs.

      Delete
  5. Mostly I would check their homework the day after. I would go over the correction notes left by the respective teacher, and leave my own notes in the margin. I'm sorry to say that VERY often the teacher's own education was sorely lacking. I must have been a nightmare parent!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well if you were your heart was in the right place. <3

      The problem these days is they've changed the math so much that us stupid parents don't know how to teach it to our kids anymore. "Because Matt had ten dollars, he rounded off a portion to the jibber-jabber . . . "

      Delete

A Millennial romp through Jane Austen

  A few years back I wrote this story about a fifteen-year-old girl named Frankie drudging through a very complicated life in a fictional sm...