Have you ever just felt like grabbing your child’s homework and doing it yourself because the biggest loser is on and you forgot to program your Tivo to tape it and if you miss even a minute of it you believe you could actually die?
Have you ever found yourself sitting next to your kid while they are trying to read and thinking “My God, this is so easy. What is the problem with you?
Yeah, me too.
I’m telling you, tonight, okay practically every night, I just want to grab her pencil and tell her, “I’ll do it, you go brush your teeth.”
I of course, would never do that….now.
Back when she was in Kindergarten, she had homework every week which was due on Friday.
On one such Friday, I was doublechecking to make sure she had done everything only to realize she had forgotten to color in this picture. We were running late because, well, if I can squeeze out an extra two minutes of sleep every morning, I will and I do. Anyway, so there I’m staring at a page of black and white and we’ve got about five minutes to get out of the house. I run and grab the crayon box and proceed to color it myself. Although, I am a righty, I used my left hand as I felt that would make it look more like it was she who had done the job and not me.
At first I felt guilty and then I thought, “You know what? If my kid doesn’t get into Harvard because in KINDERGARTEN, I colored in one of her pictures, fine. Trust me, when the time comes to apply, her getting in will depend way more on who I’ve slept with than her ability to stay within the lines.
Besides, my parents never did any of my homework for me ever and look at my life? Right? Exactly. You think it would’ve killed then to give me just a little bit of assistance? Pick up a f**king crayon every now and again, boost my chances of having a better life? No, of course not.
I can just see it now:
MY MOTHER: Dad! Jessica forgot to color her paper?
MY FATHER: So,what do you want me to do?
MY MOTHER: Maybe we should just color it in for her?
MY FATHER: You wanna break the law, you break the law. I’m not going to jail because our five year old couldn’t get it together well enough to do her homework. Besides, I never ask her to do my paperwork.
MY MOTHER: You’re an engineer.
MY FATHER: So, what’s your point?
I love the banter between your parents….I can hear my father saying the same things LMAO! I love your site…I’ve added you to my blog roll…come check out my site if you like? You are hilarious!
xoxo Brandi
ACK!! The Homework!! It kills me. Also, can you just hold then pencil/marker/pen like this? No, like this. NO, like this! NO, LIKE THIS! Fine, hold it like that, who cares if you just wind up with scribbles.
What – homework at age five!?? They’re supposed to be playing and annoying their parents and drawing on the walls at that age!
I don’t even bother to attempt to assist my children with their homework. It’s more advanced than anything I ever did!
I hate it when my kids try to help me with their school work.
Tell you what. If I’m having trouble with my homework I will not be coming to you for help.
I am still struggling with the HW issue with the last kid, 15. Staying up way too late to be “moral support” while she finishes stuff that takes her forever. Okay, she has a learning disability. But really, it’s not like it’s MY fault…
Wait till you start “buffing up” the college essays. My kids were aggravated because their upbringing was so “normal” that they didn’t have a “dramatic” enough story for the recruiters to cry over. We should have divorced; become drug addicts (no, make that blind, paraplegic drug addicts); then they would have gotten into any school they wanted. Don’t worry, Jessica. The apples don’t fall from the tree, and no doubt your daughter is going to be brilliant just like YOU!
“her getting in will depend way more on who I’ve slept with than her ability to stay within the lines.” I can take that a couple of different ways. Both ways are funny.
I haven’t got to this stage yet, but I’m sure I will when the time comes.
Oh god, homework is going to suck.
Yes. Yes. And…yes.
I’m having that problem now getting my kid to pull up and down his own pants when he goes to the potty. It’s much faster if I just do it myself.
First of all: homework in KINDERGARTEN is RIDICULOUS. When coloring is an assignment, something is WRONG. Coloring is supposed to be fun, nu?
(grabbing educators around their invisible necks and shaking them to their senses)
Oh Jessica, you have so much to be grateful for. She GIVES you her homework…the knowledge of it! That it EXISTS. We just got in another of our lovely “discussions” with a kid who continuously hides the fact that any homework exists. Even goes so far to tell us “the teacher is lying.” Oh help us.
Help her out now because in a few more years you won’t even understand her homework. I dreamed of the days of coloring by the time the oldest got into 5th grade.
Watching my kid try to put a 12 piece puzzle together and totally NOT getting the concept once nearly made me pass out, I so wanted to help. Same this year when I watched her not get how to pedal her bike (with training wheels). She kept kind of rocking her feet back and forth. I couldn’t find the words to describe how to do it and thought I would spontaneously human combust. She’s in special ed and not very coordinated, and I am usually very patient, but, man. Tested the ZEN capacity of this mom in a serious way, and I failed. Big time. But she’d flip her top if she saw that I’d colored in her assignment.
I would love to take over and do the homework for my son because it would be over and done in a fraction of the time.
Now that I think about it, I could actually DO his homework and he’d be learning about fractions, right?
Oh, LOL! This was so bloody entertaining.
Could have been my life I was reading about here.
My problem is that when my 7yr old writes his “snapshot”, which is basically a recount of what he did on the weekend, I’m busy looking at it thinking, ‘he needs to be more descriptive. Why hasn’t he started a new paragraph here?’ I have to remind myself. He’s 7. S-E-V-E-N. *sigh*
I have been known to do that for my oldest kid (you know… the practice kid… the one you learn on), but by the time #3 came along, I had stopped. That kid (#3) was on her own to sink or swim. and she swims beautifully.
Oh yeah, I’ve been there. What annoys me is the homework sent home that requires parental involvement – First Grade and Princess Nagger had to ‘build’ a 3D model house of our house…yeah, as IF a First Grader would be doing that. I had to do it. And I didn’t like being assigned homework.
Yes! Just yesterday I was thinking, Come on! It’s house. You read it yesterday and the day before. Why can’t you remember house?? I then did say rather impatiently, “It’s house. Remember? House?” Later I pulled her aside and apologized for my impatient behavior and how ‘I’m working on it’. This is grade 1. How in the eff am I going to make it through eleven more years?