Homework battles

My first you’re-out-of-school-now-whatcha-gonna-do-with-yourself job was teaching.

I loved it.

Still love it, even though I don’t teach anymore (aka became an I.T. nerd instead).

I dream about being able to homeschool my babas one day… although I know that’s probably not ever going to happen…

So I make do by being as involved as I can with my kids and their education. Or at least I used to.

I used to go through all the day’s work with them to make sure they really understood the lesson. Made sure all homework was done. Pick up on problem areas and try to show practical examples in everyday life that would reinforce the concept and help teach the lesson. All that good stuff.

Then I had the baby 16mths ago.

I still did homework with the boys, but it was getting a little difficult to squeeze everyone in…

Then came the layoff, job search, starting to freelance.

I will admit, homework suffered. Their dad took up some of the slack, but I just couldn’t get in there like I used to. I mean I made sure it was done – asked to see it and glance through to make sure it looked ok. But nothing rigorous, and not strictly every day like before.

Once things started to settle down a little bit, I tried to get back into the homework and studies thing.

I found that M would tell me his homework was already done and disappear in some corner until I was tired calling for him to get his things for me to check back. One day I was appalled to see not one but MANY Incompletes scribbled in his books. He’d “forget” to do a piece of homework and have to squeeze it in while at school. I was appalled.

How could this happen to me? To my kid?

BAD MOM!

Ok so I try to be more vigilant and really get in there every single day, but that’s so much easier than it sounds when the baby’s feeding time, the boys’ homework time and dinner prep all needs to happen at the same time.

Sometimes I’m just so tired and overwhelmed I just accept the “I did it at school and Miss checked it back already”. This generally came from G – the older boy, and I thought it was a little odd, but I let it go.

Then one day it really bothered me – why is all his homework done at school now? Shouldn’t I be able to get involved? Even if the homework is done in class, shouldn’t the books at least be sent home and not collected until the next day? It IS homework after all?

Stupid me.

Seriously.

Stupid me!


On Friday, my husband picked up the boys from school, only to have the teacher come to the door, reprimand him loudly for not making sure G does his homework, and that she’s fed up of it, turn on her heel and head back inside.

While he stood there with his jaw hanging. Dumbstruck and speechless.

Now her attitude aside (bet that conversation would have happened differently if I was there. I can relate to her frustration, but I wish she’d have said something before, or called us in or something), I cannot begin to explain how upset this makes me.

First of all my poor husband had to stand there and take this, probably feeling like he was in the Twilight Zone. This guy hears the homework conversations every day. Sees me checking back M’s homework. And hears me griping about why I can’t be checking back G’s homework. And why can’t I even see the homework notebook to see what homework’s being given?

All this time, I was being fed well… no other word for it… lies. My 9 year old decided to lie to me on a daily basis to get out of doing homework? How long had this been going on? Why didn’t I know?

Sometimes I think I just have to be the dumbest mom on the planet. How could I not see through that?

3 Responses to “Homework battles”

1. Teresha@MarlieandMe says:

   February 22, 2010 at 4:07 pm

   Reply
2. wdibmm says:

   February 22, 2010 at 4:21 pm

   Reply
3. Acting Balanced Mom says:

   February 22, 2010 at 5:53 pm

   Reply

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