The Weekly Gif Parade: Homework version

I find it odd how much time is spent discussing, debating, and prepping parents for the first three or four years of your kid's life. If you peruse the internet for anything more than a hot minute, you'll stumble across many of the landmines and rocket propelled grenades on the front lines of the mommy wars. Twenty minutes on google will give you all the talking points you need to do battle at major cities like BreastorFormulatam, Toddler Tempersburg, Nappomattox, and all sorts of historic sites. And yet oddly enough, all of that tapers off once you send those life ruining altering little blabbermouths down the way to the nearest, well researched schoolhouse.

Why is that?

I'll tell you why. It's because getting your kid to sleep through the night, wondering what age to introduce solids, even the ear shattering shrieks of a baby who wails inconsolably the moment water touches her skin (I'm looking at you, pinky) pales in comparison to the living, breathing hell that is guiding your child through their homework every night.

It all starts off innocently enough.

There's a table, a pencil, a stack of paper, and perhaps a school book or two and there's a child who just moments earlier was making you think about ending it all regaling you with tales of how her bff has a boyfriend that kisses her on the playground. Then you get home and you are forced to ask a question that will turn the tide of your evening in irreparable ways.

"Do you have homework?"

Suddenly, the child who was charming you just moments before,

is looking at you like you've asked them if you can kick their puppy.







You get yourself together,

And find something else to do in the misguided hope that for once, they will just finish the work already and leave you in peace. But before you can settle in all comfortable-like,


 

Inevitably, one of your kids has to roll up on you and interrupt you polishing off the rest of the sweet potato pie with a question. Obviously, no one wants to believe their kids are dumb and most kids are not dumb. However, if you've never looked at your kid and wondered if their brain fell out of their head between the school and your front door, you might not be a parent.

"Mommy, I don't know if I should add or subtract."

Now look, I'd love to tell you that I am the soul of patience, but I'm quite happy with the length of my nose.




So instead I'll confess a little irritation with the fact that no matter how many times I tell them that I'm not telling them the answer, they continue to come at me with questions that can I can only assist with by doing just that. Instead, I end up spitting out, "read it.again," through clenched teeth while wearing a plastered on smile.




This goes on at least three more times before they creep back up all sheepishly, paper in hand to ask you another question.


Just when you're about to lose your damned mind,



your child utters the words that save your sanity, "Will you check this for me?"


Seems innocuous enough I know but truly, this is a good thing. It means your whole ordeal is very nearly over.




So you gladly accept his paper, stare at it for a long moment,




And remind yourself that you did graduate high school once upon a time and dammit, you were pretty good at it. But that was then, this is now, and startlingly, you're right back in the fifth grade cutting your eyes at your hosebeast teacher and wondering what the hell good math will ever do you anyway.







You spend a few moments reacquainting yourself with the material, figuring out what new crap they're calling the terms your teachers spent all that time drilling into your head,





Until finally, you can issue a coherent explanation without risking your kid looking at you like this,




However, it's all worth it for bliss of seeing the look on your baby's face the exact moment they grasp a new concept.





Or perhaps the moment you can send them to bed. I don't know. But I'll let you know when I figure it out. This stuff has to pay off sometime, right?


The Hot Mess Housewife, molding young minds since 2001.