Mo' Homework Mo' Problems

My kid says he hates school and it hurts my feelings.

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Recently, every time I sit down to write another installment of this newsletter, all I want to say is, are you guys gettin’ a load of this? We’re discouraging herd immunity after we just had a pandemic? We’re kidnapping human beings La Noche De Los Lapices-style? What the actual fuck is HAPPENING TO AMERICA?? Because while this place has always kind of sucked, right now, there’s an overpowering WICKEDNESS that pervades the day-to-day like the smell of a dead animal rotting in the walls. But you, informed and astute Reader, don’t need me to tell you that. And yet, I worry, what will you think of me if I simply disregard the stench in favor of more quotidian gripes? How dare I waste five minutes of your afternoon complaining about my girls’ trip to wine country, when I discovered all the mothers I’m friends with are better at meal planning than I am? So what if my lack of initiative to impose structure on my family’s little world hurts my feelings, when I still have the good fortune to take a friggin girls’ trip at all? I’m trying to thread a needle; to not be a total fucking downer, but also not be a basic white whoman (shout out, Greg Iwinski) either. So let’s talk about homework.

Privately, I’m incredibly smug the fact that my sons go to public school. In the abstract, I plan to keep it that way forever. So what if America is teetering on the precipice of dissolving the Department of Education? No matter which crumbling public school my sons land at (assuming “schools” in general survive this administration), my husband and I will always be their parents. And boy, are we great at it! We spend an obscene amount of time with our children. We read to them and feed them vegetables. We take them to museums, but also make them play sports. And when they ask us questions like how do magnets work? I can’t respond, because I have no fucking clue. But I CAN say, ask your father! and my husband will explain it to them in terms they understand. That said, the public school in our very gentrified district is exceptional. (Partly because of the incredibly well-funded PTA!) And my children, now three and six, are currently pretty low maintenance, as in, they have yet to manifest any personal or developmental challenges that a large public institution might struggle to accommodate. Point being, I’m smug, but my smugness has yet to be challenged. I’m holding space for the possibility of being un-smugged.

A few weeks ago, my six-year-old started first grade. Along with the upgrade to a sweet-ass classroom stocked with tiny guitars, a violin, and a pet snake, the transition from kinder to first has come with a significant uptick in homework. You might be thinking, homework for kindergartners? And first graders? What on god’s once-green-now-increasingly-fallow earth?! And typically, I would ignore your incredulity. Not my lane! I’d tell you. After all, teachers already have to deal with a landfill-sized heap of trash from parents who think that just because they pay their taxes, an educator is their child’s personal Sophist, and that the needs of a group are irrelevant when they conflict with the needs of their whiny little mouth-breather. Seriously, remember all that stuff I said about being a dynamic, creative, attentive, fun-as-hell, A+ parent? According to my logic, if a teacher has a pulse and is providing basic child care, I should have the rest covered, right? At least that’s what I’ve always thought. Unfortunately, when my child is the unhappy kid, it hits a little differently.

Not my actual child, but you get the vibe.

The meltdowns started last Thursday, when my son and I realized we’d overlooked a significant portion of the homework assigned the previous Monday. I was about to make dinner, so I told my husband, “Get him started because it’s going to be disaster if he waits til later.” Nevertheless, a disaster ensued. When my son clocked the sheer quantity of worksheets he had to get through, he began to panic. Long before I’d adequately scorched my chicken thighs, he was hysterical, and I could hear my husband telling him in a firm, not-completely-chill tone, “Look, I don’t care if you do your homework. But you’re not going to get to do fun things if you don’t!” That didn’t sound right. I cared if my son did his homework. Just like I always cared that I did MY homework. The consequence of abstaining had never been about not getting to do fun things. The consequence had been about being a fucking loser who didn’t do your homework. And yet I also have potent memories of being in my son’s position, of waiting to do school work til the last minute, then becoming inconsolable over the prospect of not getting it done. My parents do too. I know, because 35 years later, they still bring it up! When the chicken was no longer raw enough to kill us all, I tagged in for my husband. My son calmed down a bit — a Mother’s Touch, Oedipal rivalry, toxic masculinity, etc. — but he kept repeating a phrase that worried me. “I hate school,” he told me with tears in his eyes.

This week, I tried to nip the situation in the bud by making sure he completed the portion of homework allotted for each particular day, so it wouldn’t pile up. But on Tuesday, after a long soccer practice (coached by his father, another inevitable sword fight 🙄) and a late dinner (my bad for making potato soup on a 90 degree day), we were back in the throes of a meltdown. It had been going — not smoothly — but reasonably well, until, already exhausted, my son arrived at the last of his math worksheets. “Tom has seven dogs. Draw four big dogs and three small dogs,” it read. The task at hand was clear enough, but when you have the fine motor skills of a six-year-old, drawing seven dogs takes a fucking long time! “I hate dogs! Why are dogs so stupid?! Why are dogs so hard to draw?!” He screamed, which seemed unfair to dogs, who never asked to be drawn. Don’t worry about it, just draw shitty dogs! I thought. But another characteristic I also see in myself was getting in the way. My son doesn’t like to do anything badly. Maybe nobody does! But since he was a baby, reluctant to speak til he could do it in nearly full sentences, overwrought when encouraged to take his first steps, he has always seemed deeply embarrassed to struggle publicly. Again, “I hate school!” he informed me broken-heartedly. At this point, I was of two minds. It’s probably good to make kids do things they hate, right? Won’t it help prepare them for adulthood, when 95% of the what you have to do is stuff you hate? Also, doing hard things encourages resiliency! One day you’re pushing yourself to draw seven dogs, the next, you’re singlehandedly skinning a 1200 lb moose on Alone! Nevertheless, hating school at six seems treacherous, since ideally he’ll be spending 12 more years there. I want him to love school. I want him to love learning. What greater freedom is there, in a world that every day seems a little less free?

Last night was Back To School Night. I entered my son’s classroom with my heart-pounding, wondering if I was about to become one of those parents I’ve not just rolled my eyes at, but seen as true community saboteurs. The kind people I always think of while listening to The Beatles’ I Me Mine. (We all think that song is about entitled white parents, right?) But before I could cross over to the dark side, my son’s affable teacher informed us, “I don’t really care if your kids do their homework. I want them building Legos, wrestling with their siblings, hanging out with you. That, I think, teaches them much more.” I was relieved. But also, strangely, disappointed? I’d come to face my son’s teacher, but also to face myself, to figure out when I feel comfortable advocating for my children, and when I need to back off for the greater good. And even though I wasn’t forced to draw the line last night, I’m still thinking about it. I guess in that way, twenty years after setting foot in a classroom, school is still making me reckon with big questions. And while I’m not sure my son would understand what the hell I was talking about, I’d like to ask him, what’s not to love about that?