I hate homework

Am I smarter than a fifth grader? Who's to say; the one who lives in this house is plenty bright. I have, however, finished at least 18th grade, and to be honest I have no desire to even think about whatever the crap kind of homework they're assigning in the upper elementary these days. For one thing, I have my own lessons to do before the tardy bell rings, that being the catch of still occupying a classroom desk, even the big, disorganized one in the corner. If I were a burned out member of the social studies department with a semester's worth of worksheets at the ready, it'd be a different life, but alas and thank God, that's not my lot.

And, in a perfect world, neither would book reports made out of shoe boxes or coffee cans, video taped speeches, place mats about Africa, or hanging mobiles. My daughter's teacher, she's the queen of projects, and I just cringe at what awaits. The unnecessary drama, the pointless angst, the last minute runs to Target. A procrastinating perfectionist? Who'd have thought I'd have spawned one of those.

Ahem.

But, even without the psychological trials, the fodder for therapists and eventual memoirs, I do wish it would all go away, even on a normal night, when the assignment is Xeroxed and not diorama-ed. It's not that she needs much--at all--in the way of help or supervision. I just don't wanna: I'm spoiled. And I'm pretty sure this new-new math curriculum makes absolutely no sense at all. Lattice? Squeeze method? What?

But even when I do understand and am apparently happy to explain whatever has been hauled home in that backpack--my daughter seems to think that having a teacher for a mother gives her some kind of extra "in"; if she only knew--I still wish we could be spending our time doing something else, or even nothing else at all. She's not an over-scheduled kid, but she has an acting class at the Y, and an overactive girl scout troop, and a flute to practice, and a bible class with Grandma, and sometimes a kid needs time to relax, or time to put off 'til tomorrow what could be done today. Or at least her mom does. Maybe I should get her a blog.