Confession Session, Volume 2; Homework

I think that kids these days have life pretty easy.

Except when it comes to the homework department.

They spend almost seven hours a day in school and then have to come home to do 3 pages of math homework, practice keyboarding, and read for a minimum of twenty minutes. When you add in a few measly chores, sports, scouts, etc., it gets to be a bit ridiculous.

I firmly believe that the public schools, at least here in Utah, are sub-standard enough that not doing homework is only going to make my kids worse off education-wise. They need to be doing all that work so that they don't end up graduating from high school without knowing what 1/3 plus 1/3 is.

But, there are days when I feel like too much is required of them. No kid should have to spend 7 hours in school and then come home to two hours of homework on the first sunny day in weeks.

But, I also feel it's unfair for me to send them outside to enjoy being young and free from responsibilities only to have them get poor grades because I made the decision to let them off the hook. You can't punish your child for a decision you made. So sometimes I lie. I fill in their reading log showing that, yes, they actually did sit down and read for twenty minutes and then practice typing 20 words per minute without any errors for another ten minutes, when really they were both outside hitting each other with light sabers and throwing rotten apples into the neighbor's yard.

It's a tiny lie in the grand scheme of things. I don't do it often, but when I do, I usually feel enough guilt that I read something philosophical to them at bedtime to make up for it. Like Proust. Or Seuss. But honestly - they're only going to be kids once. They shouldn't have to spend all of their time earning A's - neither should they be made to suffer failing grades because I occasionally let them live outside of schoolwork for a while.