I hate homework, my kid's teacher, and the fact that we haven't gotten to school this week without one kid or the other crying.

I hate homework. I hate nagging, and I hate doing errands.

At this point in my life, this is all I for see doing in the near future. I do not seem to be able to get a job, and I am apparently doomed to spend my day going to the grocery store, the bank, the blahblahblah.....this is of course in between my other scintillating joy of nagging my children out of bed in the morning, nagging their breakfast into them, and then nagging them out the door. This is followed by the lunchtime chores and nags, including HOMEWORK, then nagging them out the door all over again. When they get home, feed them, and then begin again to nag. Nag about homework, nag about dinner, nag about tidying up, nag them through dinner and into bed.

No wonder mothers have such a bad rep in our culture. They are doomed to a life of endless hamsterwheel dronedom....

And YES I AM BITTER

I am bitter because of the homework. The God DAMMNNNED homework. I am sorry, they have my children for 6 hours a day, if they cannot cram a little bit of learning into them in that time.....why do I have to do it at home as well. When we home school, they accomplish more academic work in 3 hours than they achieve in a day plus homework. I mean REALLY. I would like to add that I am actually an education professional, and I, from a professional perspective, strongly believe that there should be no homework at all before 7th grade. Children need to develop other aspects of their being by playing, running around, hanging out with their family, and just being kids. Not more freaking schoolwork with an overtired and under qualified teacher AKA their mother going quietly NUTS.

In Canada, I simply went into the schools and told the teachers that my children would not be doing homework. I requested that they do not punish the children as this was my decision and not theirs. I explained my reasons lucidly and that was that. If the kids wanted to do it, so be it. They did some of the time too. Really and truly though, if you cannot get the job done in a day, there is something very far amiss with the system.

Then again, in the words of a favorite cruiser when she finds herself getting bitter.....quityourbitchin'.

Then again, I ain't done. The eldest child is still having massive shower-at-gym angst...oh joy, and the younger child's teacher is driving me completely INSANE.
She is completely incapable of communicating to the daughter at all. I will resist the temptation to comment on her possible STUPIDITY IDIOCY NASTYNESS challenges. Here's an example. She is showing my daughter some math, there are little pictures of coffee beans (in a kids math book, OK) there are three by themselves, a little cup with beans in it and a stack of ten cups, meant to show units, tens, and hundreds. The stupid cow teacher writes beside them, not 1, 10 and 100, but instead unitas, desenes and cesentes. Needless to say the kid hasn't got a freaking CLUE.

Today, the younger one was reduced to tears by this bitch woman....the first period of the day is Catalan, presumably grammar type stuff...so this is mostly way beyond what the little one can understand, and the teacher, if I can dignify her with that name, doesn't give her any of the paper the other kids are working on, and as far as I can tell, doesn't address her at all. So, my kid gets out the English homework she has to do for me, so that she develops her English skills at grade level. As she put it, I had nothing to do anyway. She is working away, practices all of her spelling words, and gets to work on a very long story she has been working on since September. At this point the foul idiot teacher decides that my kid MUST write "my name is Danielle" NOW in the middle of the work that she is doing...doesn't give her other paper or anything, and this goes on and on until my kid is in tears, if front of the whole room. Finally the English teacher shows up and clarifies things, or at least cheers my kid up...bless her forever. So after lunch, and the mountains of homework this kid has that we are desperately trying to keep up with, I go into the school, catch the English teacher and try to get a meeting with the idiot grade two teacher. She cannot spare 5 minutes of her TWO HOUR lunches or her after school time until next MONDAY...I will point out that this is TUESDAY now. The English teacher is, however, an absolute DREAM.

Jesus freaking Christ! This is not good parent/teacher communication.

I pass a message on through the English teacher that if Teri, the woman standing around all day ignoring and tormenting my child teacher, could please send home the books and a note about what she is going to do the next day, we could go over it with my daughter the night before and maybe help her understand what the hell is going on a little better. (N.B. She didn't)

To boot, the eldest child, who is a near vegetarian, animal rights freak and is grossed out by most everything is begging me to let her off school on Friday afternoon because they will be dissecting sheep's hearts...this I have to confess I am finding absolutely hysterical. Wonder if they will put any soap in the children's bathroom by then? I think I am going to supply it myself.

The kids got home from after school jazz, the eldest complaining that she doesn't like it anymore. The youngest happy as a clam. I love how resiliant and in the moment they are. Then they both sit down and plow through the huge heap of homework they have with barely a squawk. Thank you thank you thank you...the little one is still about 35 pages behind in the Catalan homework, but for once we have managed to do more than she brought home. Reasonably cheerfully too.


Just went over to Susan's blog on a tip from Kate for a little perspective. She has posted the film of Dr Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. I hadn't heard it before. I'll quitmybitchin'.