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" Let me explain. Housework is one of those cyclical drudgeries that goes with being a mother: wiping tables, sweeping floors, filling the washing machine and emptying the dishwasher, again, again and again. Homework, on the other hand, is one of those cyclical drudgeries that too many parents think belongs in their territory.   Let&amp;#039;s check the motherhood boundary map. I see feeding. I see boo-boo kissing. I see dirty uniform-washing and horizon-broadening\u2026 but nope, no homework-doing. We grownups left that chore safely behind when we ditched our own backpacks for the real world.   This fall, like every fall, I attended meet-the-teacher night. These evenings require real fortitude once kids reach grade levels where they change classes all day, thus giving you six or seven new faces to meet. Each teacher does the same thing: Says how psyched he or she is for the new school year (good), outlines the material that will be covered this year (OK), and then laboriously explains, by handing out syllabi or website addresses, how I can keep track of assignments and due dates (whoa!). Not my responsibility, Teach!   Back when I was the one with the pigtails and the number-two pencils, my parents never memorized the due dates for my forthcoming projects. I don&amp;#039;t think they even knew about said projects until I dragged them home, graded. Mom never whipped out flashcards, much less signed every test I brought home to prove she&amp;#039;d reviewed it with me.   We&amp;#039;ve devolved to the point where parents feel these behaviors are just part of being an A+ parent. And worse, some teachers are reinforcing the buddy system with things like weekly e-mail updates suggesting what to review. Or even by assigning parental homework. Yes, you read that right. Two years ago, a Montclair, New Jersey, ninth-grade English teacher won national applause (and plenty of scorn) for requiring parents to read materials by Franz Kafka, Walt Whitman and Robert F. Kennedy, and then post responses online\u2014 lest their kids&amp;#039; grades suffer! Incredibly, he claimed only one flat-out refusal in three years. I&amp;#039;d refuse.   And I&amp;#039;m a pro-teacher kind of mom. I respect the fact that most teachers pour in far more than they get back in salary. (After a few years of leading a meager weekly Brownie troop, I gained new admiration for the hours of prep that lesson planning requires.) But I don&amp;#039;t send my kids to school in order to put myself through a refresher course. I don&amp;#039;t need a stranger piling tasks onto my to-do list. And what kind of lesson does it teach kids when they&amp;#039;re graded on someone else&amp;#039;s action (or inaction)?   Better they learn responsibility for their own behavior. That includes tracking assignments and handing them in on time\u2014no excuses about dogs eating the work or a mom who had 10,000 more important things to do than blog about &amp;quot;Song of Myself &amp;quot; for credit.   All four of my children know they can and should come to me if they have questions. (Though if it&amp;#039;s about post-third-grade math, they also know I&amp;#039;m apt to say, &amp;quot;Go ask Dad.&amp;quot;) They know I&amp;#039;ve got their backs in terms of tracking their progress and ensuring help if they run into trouble. My kids also know I will take them to the library, coach their persuasive speeches and get them whatever supplies they need\u2014be it T-shirts, Popsicle sticks, felt, French cheese or Polish dumplings. (That&amp;#039;s a real-life list.)   What they know I won&amp;#039;t do: Mark up papers. Take over the keyboard. Give answers. (I do give hints.) I won&amp;#039;t even know exactly what each day&amp;#039;s assignments are; they can go to the class website all on their own. I do routinely ask, &amp;quot;Have you done your homework?&amp;quot; before they try to do anything that involves a screen or a bicycle.   Yet I&amp;#039;m made to feel like I&amp;#039;m not stepping up to the plate. Take Science Night: Ben Franklin, Marie Curie and George Washington Carver would stack up like rank amateurs against what some fifth-graders cook up after school, completely unassisted (yeah, right).   &amp;quot;If she tanks in this class it&amp;#039;ll crash her GPA, and goodbye pre-med program,&amp;quot; one dad told me, with a straight, if twitchy, face, to explain why he&amp;#039;d stepped in and written his 10th-grader&amp;#039;s year-end English paper. (&amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s not good with words,&amp;quot; he added, equally lamely.) So how is she going to thrive as a pre-med? My rule of thumb has always been that the closer to college a child gets, the more a parent ought to get her nose out of the backpack.   But if parents are spending too much time on homework, well, so are kids. The more hours they spend reviewing material that they just studied a few hours earlier in class, the fewer hours they have to learn skills not covered in a curriculum whose practical life lessons are limited to recycling, bullying and sex ed. Kids also need time to learn how to make a bed, run the washer themselves, and which side of the plate the knife and fork go on.   So here&amp;#039;s a win-win idea: Give &amp;#039;em less homework\u2026and more housework. I&amp;#039;d love it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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