Why I decided to stop being my daughter’s personal assistant-must read

[malaise]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/28/decided-stop-daughter-personal-assistant-whatsapp
<snip>
I remember the first time I received homework that Enma had forgotten through the mothers from the school WhatsApp group.

“How wonderful!” I thought in my innocence, without realising that this would become a monster that would engulf me in a jungle of messages, a list of homework tasks, and thousands of photos of books and exercise pages ... photos that filled up my phone’s memory to the extent that, whenever I tried to take a picture myself, I would get a “memory full” message.

I also vividly remember the day I saw the light. It happened as follows:

What the heck am I doing? I thought. IT’S OVER.

“Enma, my love, it isn’t my fault that you’ve forgotten your homework, it’s yours. Therefore, tomorrow you’ll explain to your teacher that you haven’t done your homework because you forgot to bring it home and that it won’t happen again.”
----------------------------
Too many of us forget that our parents made us become responsible citizens who can survive on this difficult planet by learning responsibility.

[DetlefK]

1. Absolutely. You only learn by doing things yourself.

Children learn and adapt very fast as their brain is very receptive and flexible, but at the same time they miss out on the many details that make up the world and everyday-life. If they learn that somebody else takes care of a problem, they won't show interest in solving the problem or they won't even realize that there IS a problem.

[customerserviceguy]

2. The crash and burn

of a helicopter parent.

Eventually, the precious little darling will have to face reality on their own, better sooner than later.

[bvf]

11. Well said. I love that term

but really detest what it refers to.

I'm all for parents keeping tabs on their kids, but not to the detriment of their education. Homework is meant to impart a sense of personal responsibility as much as it is meant to impart knowledge of whatever subject.

[customerserviceguy]

32. Oh, I'm all for parents making sure their kids keep up on schoolwork

What I'm really disgusted with are the fools who keep the SUV running, with heat in the winter and A/C in the summer, waiting for the school bus that comes 200 feet away from their front door inside my residential neighborhood, who then escort the little darling all the way to the bus.

[bvf]

33. Got a few neighbors like that.

A relative or two as well.

I see what you're saying. I think I just extended your images to those of parents actually doing their child's homework.

[beemer27]

3. Thumbs Up !!

That was one of the biggest and best favors you could have done for her, and one of the best lessons she will ever learn in life. I only wish that more parents would love their children enough to do the same.

[msanthrope]

4. Who names their kid "Enma?" It's like a portmanteau of Enya and Emma...

or a misspelling of 'enema'....Jeebus....do people even listen to their words?

[TBF]

6. OK, that's funny.

I had a weird name and swore I wouldn't do that to my kids. They both have very ordinary names. They can pick exotic pseudonyms someday if they prefer but I wanted something everyone could recognize, spell, and not have something right off the bat to tease them with.

[msanthrope]

9. That kid probably made it 10 minutes in school before being called 'enema' by someone.

My child has a plain, but seldom-used name. Only the truly stupid misspell it.

[brer cat]

12. I wanted to do the same thing when my daughter was born.

When I told the nurse her name would be Sara, she immediately asked "with or without an h?" I had to laugh...I had a major fail on the easy to spell part.

[ScreamingMeemie]

14. My husband misspelled our son's name on the birth certificate paperwork.

For a short while, his middle name was "Christoper"

[brer cat]

18. We probably should do all that paperwork

before the baby is born and not when we are giddy or groggy after.

[geek tragedy]

7. I wonder what Asswipe Johnson would think. nt

[msanthrope]

10. He'd ask his cousin, Hy Colonic. nt

[cyberswede]

16. LOL

[nxylas]

13. At first, I thought it was one of the famous Grauniad typos

Then it appeared again. I'm pretty sure even their notorious review of the opera Doris Gudenov didn't make the same smelling pistake twice.

[cyberswede]

15. I believe the author is Spanish

This is a translation by Euclides Montes of a post that originally appeared on Noelia López-Cheda’s blog. (http://noelialopezcheda.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/me-niego-a-ser-la-agenda-de-mi-hija-por-el-whatsapp/)

[msanthrope]

21. Don't ruin my fun with facts!!!! nt

[cyberswede]

24. perdoname!

[alcibiades_mystery]

22. ROFL...that's what I was thinking, too

You got me dying here!

[immoderate]

28. Her mom, Douchebag.

Family tradition.

--imm

[Orrex]

35. Sort of guarantees that she'll never be full of herself

And I'm sure she'll be a great relief to her friends.

[TBF]

5. I drove to school the one day

my daughter forgot hers (6th grade) and it never made it to her anyway because she didn't know to go the office and check. It did get in her teacher's box and she got credit for it (but docked a bit for being late). So that wasn't worth it anyway!

With 2 kids I don't have time to chase after every little thing, and that is only amplified when you have more children. I do like the varied features on their school's online gradebook. I have it set to send my email a once-a-week summary of their grades. That way I know if there's anything really off or missing. But I agree obsessing over what they are doing is not a great idea. You can check up on your kids without hovering/obsessing/living their lives for them.

[Shankapotomus]

8. Yea but who is forcing the kid to go to school?

I blame the parent.

Sitting in a class making scratches on paper all day has as much to do with facing reality as does buying a car.

[ScreamingMeemie]

17. My son would like the cut of your jib.

[IdaBriggs]

19. My only issue is that it was "mom's moment" that changed the rules.

A simple little, "okay, but I've decided not to do this in the future, so this is the last time" would have been nicer.

"IT'S OVER" was a nice epiphany for the mom, but I just did not like the way "we aren't doing this anymore" was handled - abrupt, no warning, frankly disrespectful.

I also think some of the points are more about "age appropriate" times when responsibility is handed off.

But it was nicely written.

[a la izquierda]

20. I guess that will be one less parent I'll have to deal with as...

a college professor.

[chrisa]

23. Too many helicopter parents these days. Kids aren't allowed to fail.

There's a difference between doing everything and helping.

[lindysalsagal]

31. +1000

Gotta feel the little bumps in the road if you want to avoid the head-on-collisions ahead of you.

[bvf]

34. You got it.

Exactly right. I know a kid whose mom would do his homework while he was off at basketball practice.

[hunter]

25. My siblings and I were almost feral children.

My parents had too many kids too fast, more than they could handle.

We were safe and protected, my mom can be a grizzly bear, but that wasn't always a good thing. The school administration was often afraid to call her whenever I was in trouble. She'd either tear into me if it was my fault, or tear into them. It was usually best if the school put me outside picking up garbage or doing my schoolwork in the library.

On bad school days, I'd simply leave. That was my pattern in middle and high school. If the school called my mom to tell them I was missing, she'd usually say something like "Oh, he'll be home for dinner," and I usually was.

I quit high school for college, was asked to leave college twice, but eventually graduated, and my parents never knew any of the details of that. It was much like the shrapnel I sometimes took in my experiments with rockets and explosives. My brother, one day, after picking shrapnel out of my backside, told my mom I'd fallen into the rose bush. I'm not sure she believed that, but I'm not sure she wanted to know more either.

That's not a good thing. My wife and I, with our own kids, tried to maintain a happy medium between the anarchy I grew up in, and "helicopter parent."

Two of my siblings left home at sixteen, not because of any neglect or abuse, but because they were already self-sufficient. The two of us who quit high school are university graduates with further postgraduate educations. My youngest sibling stayed in the family home through high school and junior college after my parents retired from their day jobs and left to become full time artists.

I've never wanted to be anything more than a hunter-gatherer, parent, storyteller, evolutionary biologist, and pyromaniac artist. My parents named me well and never tried to break my spirit.

[jillan]

26. Oh my - my daughter is a teacher. This is what she hears - It's not my daughter's fault she didn't

do her homework. It's your fault (the teacher) because you didn't tell her that it needed to be done. (They get a list of homework due every Monday, and a verbal reminder every day.)

It's not my daughter's fault she punched another kid - it's your fault for not stopping them.

On and on!

What's happening out there are parents blaming the teachers instead of parents teaching the child to be responsible for getting their work done or for their behavior.

I cannot believe some of the stories.

I don't get it. When I was a kid, back in the olden days , the last thing I wanted was my teacher to call my parents.

It's really pathetic.

[hollysmom]

27. even as a child I hated getting up inthe morning, I would pretend i wsa asleep and be limp

as my mother struggled to dress me. until she lost her temper and yelled at me, the next step was to be hit, so I knew. The result was that my mother was sick and tired of it after a while. SO I was probably the first six year old child you have heard of who was given and alarm clock and told to wake up myself and if I missed the bus, walk the mile to school alone. Needless to say, I never pretended to sleep again no matter how tired I was, it was now my responsibility, not my mothers. How annoying is it when parents are smarter than you.

ps. I had an older sister, so I was even given an allowance at 5 at the same time my sister started getting hers at 8, to pay if I wanted candy or stupid stuff. My parents made me grow up too fast grump

[live love laugh]

29. Reminds me of my old HR days when mothers would

Call asking if we were hiring--for their kids. Used to slay me every time.

[Omaha Steve]

30. Have have an assistant position open for me

NON-UNION!!!!