I am of great help to my kids. Let's take homework for example. I'm here for them. When they're downstairs doing their homework, I'm upstairs. When they're doing homework downstairs, I'm in my workshop lying low. When they come into my workshop asking for help with homework, I instantly start up a piece of equipment, thus drowning out their requests, but I am here.
"Dad, I need help," Ryan growled while trying to complete a rather nasty algebra homework assignment. "Dad!!!" the boy bellowed again.
"For heaven's sake, answer him. He needs some help!" Kristi chirped from the kitchen.
I craned my neck around the recliner and stared at her briefly, "Why don't YOU help him?"
"Because I'm busy, that's why."
In the moments leading up to that little exchange, she surely had been busy. I guess sitting on a bar stool staring at her cell phone constituted 'being busy'. I was busy too. Apparently my busy and her busy are not on the same level of being busy. I was trying to take a nap. That's busy in my book.
It's not that we don't want to help our kids with their homework. It's just that we're too dumb to offer any real assistance. To begin with, math of today is not the math of my day. Yes, I took algebra and let's just say that I was probably one of the last students to benefit from social promotion.
Kristi is a high school science teacher, so naturally she should be the homework enforcer. "I teach Biology, not math," comes the excuse, without fail. "You use lots of math on your job. It's fresh in your mind." It's true, I do use some math on my job. I use addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. There's never any x, y, squiggly lines, brackets, parenthesis, or any other strange looking signs or symbols involved in my workplace math.
"I don't do algebra on my job," I answered.
With that, I was met with the usual ominous stare. "Your mother said you were a fine student... including math, besides, didn't you take a bunch of engineering classes?" she said, still trying to convince me to amble over to the kitchen table to make myself look like an idiot in front of our son. I was a fairly good student, but it wasn't because of superior intellect. It was because most of my teachers looked like vikings and I was scared to death of what would happen to me if failed to complete an assignment. One lady, who taught me in second grade, actually had a full beard. She left education and now stars in Capital One commercials. I also took a few engineering classes which required lots of math mastery. But in those days, my brain was fully intact and hadn't been ravaged by the distractions of raising two bickering kids and a wife who always needed to 'talk' to me about something.
"Forget it, I figured it out," came the exasperated voice of our son.
Sidney always requires a helper when it comes to her homework. I don't necessarily think she really needs the help, but rather a duet of moaning and groaning because of the homework appeals to her. "Why do they have to give sooooo much homework! I mean, she's in the sixth grade for crying out loud!" I groaned before school ended last year.
"Oh good grief, if it's that big of a deal, let me help her," Kristi said.
"Fine, have at it," I said, while heading toward the back door.
"What are you working on? Oh, it's math," she said, with a very perplexed look beginning to creep onto her face. I paused at the door and looked at my wife.
"Oh my, I need to start supper. Neil, why don't you come back in here and help her with her math, I really need to start cooking," she continued. Math, it's like looking at a welding flash.
"Oh this is easy, here's how it's done," I said, sliding back into the chair I'd vacated only moments before.
"Dad! That's not how you do it! This is how we do it!" the girl exclaimed.
"Well that's not how we did it when I was in school. I've never seen anything like that," I barked. It was true. I hadn't seen anything like what she was doing. There were way more steps to get the answer than I remembered. "New math," I groaned.
Despite the fact that algebra and English literature seem to make my brain cells congeal into a useless blob, I am a master at projects. There are few men in this world who can match me and my creativity when it comes to elementary school projects. Surely, I hope, that Ryan and Sidney have taken some knowledge away from watching me work meticulously on their assignments. Who knows, maybe one of them will be in charge of the baking soda volcano section at a prestigious museum. Or perhaps even better, they someday will be world renowned consultants on the subject of miniature tee pee construction and styro foam solar systems.
Unfortunately, as our children get older and the assignments get harder, I will continue to get dumber. By the time they've both graduated my head should have completed it's evolution into a hollow void. Fortunately, I may just be able to take that nap.
I
No comments:
Post a Comment