Homework: Weeping, Wailing & Nashing of the Teeth



The fifth circle (Anger) by Stradanus via Wikipedia

I like helping.  I enjoy helping.  I derive satisfaction from helping.  However, seldom does homework fall under this category for me.  One would think it would.  It does not.  In our house it's often a knock-down, drag-out fight involving a lot of shouting--sometimes from me.  Lots of weeping and wailing and spinning of the wheels--I also gnash my teeth.  The amount of resistance I encounter on some nights could power a small village and still have reserves.  Afterschool in our house can be compared to a scene from The Inferno.  Did I mention that I feel like weeping, wailing and gnashing my teeth?   

Then, there are those nights where all goes well and the collective "we" enjoy working together and cooperation is the word of the night.  Tonight is not one of those nights.  Apparently Little Man thinks that Chief is easier to work with than me...if I were a person who ran out and tatted myself for every life event, homework would get a special tat.  For the record I do not have any tatoos, but I have a post in mind about them.  Maybe I'd write "The Inferno" on the inside of my arm so that when it is time to do homework I'd stroke that spot on my arm and say a little mantra or prayer to myself to banish thoughts of running a butter knife into my carotid. 

I find homework a low point of the evening--not every day but some of them.  It's a battle that I try not to engage in and somehow the emotional current of homework sweeps me away with it.  Homework can be fun and there are many times that it actually is--I look forward to more of those kind of nights.  I'm not one to do or to compulsively check their homework--I facilitate and even that knocks the spirit out of me. 

Tonight I walk away from the battlefield with a bruised ego, feeling like a shell of my former self.  I'm ready for bed, my friends.  Am I the only one who feels like this?

Tomorrow, homework will be better--it can't get any worse...

So, how did I get here? (Talking Heads, anyone?)

I'm just wrapping up a fantastic online course, DIY PR offered by The Crafty Chica, aka Kathy Cano-Murillo.  You can find out about her on either of her sites: http://www.thecraftychica.blogspot.com/ or http://www.chicawriter.blogspot.com/.  This course has pushed me to write miscellaneous thoughts in a more public forum and forced me to really think about what I feel is important.  My bio is a product of her course.  She’s provided tons of valuable information—especially for those who have products or services they want to sell or just want to get their word out.  I snuck myself into the course (I paid, of course, but here are all these artists…) because I love her and she’s a wealth of info, super helpful to boot.  It’s kind of like when you walk by a lecture that sounds interesting and you decide to stay—wait, that’s not typical.  How about when you see interesting plates of food sail by you and you decide that you might have to sample some it?  She has her entire e-course laid out by weekly lesson plans and a lot of it sounded interesting.  It well worth it because the course generated a lot of food for thought for me (no pun intended) and some of class members have already experienced growth via Kathy's suggestions--new gigs, etc.  For me, the course and writing a bio also brought up some memories that I hadn’t thought about for quite some time. 

For instance, I remembered how much I enjoyed watching Andy Rooney as a kid.  I remembered watching 60 Minutes with my father faithfully every Sunday evening—we also watched Walter Conkrite report about Watergate on the evening news, but that wasn’t nearly as interesting (mind you, I was in Kindergarten at the time).  Here was a man who could pontificate about soap slivers and what people do/might do with pieces that were too large to throw out but a little too small to handle well.  Sheer genius, I say, sheer genius!  He was probably the kid who asked way too many questions in grammar school and was in constant trouble for it and now he was getting paid to do what came naturally to him—wonder about stuff and opine.  When my parents used to ask me what I wanted to “be” when I grew up I told them an artist.  You can guess how receptive to that they were—“that’s nice but you do need a job that will pay the bills…”  I should’ve told them I wanted Andy Rooney’s job.  I wonder what they would’ve said?  I can tell you the younger version of me didn’t say much in response.  I didn’t really speak up (within our family unit, mostly) until high school and even then I eventually backed down.  It’s that first child, pleaser, peace-maker thing.  These are the family roles that I struggle with.  We all have something, right?  My mom says I’m loud and talk too much, but I’ve certainly made peace with that.  What do you struggle with and can you make peace with it?