Mothers these days are shaking up the long-held conventions about parenting and raising well-adjusted children who turn into healthy minded adults. Earlier this week, we wrote about the mother who didn’t force her child to share and today, there’s another mom, Bunmi Laditan, who’s decided that her child is through with homework.
For those of you on Twitter, Laditan is the voice behind the hilarious Honest Toddler account, author of a book by the same name as well as Toddlers Are A**holes.
And before you get yourself all worked up into a tizzy, check out Laditan’s rationale.
Before she started enforcing the decision though, this American born mother, living in Canada drafted an e-mail to her daughter Maya’s teachers.
“Hello Maya’s teachers
Maya will be drastically reducing the amount of homework she does this year. She’s been very stressed and is starting to have physical symptoms such as chest pain and waking up at 4AM worrying about her school workload.
She’s not behind academically and very much enjoys school. We’ve consulted with a tutor and a therapist suggested we lighten her workload. Doing 2-3 hours of homework after getting home at 4:30 is leaving little time for her to just be a child and enjoy family time and we’d like to avoid her sinking into a depression over this.
Thank you for understanding.
Warmly, Bunmi.”
When she shared the e-mail on Facebook, she provided a bit more context for her unorthodox decision.
I was one of those kids who stressed about everything and homework was definitely a part of that equation. As early as second grade, I recall tears and even stomach aches over not knowing answers to “fun” little math quizzes that were supposed to be optional challenges.
But more than my own moments of anxiety, Laditan’s strongest point, to me, was that after so many hours in school, children could use a break, just like full grown adults need breaks after working from 9-5. And while I think we’d all agree that there needs to be some type of system set in place to ensure that the children have mastered the skills they’ve learned earlier in class, 2-3 hours of homework after a full day just seems tedious and perhaps a bit of an overkill.
Then again, homework has become such a staple, such an expected standard that educators are going to have to think long and hard about how to replace it.
What do you think of Laditan excusing her daughter from homework?
Veronica Wells is the culture editor at MadameNoire.com. She is also the author of “Bettah Days.” You can follow her on Facebook and on Instagram and Twitter @VDubShrug.
The post New Rules: Mother Excuses Her Daughter From Homework Because It’s Become Too Much appeared first on MadameNoire.