Last night, Mazzy made a big stink about doing her homework. She makes a stink most nights about doing her homework, but this time she seemed more adamant. She told me she hates homework and it ruins everything. She said it takes away from her free time to play and be a kid, she works so hard during the school day already, it doesn’t give her any time to relax before bed, and the kicker— “it takes away the time I have with YOU, Mom. I want to spend quality time with you, but instead we just fight about homework.”

These were all surprisingly well thought-out arguments, but of course, I still had to make Mazzy do her homework. Seems like that is half my responsibility as a parent, nowadays. So I said, “Well, I remember one time, I let you skip your homework, and you woke up the next morning really upset, saying, how could you let me do that??? I’m going to get into so much trouble!!!” I told her that homework helps solidify the stuff she learns in school, prepares her to do well the next day in class and teaches her how to manage her time and get work done on her own.

Mazzy was not convinced. So, I used the only thing I had left in my arsenal. I threatened to take away her iPad privileges.

Only then did Mazzy finally sit down to do her work. Once she sits down to do it, it’s never as hard as she was making it out to be. Last year, she really struggled with her homework problems, but this year, her struggle is more about homework being a waste of her down time.

This morning, I walked into Mazzy’s classroom at drop-off (with homework complete, mind you) and saw up on the board in her teacher’s writing: HOMEWORK PROS & CONS.

Apparently, her class has been having an official homework debate and Mazzy is firmly on TEAM NO HOMEWORK.

Well. Now I know where all those well-thought out guilt-inducing arguments came from. On the pro side, she is definitely paying attention in school.