THE 12-YEAR-OLD came home from school and I was ready for him, waving the newspaper in his face the way any good parent would. Read this, I said. It's about homework.
See, for years I have gotten all over my kids for not doing enough homework. Now here was the proof in a Page 1 story.
According to a new study, the average kid 12 and under spends just 19 minutes each night on homework. Nineteen minutes! And even high school kids are doing less than an hour most nights.
"Those figures can't be right," the boy said, handing me back the paper. "Where's the remote?"
I didn't know where the remote was, and I didn't care. But I knew those homework figures were right.
I keep hearing about all these kids who spend hours on homework each night. But none of them have ever lived in my house.
In my house, we have the same conversation just about every night. Instead of wasting my breath, I should just record my end of it.
What homework do you have? I'll ask the boy.
"All I have is math," he'll say.
What about your other subjects? I say. What about English and science and whatever else they offer in seventh grade in the public schools these days?
"The teacher didn't give us any homework," the boy will say.
Then he goes up to his room, closes the door and does about 19 minutes of math homework, after which he comes out and asks: "Where's the remote?"
Anyway, this news story took me back to an ugly little book called The End of Homework that came out a few years ago, written by a couple of loons named Etta Kralovec and John Buell.
We should get rid of homework, the book said.
Get rid of homework and the family will be strengthened, the book said, because then families will spend more time together and bond and their lives will be beautiful and blah, blah, blah.
Man, what a crock that was.
They made it sound like this was the 18th century, and that if only kids didn't have so much math and science to do after school, the whole family would be sitting around the kitchen table together quilting or churning butter or dipping candles or whatever they did back then.
The reality, of course, is that if you give kids less homework, the little brats will spend even more time watching TV or playing Nintendo or messaging their friends on the computer.
This is an absolute fact of life.
You think your kids are going to say: "Mom, Dad, no homework. How about we all go for a nice, long walk?"
