It’s finally fall, and the kids are coming home with algebra homework you yourself would have to buckle down to complete. There’s nothing quite like being humbled by a 5th-grade math packet. You walk around thinking you’re a smart, capable adult, and you are! But you haven’t solved for y in over 20 years and it shows. 

Homework is one of the hardest parts of being a kid. You spend all day at school trying to be good and disciplined, and then you have to go home and do it all over again. This is where parents can provide the most support. We can make them after-school snacks and let them spread out on the kitchen island with their history textbooks. And then when they win a Nobel prize one day, maybe they’ll thank us in their acceptance speech. Isn’t that what being a parent is all about? That, and looking at tweets.