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Education

Mom shares how her first grader's homework on the second day of school broke his spirit

"It's breaking their spirit and it robs them of what little fun and family time they have when they come home after a long day of school."

little boy in tears as he's doing homework
Photo credit: Cassi Nelson/Facebook

How much homework is too much homework?

Debates about homework are nothing new, but the ability of parents to find support for homework woes from thousands of other parents is a fairly recent phenomenon.

A mom named Cassi Nelson shared a post about her first grader's homework and it quickly went viral. Nelson shared that her son had come home from his second day of school with four pages of homework, which she showed him tearfully working on at their kitchen counter.

"He already doesn’t get home from school until 4pm," she wrote. "Then he had to sit still for another hour plus to complete more work. I had to clear out the kitchen so he could focus. His little legs kept bouncing up and down, he was bursting with so much energy just wanting to go play. Then he broke my heart when he looked up at me with his big teary doe eyes and asked…. 'Mommy when you were little did you get distracted a lot too?!' Yes sweet baby, mommy sure did too! I don’t know how ppl expect little children to sit at school all day long and then ALSO come home to sit and do MORE work too…."

Nelson tells Upworthy that she was "shocked" that kindergarteners and first graders have homework, much less the amount they were expected to do. "We didn't have homework like this when we were in these younger grades."

Expert opinion and research is somewhat mixed on the homework front, but there isn't any conclusive evidence that homework is universally beneficial for students and too much homework can actually be harmful. As a standard, the National Education Association (NEA) and the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA) support a limit on homework of “10 minutes of homework per grade level."

With that as a guide, a first grader shouldn't have more than 10 minutes of homework on any given school day, but it's not unusual for young kids to have two or three times the recommended limit of homework. That can be stressful for both kids and parents, cutting into valuable family time and limiting kids' time to decompress, play and freely engage in imaginative activity.

As Nelson concluded, "It’s breaking their spirit and it robs them of what little fun and family time they have when they come home after a long day of school."

Most parents and even most teachers in the comments agreed with her that four pages of homework is too much for a first grader, especially on only the second day of school:

"Poor little man. Children below a certain grade should not be given homework! Small children have a hard time sitting still for a long period of time yet alone expected to sit and do hours of homework, for what??? They are SMALL CHILDREN! Let them snack, play, laugh and all the other fun things when they get home. You are only a child once, they don't need that taken away from them. Let them embrace their inner creativity, imagination, recipes, etc."

"This breaks my spirit. Our schools are huge scams. You're exactly right Cassi. Homework is ridiculous. Kids til the age of 10 primarily learn through real life situations and play scenarios."

"I hate that for him! My little one has ADHD and doing homework after sitting in class all day is very stressful to him and makes him hate school. They are in school for 7 hours they shouldn’t have homework. That definitely takes away any kind of family time and that’s why kids never spend time with parents anymore because they have all this homework to do after being gone all day.I feel that if it can’t be done in the 7 hours they have the kids then it should wait until the next school day."

"I don’t make them do homework at home when they are that little. It’s not fair!They are at school allllll day! And it’s already sooooo much for their little bodies and brains! I’ve never had a teacher upset about it either.. and even if I did oh well!"

"That breaks my heart. 4 pages is absolutely ridiculous for young kids. My daughter is going into 2nd grade next month, the 2 years in school it was always 1 page of homework sometimes back and front if it was math. And to read."

"I was in this boat with my son…conversation with the principal and teachers helped dramatically!! It’s too much and we have to advocate for them."

Nelson was blown away by the response to her post, which has been shared on Facebook over 89,000 times. "I NEVER thought me sharing my thoughts openly about how my heart hurt watching my little guy struggle would connect to so many others worldwide going through the same thing," she says.

Many parents shared that excessive homework is one of the reasons they decided to homeschool their children, which Nelson took to heart. The week after sharing her viral homework post, she shared that they had had their first day of homeschooling. It was "A HUGE SUCCESS!!!!" she wrote, with her son getting far more work done in a far shorter amount of time, sitting for classes for just 1 hour and 45 minutes total.

Nelson tells Upworthy she was totally intimidated to try homeschooling. "I seriously thought there was no way," she says. "But I knew I had to set my fear aside and just take the leap for my kids. I told myself I'd figure it out one way or another. And here we are three days in and it's been the easiest and best choice I've ever made."

Homeschooling is not going to the right solution for every family, however, so the question of homework remains an important issue for kids, parents, teachers and schools to work out.

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education
Parenting

When a Patagonia employee breastfed her baby in a meeting her male VP's response was a masterclass in workplace values

Talk about a "family-friendly workplace."

Holly Morissette/LinkedIn

Years after it happened, Patagonia's approach to the "family-friendly workplace" is a whole new level that still deserves our attention - and praise.

The outdoor clothing and gear company has made a name for itself by putting its money where its mouth is. From creating backpacks out of 100% recycled materials to donating their $10 million tax cut to fight climate change to refusing to sell to clients who harm the environment, Patagonia leads by example.

That dedication to principle is clear in its policies for parents who work for them, as evidenced by a 2019 viral post from Holly Morisette, a recruiter at Patagonia.

Morisette wrote on LinkedIn:

"While nursing my baby during a morning meeting the other day after a recent return from maternity leave, our VP (Dean Carter) turned to me and said...'There is no way to measure the ROI on that. But I know it's huge.'

It got me thinking...with the immense gratitude that I have for on-site childcare at Patagonia comes a responsibility to share a 'call to action'. A PSA to tout the extraordinary benefits that come along with not asking employees to make the gut wrenching decision to either leave their jobs or leave their babies. TO HAVE TO LEAVE THEIR JOBS OR LEAVE THEIR BABIES. That perhaps just one person will brave the subject with their employer (big or small) in the hopes that it gets the wheels turning to think differently about how to truly support working families.

That with a bit of creativity, and a whole lot of guts, companies can create a workplace where mothers aren't hiding in broom closets pumping milk, but rather visiting their babies for large doses of love and serotonin before returning to their work and kicking ass.

It's no wonder that Patagonia has 100% retention of moms. Keeping them close to their babies keeps them engaged. And engaged mothers (and fathers!) get stuff done. Thank you, Patagonia, for leading the way. "


Holly Morissette on LinkedIn: "While nursing my baby during a morning meeting the other day after a recent return from maternity leave, our VP (Dean Carter) turned to me and said..."There is no way to measure the ROI on that. But I know it's huge." It got me thinking...with the immense gratitude that I have for on-site childcare at Patagonia comes a responsibility to share a “call to action". A PSA to tout the extraordinary benefits that come along with not asking employees to make the gut wrenching decision to either leave their jobs or leave their babies. TO HAVE TO LEAVE THEIR JOBS OR LEAVE THEIR BABIES. That perhaps just one person will brave the subject with their employer (big or small) in the hopes that it gets the wheels turning to think differently about how to truly support working families. That with a bit of creativity, and a whole lot of guts, companies can create a workplace where mothers aren't hiding in broom closets pumping milk, but rather visiting their babies for large doses of love and serotonin before returning to their work and kicking ass. It's no wonder that Patagonia has 100% retention of moms. Keeping them close to their babies keeps them engaged. And engaged mothers (and fathers!) get stuff done. Thank you, Patagonia, for leading the way. " www.linkedin.com


Just the first eight words of Morisette's post are extraordinary. "While nursing my baby during a morning meeting..."

As if that's totally normal. As if everyone understands that working moms can be much more engaged and efficient in their jobs if they can feed their baby while they go over sales figures. As if the long-held belief that life and work must be completely separate is a construct that deserves to be challenged.

And then the comment from her male colleague about the ROI (Return on Investment) of breastfeeding—witty, considering the time and place, and yet so supportive.

On-site childcare so that parents don't have to choose between leaving their jobs or leaving their babies. Letting life integrate with work so that working families don't have to constantly feel torn in two different directions. Flexibility in meetings and schedules. Allowing for the natural rhythms and needs of breastfeeders. Making childcare as easy and accessible as possible so that employees can be more effective in their jobs.

All of this seems so profoundly logical, it's a wonder that more companies have not figured this out sooner. Clearly, it works. I mean, who has ever heard of a 100% retention rate for mothers?

Patagonia's got it goin' on. Let's hope more companies take their lead.


This article originally appeared on 8.16.19

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breastfeeding
Family

Being a parent may be 'hard,' but these moms have a better way to define the experience

The words we use can have a big effect on our attitudes as parents.

via Helena Lopes/Pexels

A mother holding her baby.

If there's one thing you learn raising multiple children all the way to adulthood, it's that parenthood is humbling. It's many other things, too—wonderful, joyful, delightful, frustrating, confusing and tiring—but humbling might top the list.

When you're in the early years of your parenting journey, humility hasn't always set in yet, which is how a debate between moms about whether or not parenting is hard got sparked on social media.

It began when a mom of four kids under 7 wrote on X, "So many parenting books talk about how incredibly hard parenting is. However that had just not been my experience at all. My kids are 1.5-7, I have four, and there are certainly difficult moments, but I would not describe parenting itself as being hard. Am I alone in this?"

Is parenting as hard as people say it is?

People began sharing their experiences, explaining that they thought parenting was easy too until they had a more difficult kid. Some parents said that if moms think parenting is easy it just means they have easy kids or a lot of help. Some said that if parenting is hard for you, it's a skills or attitude issue, which prompted some heated debate about how much of your parenting experience is within your control.

Many of the people who claimed that parenting was easier than they expected have small children only. That explains part of their thinking, especially if they have relatively easy young ones. But it's also a reflection of how the parenting discourse has shifted to become more raw and unfiltered in recent years, largely thanks to the mommy blogging era. Two decades ago, when I was raising my own small children, blunt honesty about the challenges of parenting came as a breath of fresh air to those of us who had only ever heard about how wonderful motherhood was. Now "real talk" has been the norm for a whole generation, probably swinging the pendulum to the other side, bombarding young parents with messages about how hard parenting is.

There's something to be said for expectation. If you go into motherhood expecting it to be hard, it may not be as difficult as you imagined. If you go into motherhood expecting it to be all giggles and cuddles, you'll be in for a rude awakening. Messaging makes a big difference on that front.

What do people mean when they say parenting is hard?

Of course, there's also the fact that "hard" is completely subjective. How do you measure that? Some moms who said parenting is not that hard said things along the lines of, "There are hard moments and sometimes it's frustrating and it's definitely tiring, but it's not hard." But some of us would absolutely equate "frustrating" and "tiring" with hard. So some of this is just semantics.

All "hard" really means is "requiring much effort or skill," which I imagine most people would agree parenting requires. However one of the above moms implied that if parenting is hard, it means you're not good at it, which understandably rubbed some people the wrong way. Same with the idea that attitude is most of what makes parenting hard.

But whether parenting is hard or not isn't even the right question. The question is whether hard = bad. I would argue it absolutely does not. In fact, I think "parenting is hard" is totally compatible with "parenting is delightful" and "parenting is enjoyable." Parenting being hard doesn't negate the joy and the wonder of it all.

Running a marathon is hard, but people still choose to do it because they love to run and because they enjoy the challenge. It's exciting and exhilarating and exhausting, all at the same time. The effort—the hard—is a big part of the experience.

Tending a farm is hard work, and it's celebrated as such. It seem strange to imply that saying "parenting is hard" must mean there's some sort of moral failure happening. Isn't hard just the nature of it?

Is parenting really supposed to be easy?

Parenting isn't meant to be impossible or torturous, but I don't think it's supposed to be a breeze, either—at least not if you're trying to do a good job. Being a bad parent is easy, at least for a while, but good parenting takes continuous, conscientious effort. There are a million circumstances, from age and stage of development, to individual temperament and family support, to your own upbringing and expectations of parenting, that can make it easier or harder. But until you've done the full arc of raising multiple children through to adulthood, you simply don't know what unexpected surprises might be in store. Humility can be chosen early on or forced upon you later, but I've yet to meet a veteran parent who hasn't been humbled by parenting somewhere along the way.

When my children were little, I had a completely different perspective on parenting than I do now that I have two young adults and a teen. Different parents find different parts of parenting difficult, and again, that's not bad. I love being a mom. Motherhood has been the greatest gift of my life and I adore my relationship with my incredible kids, but it was—and still is, in some ways—hard to be a parent. There's no way around that and I feel zero shame in saying it. The hard work of sowing good character, watering their hearts and minds, weeding out negative influences and nurturing them as individuals has allowed us to reap the fruits of our labor in a beautiful family life.

Perhaps those who find parenting "easy" just have their own interpretation of what "hard" or "difficult" means. Or perhaps they haven't hit a hard stage of parenting yet. Or maybe they really did hit the jackpot combo of easy kids and tons of support and that won't ever change. Who knows. All I know is that parenting well is hard, but that hard and great and joyful and wonderful can all totally go hand in hand.

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parenting
History (Education)

Artist's gallery shows us what historical figures would look like if they were alive today

Her new artwork has already has over 120,000 followers on Instagram.

via Royalty Now / Instagram

One of the major reasons we feel disassociated from history is that it can be hard to relate to people who lived hundreds, let alone thousands, of years ago.

Artist Becca Saladin, 29, is bridging that gap by creating modern-looking pictures of historical figures that show us what they'd look like today.

"History isn't just a series of stories, it was real people with real feelings. I think the work brings people a step closer to that," she said according to Buzzfeed.

Saladin has always loved archaeology and always wished to see see what historical events actually looked like.

She started her Instagram page after wanting to see her favorite historical figure, Anne Boleyn, in real life instead of artist's depiction.

"I wanted to know if she could come to life from the few pale, flat portraits we have of her," she wrote for Bored Panda. "I started the account to satisfy my own curiosity about what members of the past would look like if they were standing right in front of me."

Her artwork has earned her over 120,000 followers on Instagram. "I always struggled with finding a true hobby, so this has been such a fun creative outlet for me," she said. "It's really cool to have found a hobby that combines my passions for both art and history."

Saladin does brilliant job at giving historical figures modern clothing, hairstyles and makeup. She also shows them in places you'd find modern celebrities or politicians. Her modern version of Marie Antoinette appears to be posing for paparazzi her Mona Lisa is photographed on a busy city street.

Here's a sampling of some of Saladin's modern representations of historical figures.

Genghis Khan

  

King Henry VII

  

Agrippina the Younger

  

Queen Nefertiti

  

Ben Franklin

  

This article originally appeared on 2.27.20

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Health

Sorry, Marie Kondo. This ADHD influencer's 'poop method' for decluttering is brilliant and hilarious.

Instead of asking "Does it spark joy?" try this.

Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash
white toilet bowl with cistern

Marie Kondo, in her heyday, taught us that there was one simple question we should ask ourselves when deciding whether we wanted to get rid of something in our home.

"Does this spark joy?"

The KonMarie method, as it was called, became really popular a few years ago for its simplicity — but it didn't work for everyone. Some people found it too vague, too subjective, or that it only confused them more.

TikToker Becka (@adhdorganized) recently went viral for urging us to ask a, um, different question while decluttering.

In a short video shared on TikTok and Instagram, Becka explains the "ADHD poop rule," that changed her life.

"I know that this sounds super gross, and this has nothing to do with the bathroom," she begins, speaking to the camera from the front seat of her car.

"The poop rule is if you are getting rid of items from your house, and you're purging and trying to organize or spring clean... you pick up an item and you think:

'Is this important enough that I would wash poop off of it?'

@adhdorganized

ADHD purging/organizing hack!! 💞💩 #adhd #organize #hack #cleaning #grwm

Much more black and white than the 'spark joy' technique, the poop rule can apply to both useful and sentimental items.

If something's not important enough to you that you'd clean feces off of it, it's probably something you can safely throw away without regret.

That old bottle of lotion at the back of your sink cabinet you've been saving for six years in case you need it? Probably not worth washing poop off of!

It's amazing how a little visceral disgust can clarify things.

The gross but effective advice was a huge hit with the ADHD community.

Becka, who shares her own journey of trying to organize her life while living with ADHD, found the video quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

Commenters mostly agreed that the rule was a game-changer.

"This will work better for me than sparking joy, too much sparks joy in my brain" one person wrote.

Others chimed in and said they had tried the poop rule with success themselves, or slight variations of it.

"I was doing this today and then my cat actually barfed on stuff I was probably keeping and suddenly I no longer cared about them lol," another user said.

Clutter and disorganization can be a big problem for people living with ADHD — not to mention everyone else.

People with ADHD can experience a lot of anxiety over the clutter in their homes and lives.

Getting overwhelmed by the growing mess is a big challenge for these folks, who may struggle with procrastination, avoidance, or difficulty focusing on completing a task like organizing or cleaning up.

Mindset tricks like the poop rule can help tremendously. In her video, Becka also briefly mentions that she has lots of techniques for motivating or tricking herself into staying organized — having a friend come over (or pretend to come over) to establish a hard deadline for cleaning up, for example.

But it's not only people with ADHD that struggle with clutter and organization.

The problem of too much stuff and the mental load that comes with it is something almost everyone can relate to.

It's nice to have another tool in our toolbox to help us with the agonizing decisions we sometimes face when trying to clean out our homes, cars, or workspaces.

More decluttering and organization hacks by and for people with ADHD

Avoid over-shopping - It's a lot easier to keep your life relatively tidy if you can reign in those impulse purchases you're bound to regret later.

Try a label maker - Itemize and clearly mark what's hidden away in your drawers and storage containers. Knowing what you have and being able to easily access it will help with unnecessary buying and also help clarify what you don't need!

Break down big, overwhelming tasks into smaller and more manageable pieces - Even Marie Kondo herself has changed her approach in recent years after becoming a mother. Anyone who's feeling overwhelmed by a gargantuan cleaning or organizing task should start small, even with just one drawer.

And whether you have ADHD or not, don't underestimate doing a little mental gymnastics to motivate yourself! Whether it's inviting company over, finding a one-minute quick win organization task, or even imagining a fleck of poop on all the stuff in your home — any small mental boost you can get can make a huge difference!

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life hacks
Family

Toddler carries a dead cicada everywhere she goes—even to the dentist—and it's so sweet

This is the stuff you simply can't prepare for as a parent.

Image credit: Izzy Wherry/Instagram

It's not every day you see an emotional support cicada.

There are few things in this world more delightful than a child's imagination. Once in a while, we get a clear glimpse into that world when a kid does something that makes us scratch our heads and smile ear to ear in equal measure.

For instance, when a toddler finds a dead cicada and adopts it as a beloved companion.

Mom Izzy Wherry has been sharing her 2-year-old daughter's adventures and escapades with a cicada corpse that are hilariously endearing. The little one found a dead cicada in the family's yard, and for an entire month has been bringing him along with her everywhere she goes. He gets baths, he gets swung on the swing, he has his own remote office outside where he types on his little computer keyboard, and more.

He goes to the park, he's gone on a camping trip, and he even went to the dentist, where he lay next to Wherry's daughter on the dentist's chair as if he were an actual emotional support pet.

People are celebrating the girl's creative and compassionate care for her formerly-living friend as well as the cicada getting to live his best afterlife.

"He's lived a full life since he died 😂"

"Would you still love me if I was a dead cicada?"

"It's going to be the ring bearer on her wedding day."

"If he only knew how loved he is. 😂"

Many people expressed how beautiful it is to see a child just being a quintessential child. Some parents would never let their child carry a bug carcass around like this, but it's clear that this lone, dead cicada means something to this kiddo. Cicadas are loud (when they're alive), large and tough (the fact that he hasn't fallen apart yet is a testament to that), but it's notable that she's so careful and gentle in the way she handles him. Wherry confirmed that her daughter knows that the cicada is actually dead, but she still uses her imagination to bring him to life, which is both hilarious and sweet.

"I absolutely love her imagination and creativity!!!🩷😍😇"

"This so sweet and so innocent. Almost a shame they have to grow up."

"This is sooooo precious i love when parents let their kids be unapologetically kids ❤️"

"My daughter littered our home with rollie pollies and named them all MR. She collected rocks as well in all of her pockets. Wash day was a bit crazy 😂"

"My daughter found a dead ladybug and she made her a jacuzzi from a walnut shell...with saliva..."

"iPad kid ❌ playing with corpses ✅ maybe there is hope for the new generation."

in a world where parents are constantly battling television and tablets and other screen-based technologies, it's lovely to see a child engaging natural play inspired by the outdoors. Carrying around a dead cicada may not have been what her parents had in mind when they took their kiddo outside, but that's the beauty of children engaging with the natural world—you just never know what they're going to discover, create, collect or become attached to. Seeing a child's imagination in action is a fleeting privilege, and to capture and share it with others is a wonderful gift. Thanks to this family and the dead cicada for letting us into a little one's world for a while.

You can follow Izzy Wherry and her daughter's cicada adventures on Instagram.

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