Hilary Duff Is All Of Us Struggling With Second Grade Math Homework
Hilary Duff is struggling with second grade math and we feel her
Us parents have already gone to school and done all kinds of homework. Eventually, we got to a stage in life where the stress of homework was but a distant memory, a time in our lives we “got through” because we had to. Then we had kids and quickly learned their homework becomes our homework and the stress comes back in spades. Just ask Hilary Duff, who is struggling mightily with her young son’s math homework — and boy, have we been there.
“This guy with his spirit and kindness. Homework is already no joke in 2nd grade,” Duff wrote on Instagram next to a picture of her and son, Luca. “I stopped going to ‘real’ school in 3rd grade so I’m actually doomed… I am left scratching my head all the time looking at his homework and I’m terrified for next year!” Oh girl, just wait.
She’s not wrong. Homework today seems somehow infinitely harder than we remember. Perhaps because it was a lifetime ago, or maybe because there is an entirely new way of approaching math that was created to confuse and frighten parents. I remember when math was just… math. Now, there’s Common Core, Go Math and for some, the Singapore method.
“Although Singapore math is the shit….also learned a lot about tick birds this week,” Duff continued. Judging by the look on her face, she’s about as stumped as the rest of us.
For those of you who don’t know about Singapore math, it’s a teaching method based on the national mathematics curriculum used for kindergarten through sixth grade in Singapore. Students learn and master fewer concepts using a three-step learning process: concrete, pictorial, and abstract.
It may be one of the best ways to learn, but it’s not something most of us were brought up on. That means we parents can’t just skim our kid’s work and quickly see any errors, we actually have to learn and read and shit and that means we’re suddenly doing homework all over again. It’s not fair.
Duff’s not a stranger to using social media to connect to other moms. She’s crowdsourced for advice on colic, gotten real about her struggles with breastfeeding, and adorably tried sniffing her baby daughter, Banks, through her phone because she missed her so much. These are all things most moms can relate to and it’s nice to know we’re not alone. Especially when it comes to the hell that is our kid’s homework.
As a mom of a 16 and 14-year-old, I wish I could say their homework gets easier but in fact, I would be lying. But, if you’re anything like me it gets to the point where you just straight refuse to help anymore (because you can’t). That’s when you get to teach resiliency, curiosity, and buck-passing by suggesting they spend some time before or after class getting help from a teacher. Trust me, it’s best for all involved.
