Are You Smarter Than a 3rd Grader?

by Cristina | Last Updated: September 22, 2019
We are smack in the middle of the 5th week of school.  This back to school season has been especially intense.  I feel like everything is moving 100 mph, and I have no way of slowing anything down.  Every day is a new juggle and I’m throwing balls into the air and just trying to catch whatever ball is coming down to throw it back up. 

What has been particularly grueling about this back to school season is homework.  

I’ve been doing homework for 4 years now.  Yes, it’s “their” homework, but we all know that it’s really ours.  My oldest is in third grade now and it finally happened.  I knew it was coming too, the writing had been on the wall since the end of last year. 

There I was making dinner in the kitchen.  Blake (my oldest) was sitting at the table completing her math packet, when she called me over for help.  “Mommy I don’t understand how to get this answer,” she says so sweetly, so innocently.  I read the question, and right there in that moment I knew.  I knew I had no flipping idea how to do it.  I had to look my sweet little daughter right in the eyes and say “let me see what google says.” 

I thought I would at least make it to 5th grade before I started struggling with her homework, or at the very least  up to fractions.  I always hated fractions.  But this 3rd grade homework had me. 

What was worse? I also couldn’t figure it out with a google search, texting my smartest friend, or Alexa.  Now I had to sit back and cross my fingers my husband also couldn’t figure it out, and I wasn’t the only adult who could not do 3rd grade math in my house.  He did know how to do it by the way, which I was obviously happy about so that she could get an explanation.  However, it was not a blow my ego was ready to take. 

So if you need me, I will be completing my 3rd grade math workbooks behind the scenes trying to catch up.