PARENTING May 13, 2002 Issue

Too much to do? Let Mother do it

By Patricia Tupper Hyatt

I heard the other day of a dad teaching his four-year-old to use a day planner to keep track of her many activities! Proof, I guess, that today's society sees run-away stress as par for the course.

It reminded me of a time way back, when our daughter, Sherry, came home from third grade with a ridiculous amount of homework. It seemed as though it would have been a lot even for a high-school student. She worked on it all afternoon. When evening came, she ran to me in tears. "Mom, it's impossible! I can never get it all done!"

I was operating under stress of my own—with a writing project that I had to complete by the next day. Yet, the love I felt as a mother would not possibly allow me to leave my child in distress. A novel approach came to me. I told Sherry she could stop crying and give her entire workload over to me: Mom would help her take care of everything. What she had to do was to be "obedient."

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