Mom Considers Going ‘Full Karen’ On Son’s Fifth-Grade Teacher Over ‘Unsustainable’ Homework Load
His homework is completely interrupting their family life, and she's had enough.
NadyaEugene | Shutterstock One mom is normally fine with homework, but the amount her son has been getting in his fifth-grade class has her seeing red. To get a second opinion before she went “full Karen,” as she warned she might, the mom wrote into Slate’s parenting advice column “Care and Feeding.”
Homework is a subject that’s been hotly debated for years now. Every student, teacher, and parent has their two cents to give about whether it actually helps in the classroom and whether it’s worth the time it takes. However, the information this mom shared about her son’s homework load was indeed concerning.
The mom said her son is sent home with approximately two hours' worth of homework every day.
She explained that her son is a new fifth grader. According to her, this school year seemed to be going well until the students got deep into their homework assignments. “My fifth grader came home yesterday with two math worksheets (front and back) with a total of over 60 multiplication problems, including word problems, and two pages of social studies, as well as a reading log requesting us to have them read for 30 minutes,” she said.
Tima Miroshnichenko | Pexels
This amount of homework is totally interrupting the family’s routine. “Lately, I am leaving work early to get a jumpstart on homework, and it’s still not done in time,” she said. “My child loves helping me cook dinner, but we haven’t even made dinner in a week because of the amount of work, and we’ve been eating frozen food while crying over math worksheets.”
“It’s unsustainable, and I’m over it,” she declared. And, apparently, other parents she’s talked to feel exactly the same way. The only problem is that the teacher doesn’t see it as an issue at all and instead says many parents say she doesn’t give enough homework. “I’m about to go full Karen on this teacher, and I really don’t want to sour the relationship this soon in the school year,” she stated. “I promise I’m a reasonable person when faced with a reasonable amount of homework, but spending over two hours a night in fifth grade seems insane to me.”
The advice columnist recommended that this mom seek strength in numbers.
Advice for the column was written by Jamilah Lemieux. She admitted, “I’m inclined to agree with you that your son and his classmates are getting an excessive amount of homework.” However, she didn’t think going “full Karen” was the right path to take here.
“I would suggest connecting with other parents from your class and mobilizing together to raise your concerns,” she said. “Start with the teacher and let her know that your kids are struggling with their nightly workload … If the teacher doesn’t recognize that there is an issue (and I suspect that she won’t), you guys should escalate your concerns to school leadership.”
This teacher’s homework policy may not be good for her students.
The National Education Association recommended that teachers stick to a standard of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. So, if this mom’s son is in fifth grade, that would mean no more than 50 minutes of homework for him. Unfortunately, it sounds like he’s receiving over twice that amount.
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A study published in The American Journal of Family Therapy found that as the amount of homework a student had increased, so did their family’s stress level. Researchers also discovered that students were receiving amounts of homework that didn’t align with the 10-minute guideline at all, with kindergartners averaging 25 minutes, according to Healthline writer Sandra Levy.
Still, homework helps reinforce what students are learning in the classroom, but it’s important that it’s not just busy work. As Levy said, “The quality of homework assignments matters more than quantity.” It seems like this 5th-grade teacher hasn’t quite figured that out.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
