I got an email from Pristine’s teacher a few days ago asking for a preferred date to meet. No, she is not in trouble or something. The school reports have been sent home so the school is setting up dates and times for parents to meet the class teachers so they can voice out their respective concerns. I looked at the dates and times – all are on weekdays and of course, on hours where my butt needs to be: at my chair at work.

I’ve attended the previous parent’s meeting by asking permission to go home earlier than my 6pm time off. I got the permission but not after hearing some words I didn’t want to hear. Not really harsh but also not too considerate. What can a working mom do?

This was the general comment of the class teacher of my daughter:

“Pristine is a pleasure to teach. She has a kind, caring and bubbly personality. She enjoys riddles, jokes and puzzles as well as reading and playing with her friends. She has a very good relationship with her peers and adults in school which is based on respect. Her mature approach to her learning and the high expectations she sets herself means she takes ownership over her own education and making very good progress.”

Those words. Suddenly, the steep school fees were worth it.

Additional comment from the teacher in his email to me this morning when I said I couldn’t meet him for the parent’s meeting:

“No worries at all. Pristine is progressing well. She is a talented mathematician and is beginning to show some flair in her fictional writing which I am quite happy with. She continually contributes to lessons and shows pride in the work completed in class.”

Her highest mark is Mathematics which I could not, for the life of me, get any credit for. Math has always been my weakness and until now, I am not friends with numbers. From all her teacher’s comments, I can only vouch that the “bubbly” part is from my DNA. The others, from her dad.

~ don’t look at him too hard, he is not used to being featured on this blog! ~

That said, our young student is not perfect. No one is but there is a flaw that puzzles me and I still don’t know how to approach this: it seems that sometimes, her home work is incomplete.

“…she will need to fully complete her homework for submission on Tuesdays as there are times when some parts are omitted.”

So how does that work? She is excellent in doing everything required during class, but slacking in homework? Don’t I check? Great question and I will not lie.

I don’t check everyday.

When I get home from work, I give the other kid a cuddle, attention, bath and have dinner. I ask Pristine if everything is fine and if she says ok, I leave it at that. I have had too much faith. But now seeing her report card and her teacher’s comment about her homework, I told her this needs to be corrected. And I hope she does because yep, I can’t check every night. I could but sometimes I am a lazy mom. On some nights, I just want to recharge so I can tackle another day. Or else, I feel I’d break.

(Where is the other parent in this equation, you ask. Good question again. His work time doesn’t allow him to be always there before our bed time, and we all have accepted that. The Math DNA is enough contribution.)

But part of me says, “Don’t be too hard since she is doing well at school”…but homework is important too, right? I never miss completing my homework when I was still a student and my parents never had to nag about it. My husband, on the other hand, admitted he slacked with the homework part when he was young (But he excelled in every subject and was a constant honor student.) so Pristine probably got this from him.

Can you see the pattern? We are playing the “from which DNA” game.

* Apart from homework which they are given grades for too, her grades for all other subjects are excellent.

Anyway, are you a parent? What will you tell your child without discrediting about incomplete homework if he/she is doing very well in school (in terms of grades)?