Homework blows. Is there anyone on the planet who actually enjoys homework? If so, I’ve got a house full of kids who need some of whatever you’re smoking. Homework seems to be especially painful for parents – parents who want nothing more than for their kids to do well, as long as that happens without us having to spend a bajillion hours (and tears) trying to help our kids do things we haven’t even seen in thirty years. We did our time, kid. This is all you!

Here are 15 of the biggest reasons that homework sucks for parents:

1. Having to use Google to help with fourth-grade math.

2. Running out of lead in the mechanical pencil and having to actually sharpen a #2.

3. Trying to explain the difference between “c” and “k” to a 5-year-old.

4. Midnight trips to the craft store for hot glue and popsicle sticks for a project due at 8 a.m.

5. Watching your kid work an iPad more efficiently than you.

6. “Family Homework Projects” HAHAHAHAHAHA!

7. Bribing your way through the whines and tears just to get it done, and knowing that the only thing actually learned was how many treats they can sucker out of you for finishing three pages of math problems.

9. Repeating “Are you finished with your homework yet?” a billion times each evening.

10. Eye rolls.

11. Insisting that your kid do his own work, and then seeing all the obviously parent-completed projects at Science Night.

12. Hiding in the corner of the laundry room with your spouse for a best 2 out of 3 in Rock, Paper, Scissors for whose turn it is to help with homework tonight. Losing the battle.

13. Incomplete or vague instructions on tonight’s homework due tomorrow.

14. Getting notes back from the teacher on all the things wrong with your kid’s homework, when you helped them with a majority of it.

15. Homework kills trees. It kills all the trees. Save the planet. Stop the madness.

© 2015 MyLove Barnett, as first published on Scary Mommy