The Real Trouble With Boys--They're Lazy!

Over the past few days, I happened to run into three mothers of boys who like me, despair off and on about their boys' performance in school. It sounded like a chorus and it seems as though we are all experiencing the same angst--the mothers, that is. The boys are carefree.

It's the same for all of us. Week 1, after receiving the usual email from a teacher that says 'I had hoped that [submit boy name here] would do better on this assignment because we discussed it at length in class on Friday,"(What the teacher really means: Gawd, your kid is so freakin' lazy, it's unbelievable!. What do you do when he's home?--tie him to his gaming computer and lock the door?) we sigh loudly and promise to do better. My strategy goes like this: 

I tell myself that from now on, I will track every assignment and that I will stand over him until each one is done perfectly.  Effectively, I decide to do 7th Grade all over again. It works for a few days and then gradually it changes. Now every day he tells me that there is "no homework". Hmmm. I grow suspicious and make threats but I am completely stupid when it comes to my kids: I tend to believe what they tell me. It's at this point that my attention wanes. This is when my "Goddammit, I already went through junior high-- when is this kid going to learn to take responsibility for his schoolwork?!!" attitude takes over. I back off and take a Tough Love approach. If he flunks, he flunks. 

After another week, I look at his grades online and after I've picked myself off the floor, steam comes out of my ears. In French he has a 26, in Math--which he likes--he has a 64, in History he has a 56, in English it's 44. He's actually passing Science with a standout 75. We sit together calmly and we count up the missing homework assignments for each class. He's missing 14 homework assignments in French (14! What I think but do not say is: Do you even GO to this class??); and on it goes--6 for History; another 7 for English and only two for Science--the one class he's passing.

Not surprisingly I get weekly calls from various teachers--and mostly I feel sorry for them all. The calls all start with: "I just want to tell you how adorable and funny he is. I just love him. He's really a great kid but...." Last week the phone rang and I saw that it was a call from school. Yes, as I feared, it was another one of those conversations. As usual, the teacher started off talking about how cute he is but this time I cut in and said "yeah, he's cute all right but mostly he's a lazy bum."

Just once I'd like to have a teacher come back with: "you got that right, does this kid EVER do anything he's supposed to? He's the most frustrating kid I've ever taught and I now drink three glasses of white wine to unwind when I get home instead of just one. You're going to have to help pay for rehab when your kid finally pushes me over the edge." To this I will reply, "Hah, by that time I'll be in the same rehab facility just one room down the hall!"

Seriously though, mothers of boys mostly concur that the real trouble with boys, besides the fact that their brains are literally three years behind the curriculum (http://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Boys-Surprising-Problems-Educators/dp/0307381293) is that they lack ambition and they're lazy. There are always two or three boys in every class who don't seem to have the lazy bug. They manage to play ice hockey and lacrosse, to stay active in Boy Scouts and student government and get great grades. They're handsome and polite and we are all convinced that these boys will go to Ivy League schools, make tons of money and live happily ever after. And of course we all hate these moms. Completely.