I shoulda had Cindy's mom -- of course, the worst part of all that work ethic, don't just coast simply because you can, stuff was that dad turned out to be right.

Yeah. No, see this is where my mother didn't get me, and I do get Ben. I'm not going to have fights with him about it. I'm trying to show him the error of my his ways, before it's a problem. He'll probably keep getting all As and Bs, until high school or college, but he won't know how to study those subjects that aren't a snap for him. That's when I had trouble. I learn most things easily, but when I run across something that takes a little effort, I'm nearly offended by it. I know now, how to plough through, but it took a lot of work, and a lot of tears, and I still hate it to death.

My mother was probably like ita. She did the work because it was expected of her. She had no idea how wonderfully slack-o-rific I could be. It never occured to her. She didn't see it in my dad, because he worked for himself, and so chose to do things he liked and was interested in and skilled at.

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You can not do homework? Who would want to do that?

Me. I had phone calls to make, 92010 to watch, pimples to pop. I was WAY too busy for homework.

looks at pile of work on desk

Some things never change.....

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I learn most things easily, but when I run across something that takes a little effort, I'm nearly offended by it.

I'm apparently Cindy's mother. Brendon can't comprehend that at some point he won't get it just by occupying a chair in the class. He has zip for study habits.

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I did my homework, but I managed to get most of it done when teachers finished lessons early, between classes, on the bus, in homeroom, etc. I rarely spent more than 30 minutes doing homework at home--both because I was the Smart Kid in my tiny rural school system, and because we didn't have as much homework back in ye olden days of the 70's and 80's as it sounds like kids get these days.

I do think it would've been good for me to be challenged as I was growing up, but I don't know how my parents or teachers could've managed it. As it stands, I never really learned to apply myself and work hard until I started writing novels. Who knows, maybe my career choices would've gone better and I'd be in a better financial place if I hadn't been able to coast through my first 22 years on raw intelligence and writing skill. Or maybe it wouldn't have mattered--I didn't start working hard until I found something that didn't come easily to me that I actually cared enough about to work at anyway.

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I used to be like that. But I also tended to fear my mother's wrath so it was probably a wash. She also told me I'd have to be twice as good to get half as far so I'm surprised I didn't have an ulcer by sixteen.

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I did my homework. During my last year of high school it got up to about 4-5 hours a night plus weekend trips to the local University libraries. My first year of college seemed pretty easy.

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I never developed study habits. The downside of picking up most things very very fast is if I didn't learn something by paying attention in class, I didn't know it, period. (Which explained my math teachers' confusion and distress when their brilliant little class participant regularly bombed tests.)

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I'm apparently Cindy's mother. Brendon can't comprehend that at some point he won't get it just by occupying a chair in the class. He has zip for study habits.

It's kind of sad when you don't need the study habits. It's too bad he's not being challenged in school. Since he's getting all A grades on his tests, I can completely understand why he thinks it is a waste of his time to do the nonsense stuff that doesn't even count toward his grade. I had a hard time making myself do the nonsense stuff that did count toward my grade, because it counted toward such a piddling portion of my grade.

I wouldn't hesitate to tie it into his leisure activities--in a frank way. "Okay, this doesn't count at school, but it does count at home. If you don't do your homework, and bring it home to me to prove it, you don't get to do X, Y, or Z."

(Which explained my math teachers' confusion and distress when their brilliant little class participant regularly bombed tests.)

My sister.

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I was a good student until it came to test taking time. And then I improved. In HS, this translated into excellent O, A and S level grades. In university ... it translated into better grades than I deserved.

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I don't remember much homework, but what there was I did. I coasted on everything. I didn't realize how smart I was, because I never struggled with anything--or I didn't take anything that hard. Well, I hated Algebra, because that was such an alien thing for my head to grasp. Trigonometry and Geometry were easy, and I figured my teachers were just being nice when they said I should try more challenging math subjects, because if it was important then it wouldn't be such a breeze, would it? Plus I got the tail-end of the "Girls should be teachers or librarians, math's really for boys" thing. If I'd taken Physics in high school, maybe the light would have gone off in my head that I really was that smart and I did have the talent for that sort of thing. I went through an entire year of Advanced Mathematics, including a special Engineering Careers workshop, without it once dawning on me that "This is something you could do with your life," because no one in my world could conceive of a country girl as someone who did math for a living.

Hell of a thing to discover in your senior year of college, that you'd wasted half your brain. I was so clueless.

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