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So, homework seems to be a big dilemma faced by both parents and teachers these days. A lot of parents I talk to say that they think their child is getting too much homework while other parents complain that their kids do not get enough.

What I hear from teachers is an entirely different story: the issue of parental help. Again, this issue seems to be at both ends of the spectrum with teachers in low-income schools complaining that parents are not helping children to get their homework completed.

Across town, at schools in wealthier neighborhoods, teachers wish that parents would stop DOING their children's homework for them.

In one particularly upscale neighborhood, the teachers actually had to distribute parent guidelines for the upcoming Science Faire prohibiting parents from building the experiment FOR their kids. This came after years of increasingly lavish and intricate science experiments that rivaled NASA.

Boy, have times changed. My parents used to refuse to help us with homework because it was OUR job to do it. No matter how much my brothers and I whined, the most they would do is supervise (well, mainly mom). Occasionally she would quiz us on spelling words the night before the test.

It seems that competition has gotten so fierce, that some parents believe that they need to continuously "help" their child be the best.

I am all for giving your kid a leg up when you can, but if you always do FOR them, when do they learn to do for themselves?

It seems awfully short-sighted.