What Happens When a Writer Tries to Do Her Daughter’s English Homework?
I’m still learning to let go, too. Maybe we all are.
I’ve been a freelance writer for ten years.
And I’m also a single mom to a 3-year-old little girl.
Every day, I craft sentences for a living — carefully weighing every word.But each night, I find myself staring blankly at my daughter’s preschool assignments.
One evening, her teacher sent home a “Parent-Child English Activity.”
Draw a picture, and write a short sentence in English to go with it.
She grabbed her crayons and drew a wobbly circle.
“This is Mommy,” she said proudly. “This is me. We eat pasta together.”
I smiled. “Okay, let’s write that down.”
As a writer, how could I not nail a simple English caption?
So I sat at the table, looked at the drawing, and typed out this:
“My daughter and I cooked spaghetti together. She smiled as she stirred the sauce, and I felt like the luckiest mom in the world.”
Smooth sentence. Strong vocabulary. Emotionally rich.
I nodded in satisfaction. Way better than what most kids would turn in, I thought.
We submitted it the next day.
A few days later, I received a private message from her teacher.
Polite — but direct:
“The drawing is adorable, but the sentence clearly exceeds your daughter’s language ability. We encourage parents to support, not write for, their children.”
I froze.
Not out of embarrassment —
But because in that moment, something clicked.
I thought I was helping her.
But really, I was taking away her chance to speak for herself.
She’s three.
Maybe she can only say broken English.
Maybe her sentences don’t make perfect sense.
But she has her own language.
She has her way of saying, “I had dinner with Mommy and I was happy.”
She said:
“Mommy eat pasta. Me happy.”
Simple.
Raw.
Real.
That night, we sat down and did it again.
She drew. She spoke. I wrote it down — mistakes and all.
Her grammar wasn’t perfect. Her sentences weren’t complete.
But it was her voice.
And that voice was learning to believe in itself.
It was her hundredth and first little moment of,
“I can say something. I have a voice.”
As a mother, I finally understood:
I could write a thousand perfect words.
But none would ever be as powerful as her saying,
“Me happy.”
What matters isn’t how good it sounds —
It’s that she knows:
I can speak.
Someone is listening.
My voice matters.
So now, I don’t do her homework for her.
I’ve learned to let go of the need to “do it better.”
And instead, I choose to sit beside her
and help her do what she can do.
She doesn’t need a perfect mom.
She needs one who gives her space to try, to stumble, to say the wrong thing, and to grow.
To all the moms out there:
We try to do a little more, fix a little faster, pave a little smoother.
But sometimes, the most loving thing we can do
is simply walk beside them — at their pace.
Don’t rush to speak for them.
Let them speak,
even if it’s just “pasta” and “happy.”
That’s the start of their language.
That’s the beginning of their confidence.
And we?
We’re just here to listen.
To smile.
And to say, “Yes, I hear you.”
💬 Have you ever caught yourself doing your child’s homework for them instead of with them?
Share your story in the comments — I’m still learning to let go, too.
Maybe we all are.