A quick poll for anyone reading this: To what extent did you have to ask your parents, or other grownups in your life, for help with homework when you were in elementary or high school?

I ask because I've just encountered another of those omnipresent articles about how parents are so stressed out these days because they had to help their kids with homework.

I had my mother help me with math because she used to be a high school math teacher; if she hadn't been a math teacher I wouldn't have asked for her help (although in high school I might have instead asked for help from certain cute geeky boys). I got some help with logistics/buying materials for really big projects, although I conceived the projects myself; I did most of the work myself, but sometimes a grownup would help me by showing me how to do something for the first time. And once in grade 4 I had to draw a picture of my house for French class for a stupid project, so my mother helped by drawing a couple of pieces of furniture in each room. I could have used help with English, but none of the grownups in my life were good at English.

At any rate, I did get help sometimes and there might have been stress around math exams when I gave my mother the assignment of correcting all my practice tests, but I can't recall ever having a homework load that would have caused constant parental stress. And I'm pondering whether it's the difficulty/extent of today's homework, or a culture where parents feel more obligated to be involved in every aspect of their children's education, or a culture where kids are encouraged to be more dependent on their parents, or what?

Anyway, how was your homework in elementary and secondary school?