Jim was never a fan of homework. When he finished college, he’d vowed to never do homework again.  But now he had kids, and homework was again a nightly occurrence. Although both of them were still young, Jim dreaded the day when he got too stupid for his children’s homework because he didn’t remember the steps of meiosis or how to find the tangent of a slope.

            “Oh, sweetie, let’s count this one again. 1…2…” Jim said, pointing out the circles with his pencil.

            “3…4…5…6!” Sophie followed. “There’s 6 of them!”

            “Good job!” Jim let his mind wander as his daughter worked on the next set of counting problems. Pam had gotten stuck helping Ben today, settling him down enough to get homework done was a nightly chore.

            “Daddy, what’s six plus four?”

            “Ten,” he answered automatically, immediately regretting the opportunity to make her count it out. “See, let’s count it,” he recovered. “1…2…3,” he started counting the lady bugs on her page.

            “Wow daddy, you’re so smart,” Sophie said in wonder. “What’s….” she paused, trying to think of the biggest numbers she knew. “57 plus 12?”

            Jim did the math quickly in his head, “69.”

            “Daddy, you’re a genius!” Sophie said in awe.