A Mom Is Pulling Her 1st Grader Out Of School Because She Refuses To Sign A Homework Paper Every Day So The Teacher Won’t Reward Her Son
Couldn't she have just signed the paper?
Sharomka / Shutterstock It seems like more and more parents are choosing alternative paths for their children’s education.
One mom decided to “unschool” her child after not signing her son’s homework paper, which resulted in him not receiving a reward.
A mom is angry at the public school system because her son was not rewarded after she refused to sign his homework paper.
Kelsey Rhae is a mother and influencer who posts TikTok videos about her life as a stay-at-home mom and her diverging educational views. She shared a video about one of her gripes with public school, initially blaming her son’s teacher for what happened.
“If you have a child in public school, I would like to know what your opinion is on this because I don’t think that I’m in the wrong,” she stated at the beginning of the video.
“You already know that I’m pulling my first grader out of school,” she continued. “I’m going to let him finish out the school year, and then we’re going to be doing unschool.”
Rhae explained up front that she is “not a homework mom.” So, when her son presented her with a piece of paper she had to sign and date as confirmation that he did his homework, she wasn’t having any of it.
“I have four kids, and I run a massive business through social media,” she said. “I don’t have time.”
Rhae’s son explained to her that he would not receive a reward, known as a “fuzzy,” if he didn’t turn this piece of paper in. But she was adamant. “You’re not going to get punished for something I’m not doing,” she said.
Eventually, Rhae’s son told her that everyone else in his class had five fuzzies, except for him; he only had one. Rhae felt that her son was being “targeted” and insisted he be moved to another classroom until the end of the year.
People had plenty to say about Rhae’s video.
People criticized Rhae in the comments of her video.
“All I heard is ‘I’m too busy to be a parent,’” one person said.
Another asked, “If you’re too busy to sign a paper, then how do you plan to homeschool him?”
A third TikToker, Tobie Sunshine, made a video responding to Rhae’s. “You want to unschool your kid at home, but you can’t, you don’t have the time because of your social media business to sign your child’s homework? Dude, get your priorities straight,” she said.
Rhae received so much backlash that she filmed an apology video.
After all of the criticism she received, Rhae posted a video with an apology.
“I think I owe an apology to all the teachers,” she said. “It’s not the teachers’ fault. It’s not the teachers that I’m even mad at.”
She went on to say, “I genuinely think that I am just upset with the system. I do not like public school. I just believe that it is ruining our children.”
Rhae also explained her reasoning behind not signing the homework paper. “For me to sign the paper, it wasn’t even that I don’t have time; it was that it was insignificant, and it wasn’t benefitting my child at all,” she said.
Unschooling is rising in popularity.
Unschooling is not the same as homeschooling. US News and World Report explained, “In families that practice unschooling, students do not attend school and do not follow any set homeschool curriculum.”
Unschooling involves allowing your child to follow their natural interests in learning instead of forcing them to learn something specific.
Rhae said that she wants her kids to be unschooled so they don’t feel like they have to fit into some kind of “box.”
It’s understandable that some people have different ideas about education and want to do something like unschooling. But as commenters pointed out, both unschooling and homeschooling require a huge commitment on the part of the parents.
It certainly seems like it would have been easier to just sign the paper for her son.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news, and human interest topics.