School work

This morning, I was reading a blog that I read often and this writer, a stay-at-home mom to 10 (yes, you read correctly, ten), was thrilled and whoo-hooing that school was out for the summer. In the comments section someone else was cheering right along with her, while another mom wrote that she couldn't cheer yet because they still had three days next week, but she was pretty sure that she was done with homework. This made me really stop and think. She was done with homework? Isn't that the job for the kids? I know exactly what she means though. Right now my youngest, a preschooler, is sitting here doing his homework for the weekend. I have yet to meet a preschooler who could be responsible for his/her own homework, so that makes the responsibility mine. My daughter has nightly math homework, weekly spelling words, and a weekly reading log. My son has weekly spelling words, a weekly book report, a weekly geography worksheet, and nightly math homework. While the older two are generally responsible kids, they are still awfully young to be taking on the responsibility of that much homework by themselves. My oldest hasn't yet mastered time management (go figure, some adults haven't either!) so unless I urge him on Monday to begin the weekly assignments, everything gets pushed to Thursday. That wouldn't be a problem, but there isn't nearly enough time on Thursdays to accomplish everything. We've made great progress through the year though, and he pretty much knows that school work comes before everything else he would rather be doing at home. Why are all of these stay-at-home moms, myself included, so excited about the end of the school year? I am fairly certain that my mother and women of her generation felt more dread than joy at the end of the school year. It meant the kids were home ALL DAY, EVERY DAY! Is my generation more loving and patient? Ha, ha, ha, ha, uhm, no that's not it. I think it is simply that school is so much more stressful than when I was a student. And if I'm feeling the stress, my goodness, what are the kids feeling? I know that much of what happens in schools today, and thusly the homework, is necessary because of the state standards. I just worry that kids don't really get to enjoy being kids. I worry, because this is supposed to be the carefree, stressLESS part of their lives. If they don't get to enjoy it now, when?