Stupid Mama

Wasn't it just a month ago that my daughter said I was freakishly smart?  Well, now I'm freakishly stupid - at least according to her.

"Mom, can you help me with my homework?" she asked.

"Sure," I said.  "What do you have?"

She showed me her math problems.  The question was, "Is 12 1/2% of 800 greater than 25% of 400?"  I immediately knew that they were equal, and tried to explain this to my daughter.

"25% is the same as 1/4.  If you divide 400 by 4, the answer is 100.  12 1/2 percent is half of 25%, which is the same as 1/8.  If you divide 800 by 8, the answer is 100."

She looked at me like I had rocks in my head.  "Mom, you don't know what you're talking about."

"Okay,"  I said.  "You can also multiply 800 by .125.  That equals 100.  If you multiply 400 by .25, that equals 100."

She gave me another look.  "You're not supposed to multiply."

"Well, the word, 'of' can indicate a multiplication problem."

That really set her off.

Moving on to English, a subject I know absolutely nothing about:  My daughter had to correct sentences with grammar and punctuation errors.  The sentence read something like, "Claire, Rachel, and Sam came with i to the store."

"The word, 'i,' is incorrect," I said.

"No, it's not.  It just needs to be capitalized."

I shook my head.  "The correct word should be, 'me.'"

"You're wrong, Mom."

"Fine," I said.  "Just leave it the way it is if you think it's right.  What do I know?"

She left it the way it was.

(It's going to be very hard to resist saying, "I told you so," when she comes back with it marked wrong!)