At the library today, I had the misfortune of listening to a woman rant about how the school system is not providing adequate services for her child. The services she wanted provided? Apparently her daughter doesn’t like to go to school. And according to some interpretation of some archaic law, that qualifies her daughter for special education services, or so she claims.

I firmly believe that special education services should be provided by the school districts. I also firmly believe that they should be provided on a sliding scale basis. And based on my conversation today, I also firmly believe that children who don’t want to go to school but are otherwise excelling should not qualify for special education services.

When C was diagnosed with apraxia, we were immediately told to contact the local school department to ensure that we got the “free services” we were entitled to. He was three. We made a conscious decision to seek private therapy based on the fact that we could afford it and we didn’t want to force the local community to pay for a service that we could provide for our child ourselves. We felt that the money that would have been spent on C would be better spent on a child whose family did not have the resources available to seek a private alternative.

Should services be provided to those who need them? Absolutely. I have worked in some of the most impoverished school districts in this country, and spent a large portion of my working career trying to ensure that those families that needed it had access to the services they required, and that they realized that they were entitled to those services. But does a family who vacations in the south of France several times a year require state-funded services because their child doesn’t like school? No. Should families who can afford to do so be required to contribute something towards the services provided to their children? In most cases, yes.

And since I am on the topic, I am also frequently floored by the number of wealthy, well educated people I run into whose child clearly needs some sort of support, be it academic or emotional, who shrug and say “Well, they didn’t qualify for the services provided by the district so oh well.” It is your child. You can provide the needed services. Why would you choose not to provide them just because they are not provided for free? You pay for gymnastics classes, swimming lessons, art classes. If your child needs extra help with reading, make sure they get the help they need, even if means you have to pay for it out of pocket. Just because your child doesn’t qualify for services doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t benefit from them. Raising your children is your responsibility, not that of the school system.

Every week, C is assigned a standard set of homework. On Mondays he has to turn in nine printed words assigned by the teacher. On Tuesdays he is to practice the song of the week. On Wednesdays he needs to cut out three pictures that begin with the letter of the week. On Thursdays he has a one page worksheet of the “color by number/letter” variety. On Fridays he needs to return his reading book for the week with an illustration and one sentence detailing what he liked best about the book.

I hate the homework. The homework does nothing to further his education, and it contributes in a large part to my stress levels. Do you want to know why? Well, at the moment, C has been working on writing his nine words for THREE HOURS, and he still has six words to go. He has been perfectly cheerful and happy to sit down and do his homework today, but OMG. How long can I be trapped here answering questions like “Do you think I should write the word ‘brown’ in brown? Or should I do it in pen instead of pencil?” Or “The word growl makes me think of a dog. A doesn’t like dogs. I like dogs. Do you like dogs?” My favorite yet is “How long have I been sitting here? Three hours? Oh! That’s not so bad.” And we go through this every. single. night.

It should surprise no one that we have given up on the song of the week practice. And that I pre-locate the letter of the week pictures in magazines and oh so casually dog ear the pages to make them easy to find. But still? I calculated that so far this week, I have spent seven hours (and counting!) listening to my son NOT doing his homework. I am going to go insane.