When did high school get so hard?

My sixteen year old is starting to have more of those days when she wishes she had stayed in bed. As a junior at one of the toughest high schools in the country, in addition to half days at the performing arts high school, she's starting to get in the car at the end of the day looking like a fifty year old man who's been laid off. She's got teachers who give her biology finals with two hundred questions and science projects which need the signature of the President for completion. When did high school get so hard?

I get it. I know it's the preparation ground for college, but teenagers shouldn't be having this kind of stress over papers, tests and grades. There are times when the pressure gets so great and she has been so overworked that I want to call in sick for the kid. It doesn't help that she's a perfectionist when it comes to her grades. Where does she get that from, I wonder? Possibly from the woman who's trying to juggle family, work and school at one time.

Well, it's taken me years to figure out that perfection isn't all it's cracked up to be. In the end you make it look so easy that others continue to pile on the work. At the end of that self perpetuating hamster wheel, you're either forced to keep up the facade, chuck the whole thing, or look for the non hostile middle ground. I've told her to start looking for the middle ground now. Anything's better than trying to pull off the perfect Martha Stewart Christmas for people who are just as happy with styrofoam plates, paper napkins and pigs in a blanket. Oh wait, are we talking about me again?