John watched as his wife rhythmically tapped a pencil against the table in the cafeteria of the Watchtower. Their ten-year-old daughter sat next to her as she looked at her math textbook in confusion. John always found it rather amusing when it was Shayera's turn to help with homework, as they normally alternated. While Shayera was good in some subjects like history, science, and reading comprehension; there were areas where she was of absolutely no help such as grammar, spelling, and most areas of language arts. Multiplying fractions was apparently another subject John could add to this list.

If there was one part of motherhood Shayera would admit that she didn't particularly enjoy it would be helping with homework. Thankfully Rex's homework had been simple enough that he didn't need any help earlier and was off with his Uncle Wally somewhere in the tower. John knew the two of them were most likely causing trouble. Unfortunately the same couldn't be said for Emma's homework.

"This is complete bullshit," Shayera moved the textbook in front of her. "I don't even see the benefit of you knowing this garbage."

"Mom," Emma looked over at her mother, "We've been looking at the same problem for the past twenty minutes. Maybe we should skip it."

"No," Shayera frowned as she read a section of the textbook. "Just because something is hard doesn't mean you give up on it."

John shook his head in an amused manner. Even when it came down to something as basic as this, Shayera was still stubborn and wouldn't give up. Though it was also a good life lesson Shayera was teaching to their daughter despite them not making any progress on the math problems themselves.

"Alright I think I figured it out," Shayera pointed to a section in the textbook. "It says we have to multiply the numerator with the other numerator and the denominator by the other denominator so..." She began to write in Emma's notebook.

"Mom your handwriting sucks," John had to choke back a laugh that earned him a glare from his wife. Honestly he had to agree with their daughter. Shayera had horrendous penmanship. Though by now he had gotten used to her handwriting and could read it for the most part, at first he found it nearly illegible save for a few words he could make out here and there.

"Don't worry about how bad my writing it, concentrate on the problem," Shayera lightly scolded their daughter as she went back to writing in the notebook. "Then we have to simplify it."

John watched as Shayera did another problem with their daughter, slowly explaining the process to her as they completed it. He had to admit that Shayera was a very fast learner. Though he could also see why Shayera was a military instructor back on Thanagar. She was a very thorough teacher and was very clear with her explanations.

Emma looked at the textbook and then at her mother, "This makes more sense. My teacher made it way more confusing than this."

Shayera rolled her eyes, "Well we've proven your teachers are stupid plenty of times before."

It was a known fact that Shayera thought very lowly of the school systems on Earth. Though, by the same token, Shayera also thought school was asinine and that her children could learn more from real life than what a textbook could teach them.

John didn't completely disagree with her, as he did believe some teachers were incompetent and that some lessons could only be taught through experience, but he had to reason with Shayera that their kids had to go to school whether she wanted them to or not.

It took Shayera and Emma another thirty minutes to finally finish the math homework. Next came the subject that John knew Shayera would struggle with most: language arts. John couldn't hold it against the Thanagarian as English wasn't her first language. He also saw it as a way for Shayera to improve her own comprehension of the language if she was forced to help with their homework.

"Mom that's not how you spell that," he heard their daughter say to her.

"It's close enough," he could hear the irritation growing in her voice.

"But it's wrong and you underlined the wrong word. That's not an adjective."

"I don't even know what that is," he watched as she frowned. "I don't need to know this stuff. You do."

"But you're supposed to be helping me and making sure everything is right."

"I know that but you know I'm not good at this stuff."

"How about this," John started. "You guys do the work and I'll look it over to make sure you didn't miss anything. Just remember to cut your mother some slack for this subject Emma."

"I know. Mom's an alien and all that stuff." Their daughter paused for a moment. "Mom did you ever go to school?"

"What?"

"Did you ever go to school?" Emma repeated her question.

Shayera rolled her eyes as she indignantly replied, "Of course I did."

"Then how come you didn't know how to multiply fractions? Didn't you learn that?"

"No we didn't learn that."

"Why? What did you learn? What kind of planet did you come from that doesn't teach you math?"

John frowned as he saw the uncomfortable look growing on Shayera's face. John knew from Shayera's stories from back on Thanagar that military school and espionage classes weren't exactly places that taught mathematics or other core subjects.

"Your mother was probably one of those kids that didn't pay attention," John threw out to cover for Shayera. "Either that or she was starting too many fights."

Emma giggled as Shayera mouthed "thank you" to John with an appreciative smile.

"Mom probably beat everyone up."

Shayera chuckled, "I wouldn't go that far Emma. Truth be told I was a pacifist when I was your age."

"What's a pacifist?"

"That means I didn't like to fight."

"What?" Emma gave her mother an incredulous look.

"I know it sounds crazy but it's the truth."

Like his daughter, John also had a hard timing believing that when Shayera had first told him about her childhood. He honestly couldn't imagine Shayera as a pacifist at all at any age. Though he had to remind himself that Shayera had grown up on a planet plagued with constant war and that a pacifist nature had no use on Thanagar.

"What made you like to fight then?"

Shayera paused before she answered, "That doesn't matter. What matters is if you finish this stupid homework."

Emma heaved out a sigh, "Fine."

"What are you supposed to be doing again?"

"I have to copy the sentence, circle the noun, underline the adjective, and put a square around the verb."

Shayera cocked her head to the side slightly, "What's a noun, adjective, and verb?"

"Mom!" Emma sounded exasperated. "This is the easy stuff."

"I'll explain it," John offered. "A noun is a person, place, or thing. An adjective describes a noun. A verb is the action the noun is doing."

"Ok..." Shayera slowly said she looked at the textbook. "I think I sorta get it." She went to back to writing something in Emma's notebook that made the girl complain again.

"Mom I can't read your handwriting. It's super sloppy."

"I said before don't worry about my handwriting. You have to rewrite it afterwards anyways."

After over an hour, John didn't know anymore whether they were helping Emma with her homework or giving Shayera language art lessons. The past hour mainly consisted of Shayera struggling with understanding the concepts of sentence structures. At least they had finally made it to the last subject: history.

"Finally," Shayera sounded relieved. "Something I actually know."

Emma raised an eyebrow, "Mom how do you know about history if you aren't from Earth?"

"I learned a lot since coming to this planet. Don't worry I know all about this. What's the topic about?"

"The first people that came to America and the Native Americans and how they got along."

"Got along? The Native Americans were slau-" John loudly cleared his throat to cut his wife off.

John leaned over and whispered into her ear, "Keep it kid friendly Shay."

"Right," Shayera lightly nodded. "Um...they sorta got along. I mean it's like you and Rex. You get along and you don't get along at times."

"So that's why they had Thanksgiving? To show that they liked each other?"

"This is nonsense," Shayera muttered to herself before speaking up. "Yeah exactly. They wanted to show goodwill to each other."

"Alright," Emma didn't sound exactly convinced but went along with what her mother had said.

"What exactly are you supposed to be doing?" Shayera asked her.

"I have this stupid worksheet I have to fill out," Emma pulled the sheet out of her folder. "It's multiple choice answers."

Shayera took the sheet and read it before frowning, "This is so stupid. This is dumbed down history."

"So that stuff didn't happen?" Emma asked her.

Shayera thought before answering, "It did but...not the way they're saying it happened. There's a lot more detail involved."

"Like what?"

"Well...um...you see..." Shayera had enough commonsense to not bring up genocide in front of her ten-year-old. After all her daughter was still just a kid. She decided to take the easy way out. "You'll find out when you're older."

Emma lightly glared at her mother, "That's what you always say. When I'm older. I'm already ten. That's old."

"Not old enough kid," Shayera retorted with a smirk.

"Do I have to wait until I'm as old as you?" Emma asked her. "Cause you're super old."

"I am not!" Shayera scowled as John started laughing. "Shut up Lantern!"

"You know Shay, she is right after all."

Shayera glared at John as her scowl remained, "You're both hilarious."

"Mom how old are you?"

"You're supposed to be doing homework, not asking me how old I am."

"But I wanna know," Emma whined.

"Uh-uh, homework," Shayera moved the worksheet in front of her daughter. "And it's not all multiple choice. You have open-ended questions at the end."

Emma frowned as she reluctantly went back to working on the worksheet, "This is boring."

"Doesn't matter how boring it is. You have to finish it and that's wrong," Shayera pointed to a question. "First state isn't Virginia; it's Delaware. That's also wrong," she pointed to another question. "The Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia not Washington DC."

"What's the point of knowing this stuff anyways?"

Shayera shrugged, "Don't ask me. To me it's pointless."

"I don't need school if I join the Justice League like you and Dad. I can beat people up everyday. That would be the best thing ever!""

Shayera laughed, "Emma, I love your enthusiasm, but being in the Justice League isn't just about beating people up."

Emma gave her a confused look, "But you like beating people up and get to do it all the time."

"True but it's just a small perk of being in the Justice League."

"Yeah you also have to do monitor duty too," John added. "You'd have to look at a computer screen for hours on end with nothing happening."

"That sounds super boring," Emma pouted. "I'd just want to fight everyday and beat everyone up."

"Like mother like daughter," John smirked at Shayera as she rolled her eyes.