When you have children, nobody asks you if you're prepared to help with biochemistry homework.
(Or even if you know how to change a diaper, but you figure that out.)

(Nobody asks an author if she's prepared to become a marketing guru,
or a teacher if she's ready to double-up as a therapist, but there you go.)

Before long, we find ourselves doing what we weren't prepared to do because we have to.

Covalent bonds and ionic bonds and the families that make up the periodic table.

I sit there, wishing it would all come flooding back, but it doesn't — it's as if I've never seen these words before, I learn from scratch with my daughter, and thank goodness for Google and friends who are scientifically savvy, thank goodness the 13-year-old goes off to school today prepared to take her science test. 

BY DAN GERBER

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