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By Jack Beresford
Senior Reporter
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A mom of two was initially baffled at her seven-year-old son’s math homework, until she noticed one crucial thing.
Ashley Sanchez, from New Jersey, took to TikTok, posting under the handle @healinginmotherhood_, to share the "confusing" assignment that sent her house into a "spiral."
"When I said it sent the house into a ‘spiral,’ I meant a mix of frustration, second-guessing, and laughter," Sanchez told Newsweek. "We kept rereading the question, trying to make it work, and it just didn’t—which is what prompted me to film the moment because it felt so relatable."
Read More on Family & Parenting
Homework can often be a source of tension in the home. In 2025, researchers from Cornell University conducted a four-week study looking at how 78 families in China coped with homework. They found that interactions around the subject often led to emotional strain, conflict, and negative communication patterns between parents and children.
That can sometimes be the case for Sanchez and her family. "Homework can definitely be a source of tension in our house from time to time, especially when something doesn’t immediately make sense," she said. "Like many families, evenings are already busy, so, when homework feels confusing or overwhelming, it can escalate quickly."
In the video Sanchez shared to TikTok, her son can be heard tearfully reading aloud the first grade math question that had everyone in the family scratching their heads. The question reads: "Kai has 10 marbles. 7 are blue. The rest are red. How many red flowers does Kai have?"
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The entire family was confused and with good reason. "What made this particular assignment difficult was that the wording appeared incorrect," Sanchez said. "The problem referenced ‘flowers’ when it should have said ‘marbles,’ which made the question impossible to solve as written. That small error caused a lot of confusion."
The confusion wasn’t limited to Sanchez’s family. Most of those responding to the post on TikTok were similarly baffled by what they were reading.
"Valid crash out cause where the flowers come from?!" one user wrote. "Marbles to flowers yea crash out valid," another said. A third added: "Probably not the teacher's fault, but the publisher. And the crash out is 100 percent legit."
Dealing with homework is hard enough for parents, but a mistake like this made it especially difficult for Sanchez and her son. The story does have a happy end of sorts, though. "I did end up contacting the teacher, who confirmed it was a misprint," Sanchez said. "Some students noticed and corrected it, while others were understandably confused by it."
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