Debates about homework are nothing new, but the fact that parents can get support from thousands of other parents with their homework problems is a relatively new phenomenon.

A mother named Cassi Nelson shared a post about her first-grader’s homework, and it quickly went viral. Nelson said her son came home on the second day of school with four pages of homework, which she found him working on at the kitchen counter in tears.

“He already doesn’t get home from school until 4pm,” she wrote. “Then he’d have to sit still for another hour or more to get more work done. I’d have to clean up the kitchen so he could concentrate. His little legs were constantly jumping up and down, he was bursting with so much energy and just wanted to go play. Then my heart broke when he looked up at me with his big, teary eyes and asked… ‘Mommy, when you were little, did you get distracted a lot?!’ Yes, sweet baby, Mommy sure did too! I don’t know how people can expect little kids to sit in school all day and then ALSO come home to do MORE work…”

Nelson tells Upworthy that she was “shocked” that kindergarten and first-graders had homework, let alone the amount that was expected of them. “We didn’t have that kind of homework in those younger grades.”

Expert opinions and research vary somewhat on the issue of homework, but there is no conclusive evidence that homework is generally beneficial to students, and too much homework can even be harmful. As a standard, the National Education Association (NEA) and the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA) support limiting homework time to “10 minutes of homework per grade level.”

As a guideline, a first-grader should have no more than 10 minutes of homework on a school day, but it is not uncommon for young children to have two or three times the recommended amount of homework. This can be stressful for children and parents, taking away from valuable family time, and giving children little time to relax, play, and use their imaginations.

Nelson concluded: “It breaks their spirit and robs them of the little fun and family time they have when they come home after a long day of school.”

Most parents and even most teachers agreed with her in the comments that four pages of homework is too much for a first-grader, especially on the second day of school:

“Poor little man. Children below a certain grade level should not be given homework! Little children have difficulty sitting still for long, let alone doing homework for hours, for what??? They are LITTLE CHILDREN! Let them snack, play, laugh and do all the other fun things when they get home. You are only a child once, that should not be taken away from them. Let them explore their inner creativity, imagination, recipes, etc.”

“This breaks my spirit. Our schools are a huge rip-off. You’re absolutely right, Cassi. Homework is ridiculous. Children up to the age of 10 learn primarily through real life situations and game scenarios.”

“I hate this for him! My little one has ADHD and having to do homework after sitting in class all day is very stressful for him and makes him hate school. They are in school for 7 hours, they shouldn’t have homework. It definitely takes away any family time and that’s why kids never spend any time with their parents because they have all this homework to do after being gone all day. I’m of the opinion that if it can’t be done in the 7 hours they have the kids then it should wait until the next school day.”

“When they’re that little, I don’t let them do their homework at home. It’s not fair! They’re in school all day! And that’s sooooo much for their little bodies and brains! I’ve never seen a teacher get upset about it either… and even if I did, oh well!”

“This breaks my heart. 4 pages is absolutely ridiculous for small children. My daughter starts 2nd grade next month, in the 2 years at school it was always 1 page of homework, sometimes back and forth when it was math. And for reading.”

“I was in this situation with my son… Talking to the principal and teachers helped enormously!! It’s too much and we have to stand up for them.”

Nelson was overwhelmed by the response to her post, which has been shared over 89,000 times on Facebook. “I NEVER thought that by openly sharing my thoughts about how much it hurts me to see my little boy struggle, I would touch so many other people in the world who are going through the same thing,” she says.

Many parents said excessive homework was one of the reasons they wanted to homeschool their children. Nelson took that to heart. The week after sharing her viral homework post, she shared that they had completed their first day of homeschooling. It was “A HUGE SUCCESS!!!!” she wrote. Her son got a lot more work done in a much shorter amount of time, sitting in class for a total of only 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Nelson tells Upworthy that she was terrified to try homeschooling. “I honestly thought it would be impossible,” she says. “But I knew I had to put my fear aside and take the plunge for my kids. I told myself I would get through it one way or another. And here we are three days into it, and it has been the easiest and best decision I’ve ever made.”

However, home schooling is not the right solution for every family, so the question of homework remains an important issue that children, parents, teachers and schools must address.