A Florida dad had a brilliant hack for helping his daughter with some last minute cramming for her big sixth grade government test: he texted her.
Ana Caputo crammed for her test Wednesday night, with help from her mom, Erin, who is a public school teacher, and her older sister, Liv. Her father, Marc Caputo, who is a reporter for Politico, told TODAY that he also quizzed his daughter on the ride to school Thursday morning.
"Ana was grouchy and mopey when I dropped her off this morning. She told me she hated school and I told her school was a reality she had to live with and she could either learn or not learn — and be happy or unhappy — and so she should just decide to learn and be happy," Caputo told TODAY.
After he dropped off Ana, Caputo received a text message from her a few minutes before the first bell rang to start class.
"I hate school and there is this one kid who gets on my last nerves," Ana wrote.
"Who and how" he wrote, along with, "I love you." And that's when he went into full dad mode and decided to keep helping Ana study, mixing encouraging texts with some facts she might need to know for the test.
"Federal Bureau of Investigation is the FBI." Ana responded "IK," short for "I know." Caputo kept going. "National Aeronautic & Space Administration is NASA." Again, she replied, "IK."
Then he crossed the line into full blown hilarious, yet embarrassing, dad territory.
"You love me too. I know," he wrote.
"I do. I never said I didn't," Ana replied.
"Because the Fifth Amendment is the right against self incrimination (right to remain silent)," he added. That prompted Ana to send him a text that said "OMG DAD STOP." But Caputo had to slip in one more memorable line, just in case it came up on the test.
"I will not stop," he said, "because the First Amendment gives me freedom of speech."
He shared screenshots of their hilarious exchange on Twitter, prompting plenty of people to weigh in on just how hard and fun parenting can be. The tweet received more than 12,700 likes and 1,700 retweets as of Thursday afternoon.
"I was delighted by the overwhelmingly positive reaction on Twitter, which can be a truly hateful place (as a political reporter for POLITICO, I’m accustomed to lots of grief from all sides)," Caputo said. "So all of this today was a pleasant reminder of our common humanity and the goodness in people. It left me thankful."
Of course, everyone was wondering how Ana did on her test. At the end of the school day, he checked in with her. Her reply: "IDK."
"Well, I guess I asked for this type of response," he said.