What Do I Need to Know THAT for?!?~

It's official.  I have become my mother.  They told me it would happen.  All those years of "Just wait 'til you have kids!",  and "You will certainly pay for your raising!",  oh, and the dreaded, "May God make your children just like you!", well, God was surely listening!  I suppose this dawned on me yesterday because my 12 soon-to-be 13 year old, said ,  "And just what exactly is all this school stuff good for?"  .  I can remember having this exact same conversation many times with my mom.  Of course, she always said I would need it, and it will come in handy, and so on.  I, of course,  in my teenager-ly wisdom knew better!  Well, as much as it chafes me to say it, she was right!(  About some things, anyway.  I still have YET to use algebra in daily life,   and most of the time,  no one cares that I know when they signed the Magna Carta {1215} , or that I can quote obscure English poetry, {Thomas Hardy's 'The Darkling Thrush',anyone?} ) But all in all, regular math is useful for adding up your grocery bill, making sure no one cheats you on your taxes or things like that.  Not really sure why we need to know prepositions, nouns, verbs and so forth , other than writing a letter, a novel, or a paper,  but it's good to be ABLE to speak proper English, even if I don't always use that ability.  I never had a beef with the sciences, because they were always interesting, even though knowing about chemical reactions is not a real useful "everyday" ability.  I loved, loved , loved Literature, History, Reading, and anything to do with them, like poetry, or essays,  (reading them , not writing them!) But other than personal enjoyment, Old World History, and great French authors, are not something you use all the time either!  Sooooooooooo, I guess we are mostly trying to focus on the basics. Even though we ARE taking algebra, science, history, reading, spelling, art, and the other things that schools think are SO important, I do have to explain to my nearly 13 year old, that in fact, he probably WON'T be using a lot of this information, but as old Hercule Poirot would say,  "We must stimulate , every day,  the little grey cells!" , hopefully one day Joseph will thank me!