(Original Publication Date, 7 March 1991)
Panel 1: We continue on from yesterday when Liz tells John that Mom is taking a nap so could he help her with her homework. Since he doesn't realize that he's about to be asked to do it for her, he agrees to help.
Panel 2: She tells him that she has to write a report about Australia but doesn't know what to write. In response, he shows us what Lynn thinks research is by telling her to start by looking in the back issues of National Geographic he's pulling out of the bookshelf she never goes to because she doesn't want to get yelled at for leaving pages dog-eared.
Panel 3: He hands her the back issues, tells her to look up Australia in the index and points out that any issues they do not have will be in the library where she isn't really allowed to go. He then says that there's information in the atlas and when she does that, she can look in the encyclopedia. He's about to learn that Liz doesn't know how to do any of that.
Panel 4: Liz leaves him staggered when she says "I thought that you were going to help me!!" because he thought he did. What he actually did is do what he always does: assume that Liz is far more capable than she actually is and knows things that she was never taught.
Summary: When Lynn is not confusing her children's incapacity with malingering and theatrics because that's what she did, she assumes that everyone knows how to do something she does ineptly. This leads into a stupid moral about panic that helps no one.