Emmy is 12. She writes an equation to find her mother's age, m.

m - 12 + 35

What operation solves the equation for m?
add 12 to both sides, or
subtract 12 from both sides, or
multiply both sides by 12, or
divide both sides by 12

Hard to say, this is not an equation, there is no = sign.

To solve the equation m - 12 + 35 = 0 for m, you need to isolate the variable m on one side of the equation.

To do this, you can use the following steps:

1. Start by simplifying the equation by combining like terms. In this case, you can simplify the equation to m + 23 = 0.

2. To isolate the variable m, you need to get rid of the constant term (+23) that is added to it. You can achieve this by subtracting 23 from both sides of the equation:

m + 23 - 23 = 0 - 23
m = -23.

Therefore, the correct operation to solve the equation for m is to subtract 23 from both sides.