Do I As I Say Not As I Can't Do

When my kids do something clever they "get that from me", when they don’t they "get that from their dad". I’m a laugh a minute.

As much as it it is lovely to see the best parts of ourselves in our kids it can be equally as painful to see in them the things we like least about ourselves. Is it genetics? Are they predisposed to be nail biters, control freaks or clumsy? Or do they emulate our behaviour? How closely do they watch and mimic until being overly sensitive or too competitive is something they became not something they are?

Nature vs nurture

The great debate. Our genes or our behaviour? Either way it’s our fault. Their shrink is going to tell them that one day, we might as well face facts.

You Can Do Math Even If I Can't   

My kids go to a math enrichment program once a week for an hour called Bright Minds. My daughter was less enthused about it than my son but she went for two years and he still goes, happily. She used to ask why she had to go to the classes and I explained that she comes from a long line of women-who-hate-math and that she would be the first woman on my side of the family tree who does not hate numbers.

She started the classes before she had heard that “math is hard”, “girls hate math”, “girls aren’t good at math”. And it has paid off. Last week, for example, she had a math test at school, she’s in grade 5, and I asked her if she needed to study, wanted to look things over and she said: “Nah, I’ve got it Mom.”  She aced it and was proud but pretty blasé about it. I asked if she had been nervous, was the test hard. “Nah, it was a breeze Mom.” and I reminded her: "Remember when you used to ask why you went to Bright Minds? It was for this moments like these kid, ones I never had."

She knows she can learn any math, or ANYthing for that matter, she encounters in the coming years. She has the confidence to ask questions, she can try to work it out, and she’s willing to learn how to solve the problems. Math isn't something she fears. For her it will never be something "girls can't do". I would have given anything for that kind of confidence in math.

Research shows that school-aged children are especially apt to emulate the attitudes and behaviors of the same-sex parent—a source of concern if we want to improve girls’ still-lagging performance in traditionally male-dominated fields like science and mathematics. If mom hates math, a young girl may reason, it’s O.K. for me to dislike it too.    (more here)

Well, there was no way I was going to be able pretend to be okay with math, I wouldn’t have been able to help her with her homework without having a breakdown, so instead I told her about her great grandmother’s, her grandmother’s and her mother’s math woes and explained that she wasn’t going down that path. It wasn’t going to be okay to hate math. I was going to get her the help she need to make sure it was a no brainer.

If we can’t model it, whatever IT is, we can sure help them to not make the same mistakes. That’s the job.

Do as I say, not as I do. (or can't do)

Early Give 'Em Math Early

Desperate for work once, I applied for a job as an accounts receivable/accounts payable clerk for a small shipping company. I was a math moron (still am) but it was Edmonton, it was February, I was cold and I was broke. I thought maybe if I told some of the truth and was likable in the interview they might pity me and train me.

It worked. The woman was very nice, she assured me the job wouldn't be harder than balancing my cheque book. I didn’t tell her it would be easier for me to balance a knife on my nose.

I was on time every morning, raring to go, fun at break, won a few games of Name That Tune for them at happy hour but it was less than 3 weeks before they begged me to leave before I put them out of business.

That was the first and last time I ever had a job that required math. I have steered my way clear of it ever since.

Sucking at math is on a long list of things I don’t want my kids to inherit from me. They both go to Bright Minds, a Renert program for kids 5 to 12 and in reading this article that decision was once again validated. 

Turns out there is a name for people like me, we are functionally innumerate, a fact I readily boast about when in a crowd of fellow math morons and we are all vying to see who is the most incapable. 

It’s strange the way sucking at math is okay but being unable to read is not something people boast about. Those days are as good as gone. Math will be at the centre of most of the things our kids want to do and being good at it is now sexy - not geeky.

The article cites examples of the things kids should know about math when they are very young and I recognize them as being a big part of the Bright Minds program.

Both of my kids are math capable and could handle that accounts job now - they are 8 & 10.

Read the article, it refers to American stats but the facts are no different up here. Get your kids into math early, do more with them than they get at school -  the same way you do with reading. 

Fear of Math

Originally Posted October 14, 2011

I became aware of math as a result of my mother’s frequent admissions that she was not good at it. I grew up in the 70’s when it was still a given "that girls weren't good at math" so by the time I finished high school I had long been convinced of my mathematical short comings and had said it aloud about myself so many times it had become a fact. 

Looking back now I realize how many choices I made in life to avoid math at all costs. I recall a conversation with my mom about wanting to be an interior decorator and having clients give me the key to their resort vacation home, a blank cheque and say “Do what you want, take all the time and money you need." A big dream quickly kicked to the curb when I found out: "You’ll need math for that.”  A phrase that stopped quite a few ideas from getting to square one until finally I made sure an absence of math was the first qualification for any career choices.

I choose to do things immersed in language and have managed quite well but my math inadequacies and fear of numbers are never far away. I vividly remember being pregnant and one of my first thoughts was “How will I help her with her math homework?” Fast forward eight years and sure enough it takes me longer to correct my daughter’s math homework than it takes her to do it.

I have lost two jobs (within days of starting) due my lack of number skills, my husband likes to poke fun at me when I struggle to work out a tip on a dinner bill and for the short time I was in charge of household finances we nearly ended up homeless.

So...when my daughter was first introduced to math in school I just expected her to say it was hard but she loves it and I am thrilled, I was convinced that FearofMath was a genetic condition.

Both my kids are quite capable with their growing math skills thanks to Bright Minds and they are developing a curiosity for it, the way I did with language. Even if they don't chose a career steeped in numbers at least the doors that were locked for me will stand open for them.