Weird = Me

Okay, I knew this. Hell, YOU knew this. You've read my blogs, so I'm not letting any new cats out of bags here. But I'll let you in on a little weird secret about me: I.like.math.

And I don't mean balancing my checkbook or converting grams into ounces. I mean ratios and percentages and quadratic equations. Solving for 'x' makes me giggle. I love algebra and statistics. I have been out of high school for *cough*25 years*cough* and haven't taken a college course in math in almost as long. I actually miss it.

All around me, mothers are clutching their hearts and heads and fretting about where they're going to find the money to pay for private math tutors for their kids. They complain bout how difficult the maths are this year. Personally, I think that they're making much ado about nothing. I don't mean that in a conceited "I'm smarter than they are" kind of way. What I mean is that these women don't even TRY to sit down and read the book that their kid is learning from. And I'm not talking about college age kids....I mean third and fourth grade. I just smile and nod and they think I'm the stupid foreigner. They ask me who is tutoring my kids in math and think I'm irresponsible and doing my kids a huge disservice when I tell them that I am. Truth be told, I'm cheap. Not frugal. C-H-to the EAP, cheap. I refuse to pay someone else to do something that I can do myself. Also, I have that whole "love invested" thing going on with my kids so I think I have more to lose than money if my kid fails.

I've been told on many occasions by teachers and other mothers that I am cheating my kids by not hiring tutors or teachers to help them with their math. My question is this: Why do we as women "dumb ourselves down" when it comes to math? Why do we leave it to the men to do? Since when is having testicles a requirement to knowing that the cubed root of 64 is 4? Are we not the primary caregivers/shoppers and home economists within our own households? Don't we know which detergent is a better buy because it costs less per ounce with the added bonus of working so well that we don't need to buy bleach?

Encourage your daughters in the math and science fields, Ladies. All it can do is raise their self-confidence AND the glass ceiling that might hold them back in future jobs.