'Math Is (Too) Hard' and Other Lies We Tell Our Daughters

Today, my friend and colleague Laura Laing, author of Math for Grownups, guest-posted on the importance of monitoring the messages we send to our kids at my You'd Be So Pretty If... blog. As readers of my book, You'd Be So Pretty If...: Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies - Even When We Don't Love Our Own, know, I'm constantly encouraging parents to mind the body image messages they send to their daughters—not only what they say directly to their daughters, but how they talk about, and treat, their own bodies as well.

Laura makes a great point in her guest post, and draws a parallel to body image messages. Our kids are constantly watching us, and I'll confess that I recognized myself in Laura's advice to not let your daughter always see you pass the restaurant check to somebody else to work out the math. My own "math phobia" started around seventh grade, where my introduction to algebra was clouded by a teacher who reinforced the idea that math was tough for girls. I thought I couldn't get it, and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I struggled mightily in that class and in the few more math classes that followed. As soon as I could, I opted for anything but math on my class schedule.

Now, I'm watching my daughter tackle algebra with a wonderful and encouraging teacher. It thrills me to see her master what I know is a challenging subject. And while I've never exactly hid my lack of love for math (Sorry, Laura!) from her, I've always told her that she can do it. Because I know she can.

And about those "math is hard" and "allergic to algebra" messages we've seen peddled to our daughters lately on various t-shirts? Seems to me it's a messaging issue. It's true—math can be hard—but as Laura says, so are plenty of other subjects. Instead, it's time for a "Yes, but..." message. Yes, math can be hard...but you can do it.

Tough to fit all that on a t-shirt, though.