Math sometimes gets a bad reputation because as we are sitting in school, learning about exponents and coordinate grids we wonder, “When am I EVER going to use this?”
While not everything I learned in math class is relevant to my everyday life, the problem solving skills I developed in my make-a-table days are critical to my role as a mother. I use those skills every day. Every hour. Every minute.
My favorite type of math story problems where those that required me to make a table to find a solution. No, I don’t whip out a sheet of scratch paper to write it out, but I’m constantly trying to make all the X’s and O’s line up in my head.
When I am at the grocery store trying to figure out how much and what types of milk I need to buy for the week, I keep in mind that one kid will only drink chocolate, the other has been strongly encouraged by her pediatrician to drink more water, and the baby still needs his milk to be both plentiful and full of fat.
The table forming in my head has columns for each family member and rows for skim, chocolate, and whole milk. I factor in the flavored water I will try to force my daughter to drink and remember that—since I’m planning to make cookies for dessert soon—I’d better add another half gallon to be safe.
When I’m leaving work early, I calculate how long it will take me to pick up four kids from three different locations to get them to their semi-annual dentist appointments on time.
I realize that the dentist appointments might require a table with more rows and columns that I’m used to navigating. I need to account for multiple pick-up times, traveling distance, afternoon traffic delays, and how we’ll get dinner on time when we’re at the dentist until 5:30 p.m.
Unlike my experience with math in school, in motherhood the problem is not always so easily solved.
Sometimes, the X’s and O’s just don’t line up. I end up throwing out a half gallon of rancid chocolate milk while running to the gas station at midnight to pick up more whole milk. Despite my best efforts, I rush to get to the dentist on time and find my carefully planned driving route irrelevant when my son vomits in his car seat, forcing me to reschedule all four cleanings.
The math of motherhood is hard.
Motherhood’s math requires us to have the courage to look deeper into the problem to find more complex solutions.
Maybe I should only take two kids to the dentist for their semi-annual visits and let my husband take the other two another time. Perhaps I should learn to pull over when one of my children tells me that their stomach hurts, and maybe, just maybe, I can convince a herd of dairy cattle to take up residence in my backyard.
