Math comes up a lot in homeschooling discussions–usually along the lines of, “OMG, how will I ever teach upper level math?” I, on the other hand, was very much a math nerd in school. Heck, I even majored in math for 6 weeks of my freshman year of college! We’ll just ignore those nightmares where I’m back in high school and can’t remember any calculus equations for a surprise exam.

Imagine my horror when my oldest child (Goose) told me she hated math when she was 6. “But math is FUN!” I insisted. We spent the next two years fighting over freaking addition problems every day because I had this beautiful image of sharing my love of numbers with offspring. I resorted to turning every. single. problem into something Harry Potter-related. “If Hedwig is carrying four letters and Errol is carrying seven, how many letters do they have all together? If there are eight baby mandrakes and they’re potted in two equal rows, how many pots are in each row?”

If ever there came a time when I threatened public school, it was back then. Like, quite possibly every day back then, but you know how it goes. I had to release every sparkling dream of math bliss into the universe and turn the reins over to a computer-based curriculum just to end the frustration.

Goose still doesn’t love math and jokes regularly that her math-lovin’ sister is clearly the favorite, but hey . . . one out of two ain’t bad, right? At least she can turn to humor and her awesome art skills to get through it.

Is math enjoyable in your house or all-out disaster territory?