During an interview with Kira Vermond, who pens a column called “The Money Shrink” for Chatelaine magazine, I explained to her that I had sworn off saying “I’m not good with numbers” … or variations thereof.
Not only does it sound dippy and stereotypical, but it’s not true. Sure, I’m no math genius. But I’m also not completely inept either. In fact, I’d hazard a guess to say that I’m just as competent with numbers as most of the men I work with. Yet, I have never — ever — heard a man say, “I’m so bad at math!” It just seems more acceptable for women to make this kind of proclamation, like it’s a key into the girls’ club.
Vermond’s column in the Chatelaine’s March issue makes this thought-provoking comparison:
Maybe you’ve been out for dinner with friends and someone at the table passes the restaurant bill off, saying, “I hope I’m leaving the right amount. I can’t do numbers!” And here’s what happens next: The other women laugh and admit to their own arithmetic atrophy.
Now imagine the same group of friends looking over their menus and someone saying, “I’m such a poor reader. Honestly, if you were to put a book in front of me, I wouldn’t be able to get past the first sentence! Will you help me order?”
As they say, arithmetic and reading are basic skills. So why would I consider it acceptable to publicly pronounce that I’m hopeless at one of them? But I have. And it never really bothered me.
Until I had a daughter.
Now, it’s a whole new world. What I say, she may model. If I say that my butt is too big, she will think that a normal size woman’s butt is too big. I don’t want her to absorb this distorted perception. Or worse, apply it to herself. So since she has been born, I try to be sooo careful with what I say around body image. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to fully transform my own perceptions built over 38 years and layered with a decade of ballet. So I fake it.
And I do the same with math. As the expression goes, “Fake it till you make it.” And so far, so good. Just yesterday afternoon, Stella wanted me to play a card game she had created. It involved subtracting numbers until a player ended up at zero. For grade 2, it was fairly heady stuff. But it didn’t even occur to her that she should feel less capable at math than at reading. When she struggled with an answer, I didn’t dare mention that I was struggling too. I simply provided her with a tip on how to get to the right number. I was faking the confidence. But she didn’t know. On the next turn, she got the answer correct using my tip, and I could hear her exclaim under her breath, “Yeah! I’m good at this.” Oh, my heart smiled.
I may never make it. But I’m going to keep faking it.
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