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When my children were younger I often used to refer to them as “mitten suppliers to the world.” And not because they produced so many mittens. I wish that was the case. No, the reason they earned this particular sobriquet from me was because, without fail, they would each lose an average of twenty pairs of gloves or mittens every single winter. (And since, in Flagstaff, we average about three winters a year, this is a lot.) Even buying the cheapest gloves possible didn’t really protect me from the financial hit of buying approximately a gross of mittens every year.

Of course, eventually we moved past this phase. It wasn’t that they stopped losing gloves, it was just that I stopped caring if their fingers were cold. When your children are in elementary school the fact that their fingers are blue reflects poorly on you as a parent; when the same thing happens to them in high school it only reflects poorly on them. Or at least that’s what I tell myself: their teachers probably still look at their blue fingers and shake their collective heads at my apparent inability to keep my offspring alive and intact. Still, at least I don’t have to make weekly visits to the dollar store anymore. Unfortunately, however, that’s because the thing I now have to replace on a weekly basis is no longer gloves.

It’s shoes. Specifically, ballet shoes.

Right about now you’re probably thinking, “I didn’t even know they carried ballet shoes at the dollar store.” And you’re right to think that. Because they don’t. Not at all. Not ever. And even if they did—even if, by some over-ordering catastrophe that meant the New York Ballet company had somehow managed to mis-order to the point that all of the dollar stores in the country were somehow flooded with a veritable barge of ballet slippers, it still wouldn’t do me any good, because unlike gloves, which come in “one-size-fits-all,” ballet slippers are more size specific. And the size that is most specifically likely to not be present is size 12, which is what my own careless danseur, Clyde, happens to wear.

That’s right. Size 12 ballet shoes.

You think those suckers are easy to find? They are not. In fact, they have to be special ordered, which means that every time he loses a pair I have go online and order them again. And again. And again. And yes, I probably would get a discount if I ordered a bunch at once, but there are two problems with that plan. One, I have no guarantee that Clyde will still be wearing size 12 ballet shoes when he wakes up in the morning (at age thirteen, the chances are actually quite slim), and two, if Clyde even suspects that there is a spare pair of shoes anywhere to be found he will be even more careless with the pair he has. If that is even possible.

I’ve thought about writing something on the inside of each shoe along the lines of, “If found, please return to…” but there are a couple of things stopping me. One is that I’m not sure I’d want to meet the kind of person who doesn’t mind getting his face close enough to a thirteen-year-old boy’s ballet shoes to actually read a phone number printed there, and the other is that I’m afraid that if people find out I have a size 12 wearing ballet dancer in the house they’ll be waiting outside the front gate trying to snap a photo of the giant ballerina.

Either that, or they’ll be trying to film a video of Bigfoot in a tutu. A tutu, but no shoes. Of course.

If I didn’t know my children so well, and know that they are almost constitutionally opposed to anything resembling angelic behavior, I would suspect that they were taken up in the Rapture every day after school. After all, what possible other explanation could there be for the pile of coats, books and shoes that litter the area just inside the front door? Surely the only thing that could be happening is that as soon as they set foot back in the house we are treated to the Second Coming, and they, along with all of the other Righteous Souls, are instantly transported up to Heaven, leaving all worldly goods behind. Well, that would be the only explanation, if it wasn’t for the fact that I doubt there is any way my children would ever stop pushing and blaspheming each other long enough to make the trip from earth to the heavenly realm. And I’m sure that somehow, even if they did, the trail of power cords and mascara (from the things neither of them would ever willingly let be “left behind”) would reveal their ultimate destination. And, of course, there’s the fact that we’re all atheists (except for Clementine, the black sheep of the family, who insists on agnosticism) that really makes me think that the Rapture just isn’t in the cards for me and my family.

Which is unfortunate, because the only other explanation I have for the piles of earthly possessions that appear every afternoon to trip me as I walk in the front door is that my children are inconsiderate slobs who would rather see me fall on face carrying a full bag of groceries than walk the extra twenty inches to put away their things. Knowing that, you can see why the Rapture might be an appealing alternative explanation.

Sometimes I think that if we had a tall enough fence around the front yard they would actually start shedding as soon as they got out of the car, and that instead of the aftermath of a Rapture it would look more like a very successful rave had just taken place. I’m not sure if that would be better or worse, visually, but at least outside I would have more room to maneuver around the piles. Once I step inside my options are kind of limited, and sure, I could step directly on the items in question, but you’d be surprised at what treacherous footing a pair of shoes make when they are not on your feet. (Or maybe, having slobby kids of your own, perhaps you wouldn’t be.)

The worst thing of course is that they never, ever, trip on their own stuff, and so have no idea what I’m talking about when I complain. Somehow, to them, the various articles of clothing and school books are not so much road hazards as guide posts, the same way Hansel and Gretel probably didn’t see what they were doing as littering so much as trail marking. (Although, if Clementine and Clyde are Hansel and Gretel then I guess I’m either the witch or the evil stepmother. I think I’ll take witch. At least she owned her own home. And could, apparently, cook up a mean child souffle.)

Or maybe it’s the same as the way skunks don’t seem to mind their own stink. (Although, really, how would we know if they did? It’s not like skunks have the most expressive of faces—they could be suffering all sorts of existential crises every day and we would never know it. Or, to be honest, care.) In any case, I think that the same way skunks aren’t driven out of their dens by their own stink, children aren’t tripped up by their own detritus. That’s my theory, at least And I’m keeping it.

After all, it’s still more believable than The Rapture.

I used to think that I understood what it was like to be a middle schooler. After all, I’ve been to middle school myself; I know the routine. I know all about all those must have right now fashions that come and go so fast you barely have time to get to the mall and buy them before they’re “so last week.” And I know about the those revolving door types of friendship that manage to make the plot lines of Russian novels seem like Twilight in comparison. And that knowledge came in very handy when my daughter, Clementine, was a middle schooler. I was able to help her navigate some of the melodrama, and I was, I like to think, a good sounding board when things got really weird. All in all, I think I had a pretty decent handle on the whole thing. At least, that’s what I used to think, before, my son, Clyde, started middle school. Because that’s when I realized I really don’t have the slightest clue about middle school per se; I only understand the concept of girl middle school.

And boy middle school is a whole other thing.

Take the drama. (Please.) The other day when I asked Clyde how his day had gone at school he casually told me that the girl he liked was, apparently, no longer speaking to him. I immediately started to plan for full crisis mode: thought about what we had going on that night and whether or not we could cancel it, wondered if there was any ice cream in the house, and tried to remember if I had bought or just rented the complete Die Hard set. With all of these things going through my head I gently asked Clyde how he felt about the recent turn of events. He looked up from where he was slipping his after school snack (also known as an entire pizza) out of the freezer and shrugged his shoulders at me.

“Eh. I kind of like someone else now. Would you make this for me?”

And that was it. The extent of the breakdown. I was, to say the least, flabbergasted. Gobsmacked. Even a bit twitter-pated. Because this was something I had no experience with at all.

If this had been me in middle school I would have, without a doubt, convened a meeting of my closest friends and painstakingly, and in great detail, gone over every single conversation I had ever had with my crush, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when it had all gone wrong. Or rather, when I had gone all wrong. What I had done, what I had said, what I had worn that had caused this retraction of (previously unshakeable) affections. Even now, three decades later, I would probably still find myself wondering from time to time where it all went wrong. (I’m serious: I still puzzle over why, in seventh grade, Rodney Moffet chose to walk away from me after our first—and only—slow dance. Was it the dress? I swear, Laura Ashely was all the rage when I bought it. The song? Who doesn’t like Barbra Streisand’s “Evergreen?” Maybe it was my hair: I never could quite figure out how to feather it just like Farrah Fawcett…)

Obviously, though, Clyde was not affected the same way. At all. In fact, he was remarkably sanguine about the whole thing, acting as if this were just some normal, every day occurrence in the life of a middle schooler, and not the earth-shattering, confidence-destroying blow that it would have been for me at his age. In other words, he was acting just like…Rodney Moffet had after our fatefully ill-fated dance. Like the world hadn’t just ended even a little bit.

Huh. Come to think of it, Rodney didn’t seem to notice when I stopped speaking to him either.

You know you’re a slob when a teenager remarks on it. No, scratch that: you know you’re more than just a slob; you’re an inspiration to slobs everywhere. That’s the position that my son, Clyde, found himself in the other day when his sister, Clementine, came into his room. No stranger to the concept of filth herself, it is significant that Clementine had this to say about the state of her brother’s room: “Dude. If someone came into this house and saw only this room, they’d think the house was abandoned.” And the sad thing is that she was right. While her room typically looks like the aftermath of some tragic Starbucks Train vs. Mascara Truck Accident (Interior Design students would probably call it “Early Modern Latte”), his room just looks like a flop.

Is it a boy/girl thing? Because while her room is trashed, it is not full (at least not completely) of trash. There are valuable things sticking out of the flotsam and jetsam of her room’s landscape, like diamonds poking up from the coal. (Or rather Apple products sticking up from the bras. Because, yeah, while coal might not be as valuable as diamonds, it still has its uses. Just like ipods vs. bras. Oh, shut up. All the ladies here know what I’m talking about.) Anyway, Clyde’s room has none of that. No diamonds or ipods. (And I’m pretty sure no bras, either. Not so sure about the coal, though.)

His room is just pure trash. It’s knee high in Mountain Dew bottles and Burger King wrappers. There’s so much trash, in fact, you can barely see the trash can, which might explain why it is completely empty. Which is what is confusing to me. Clyde’s room is easy. You could clean it with a snow shovel, because there is absolutely nothing in there that he cares about. You could drop a match in the middle of it (please don’t) and he would not shed a single tear. (Sure, he would lose all of his clothes, but that wouldn’t be his problem. It would be mine.) So why doesn’t he just clean it?

I know why Clementine doesn’t clean her room—it’s the same reason I procrastinate cleaning off my counters. If I could just sweep everything into the trash I would, but I don’t want to take the chance of sweeping last year’s W-2’s in there along with last week’s oil change coupons. My messes are more hoarderly. In fact, I will admit that one of the main reasons I don’t like to watch Hoarders is the number of times I find myself wincing when they throw out something really cool. “No way, please tell me you’re not really going to throw out that awesome box full of Barbie heads?”

Clyde’s room? Most of his trash could just go straight into the recycling bin.

I’d think that he was being strangely sentimental about everything (“And here’s the first two liters of Mountain Dew I drank…this week”) except for the fact that its not like he’s actually displaying his detritus. He’s not like some freshman in college who is so proud of the liquor he has consumed that he displays the empty bottles in his dorm window. No, he’s not showing his Mountain Dew prowess off—he’s just living in it. Who knows? Maybe he just wants to make sure he makes his mark.

After all, archeologists say that one of the most valuable sites they can come across are ancient rubbish tips, because the information you can glean from seeing what a culture throws away is just as valuable—maybe more so—than the information you get from seeing what they choose to hold dear.

Maybe Clyde just wants to make sure that he has his bases covered either way.

My children were born nearly five years apart. This has been both very helpful and very unhelpful—usually for the exact same reasons. It was very helpful not to have two children in diapers at once, just as it was very helpful not to have two of them discovering the joys of disagreeing with everything at the same time. And if they had both discovered how the shower worked at once? I fear the water table would have never recovered.

But at the same time it would have been nice to only go through some of those things once, even if it meant things got twice as intense. And it would have been nicer still to have kept the same naivete I had the first time around—it would be nice, the second time, to believe that whatever unpleasantness we were going through would only last a few weeks, or at the most, months—instead of knowing, as I do now, that what lay ahead could easily take years.

Take, for instance, the issue of homework. The sheer, horrible, brutality of homework. Yeah, I’m not a fan. I didn’t like it when they were in elementary school, and I don’t like it now, in middle and high school. In fact, I have been known to simply scrawl a big “NO” across the front of a word find and send it back in with my initials—word finds and “find the hidden objects” striking some sort of ancient hatred deep in my heart. But I acknowledge that sometimes homework is necessary, especially when it comes to classes like math, music and language. These are classes where learning new concepts is only half the battle: you must internalize the new concept to really make any progress. So, yeah, while I will gladly subvert any homework assignment that seems like it is just there to take up time and space, I will be your biggest supporter when it comes to conjugating verbs, practicing scales and solving equations. Which explains the battle to get Clyde to do his math homework. Every. Single. Night.

It’s not even that much homework—usually just one page a night. One short page. It takes him, at the most, ten minutes to complete it. And yet, the procrastination and negotiation phase of the homework can sometimes take hours. It’s exhausting. Infuriating. And worst of all, takes valuable time away from my drinking. And so, when it comes to fighting the nightly math homework battle, I finally broke down and did what any other mature adult would do when they were fighting with a child—I enlisted another child for help.

To be fair, Clementine is not a child anymore. But at eighteen she’s close enough that she can still remember well enough how the enemy thinks. What’s more, since she eventually managed to move past the “homework denier” phase herself (after years of fighting), I thought that she would be my best chance of talking some sense into Clyde. And so I asked (okay, paid) her to talk to him about the importance of doing his homework. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly, considering the twenty bucks involved), she agreed.

Curious as what my Andrew Jackson had bought me, I couldn’t help but listen in on the conversation that followed. Would she tell him it was all worth it once you opened up the acceptance letter to your top choice college? Would she explain that everything made more sense once you understood the basic concepts? Or would she give him the “just do it” speech? Turns out it was none of the above. Instead she leaned in his doorway and simply said, “Dude. Do you your homework. Because Mom? She never stops. Trust me.”

Hmm. Not the sage advice I was expecting, but whatever. At this point, I’ll take what I can get.

The other day I was reading yet another article detailing all of the ways in which we are, collectively, raising our children wrong. This one was about pushing children into achievement for achievement’s sake: in other words, encouraging children to collect one meaningless achievement after another all in the hopes of getting into a good college, rather then letting them simply follow their passions and see where that leads them.

I could go on at length about how naïve it is to think that you will get into a good college without some sort of “achievement” under your belt, but I’m going to ignore that part of the article and instead focus on what I see as the much more dangerous part. The part about encouraging children to follow their “passions.”

On the surface this sounds like great advice. “Follow your dreams.” “Do what you love.” The problem, however, is that children, using their unique ability to twist any advice we give them into something terrible, have taken that advice as “If you don’t actually have a dream, right at this very moment, then you might as well give up now.” They take “Do what you love” and twist it into, “If you don’t really love anything all that much, don’t do anything.” I’ve actually had them tell me, “I’m not really passionate about anything, so what’s the point of going to college? It’d just be a waste of money.” That’s when I tell them what I consider to be one of adulthood’s best kept secrets: some people don’t have a passion.

And that’s okay. Really, it’s better than okay. It’s normal. For every person who is up at the crack of dawn training for their next triathalon, or staying up all night in their parent’s basement inventing a new kind of prosthetic arm, there are a hundred—no, a thousand, a hundred thousand—who are content to go for a three mile jog a couple of times a week, or who only stay up all night to binge watch the last season of Game of Thrones. In other words, most people are normal.

You’d think that this would be obvious, but somehow the population that needs to hear this the most believes it the least. In other words, I have met an entire generation of children who think that because they haven’t discovered their “passion” by the time they are twelve, there is no point in pursuing anything beyond the bare minimum.

Maybe its our fault, as adults, for moaning so much about paying off our student loans. Maybe we spent too much time emphasizing how college should help you find a well-paying job, and too little emphasizing how it will also help you find a lifelong set of road trip buddies and fifty different recipes that only use ramen and condiments. Maybe we left out the part about how things are supposed to be fun.

I think, in its own way, that’s what the article was trying to say: that sometimes kids should be encouraged to try things just because those things might turn out to be fun, and not just because they will look good on a college application. Which is very true. However, it’s also true that most colleges aren’t going to be too impressed that you skipped the chance to perform community service in favor of trying every single flavor of ice cream at the local Baskin Robbins. Unless you can write a killer essay about it. And then you’re golden.

Well, except for the fact that your “freshman fifteen” will probably be more like a “freshman fifty,” and happen well before your freshman year. But who knows? Maybe then you can at least pretend that fitness is your new “passion.”

The first time my son, Clyde, saw a “personal pan pizza,” he was confused. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the concept of getting a pizza and not sharing it—it was that he didn’t understand that some people ever did anything else. To him, the whole thing was somewhat redundant, because, weren’t all pizzas personal pizzas? One pizza equals one serving, right? Except of course when it’s more than just a snack, and then one pizza equals one half of a serving. Or, after a particularly hard day, maybe even one third of a serving.

I’d like to think that this is just another effect of Clyde’s entry into the teenage years, but the truth is that he has been like this his whole life. This is, after all, the boy who reluctantly gave up breastfeeding only because it was too hard to do that and eat a pork chop at the same time. (Not that he didn’t try.) If you don’t believe me then just ask some of the local restaurants in town—the ones we go to the most often don’t even bat an eye at Clyde’s orders: four sides of tortillas at Martanne’s and double orders of double burgers at Mama Burger don’t even faze them anymore. In fact, my family has been taking Clyde to Fratellis downtown for so many years that they have learned the difference between me taking a breath between pizza orders and me actually finishing.

I suppose it’s just lucky for my wallet that his sister is the complete opposite: while Clyde can hoover through an entire family sized lasagna on his own for an after school snack, she is content with half an orange every other day or so. The only way for me to break even at buffets is to bring them both.

Of course, bringing just Clyde means that I more than break even: it means that I win. Which is one of the reasons I am so very much looking forward to taking Clyde on a cruise next month for spring break. Sure it costs about three times as much as our normal spring break vacation. Sure it’s slightly cheesy (despite the fact that it’s a music cruise headlining Flogging Molly, and that there will probably be as many Doc Martens on board as bathing suits, still, a cruise is a cruise). All this pales, however, next to the thought of being relieved of the responsibility of procuring enough food for Clyde for three whole days.

Of course, I am a little bit worried about what might happen if they run out of food—I dread the thought of being trapped anywhere with Clyde when he is not able to feed. I’m sure the preponderance of zombie stories around the world arose out of situations involving teenage boys and food shortages (keeping in mind that “shortage” is a relative term—in Clyde’s case it means anything less than five pizzas). Still, the boat will be stopping at at least one island—worse case scenario is that we just have to fill up again in port.

I’ll admit that I’m also worried about being trapped in a tiny cabin with someone who cleans out the seafood buffet on the reg—although clearly not as worried as Clementine, who took one look at our stateroom specs and just said “no.” (Finding the cheapest cabin possible meant giving up certain luxuries, like windows. Or portholes. Or whatever they’re called. Anyway, it meant giving up fresh air. For Clementine, who regularly shares a bathroom with Clyde when there is both a window and no access to 24 hour a day “all you can eat” oysters, that was the final straw. She’ll be meeting us back in Miami when the cruise is through.)

I should probably tell her to be waiting with a pizza. Just in case.

There are a lot of “truths” I would like my children to learn before they make their way out into the world, but one of the most important ones is this: nobody cares. In fact, I would make that truth the number one truth they learn: nobody cares. And I would follow it closely with truth number two: no, really, nobody cares.

Does that sound harsh? Cynical? It’s not meant to be. I just want to make sure that they understand that while people (strangers and friends alike) might, in fact, perform wonderfully kind and caring actions on their behalf, they are not in any way under any obligation to do so, and when they do perform a particular act of kindness it should be seen as an exception, and not a rule. And also that when and if it happens they should be immediately and humbly grateful for it.

Perhaps a more accurate version of rule number one would be: “nobody has to care, and yet, somehow, sometimes they still do.” More accurate, maybe, but the writer in me will always lean towards the briefer version.

Which is why, when my kids complain about how unfair it is that their teacher won’t accept an assignment two months late, or why the person driving them to school won’t drive ten miles out of their way to pick up the backpack they left at a friend’s house I always give them the abbreviated version. Which is, you guessed it: “that’s because nobody cares.”

Hopefully I have already given my kids a head start in learning this harsh, yet necessary life lesson, simply by virtue of the fact that I have given them the greatest advantage possible when it comes to learning about human interaction: I have given them each a sibling. Because nobody can teach you about the cruelty and pettiness of the world as well as a sibling can.

Maybe it’s biological. Maybe the creature part of us is born knowing that this other person in our nest decreases the amount of care we get by half. Or maybe we just have a knee jerk reaction to people who are at once so like us, and yet so different. Anyway, there is no one quite like a sibling for showing you that the world can be a cold, unforgiving place.

And sometimes, a kind and wonderful place.

I was reminded of this the other night when I watched my kids dance in the kitchen. Clyde, who is taking ballroom, was dying to teach someone the box step, and Clementine, for once, was amenable to being taught. I could see that she had no real interest in learning to waltz, at least not from her little brother, but I could also see that, this time at least, she was willing to go along with it to make him happy. Who knows? Maybe it was payback (ten years later) for all the times he let her dress him up in her tutus when he was a toddler. Or maybe it was just her being nice.

I hope he knows that it was probably the latter, and that when he wants to teach her the tango and she is not feeling so nice it will not be a rejection but rather a return to the natural order. You know, the one where nobody cares, especially not your sister.

If he can learn this now he will be years ahead of the game when it comes to social interaction. If he can learn now that every dance they agree to dance with you is not your right, but rather a gift, then he will be so far ahead by the time he’s thirty that he will be able to give the rest of us lessons.

Probably in much more than just the box step.

Until I had children, I was under the impression that there were only a few different options when it came to floor coverings. There was carpeting, of course, which is what I and most of my friends grew up with (what a dying breed we are, those of us who can remember when chores included “raking” the shag carpet), wood, tile, and, for those who lived in castles or monasteries, stone. Sure, I knew that there were (and still are) entire stores dedicated to floor coverings, and that there are many more different and even exotic ways to cover your floor, but none of them ever seemed too different to me. I mean, with the possible exception of the hills and valleys that developed in shag carpeting (hence the rake), they all shared a certain, well, flatness. I mean, that’s kind of the point of a floor, isn’t it? To be flat?

Like I said, that’s what I used to think. And then I had children.

I now realize that the list of apparently suitable objects to use as floor coverings include such exotic items as plates, fast food wrappers, empty 2 liter Mountain Dew bottles, and, of course, clothes (both clean and dirty, with the most popular look being clean and dirty expertly woven together).

When they were younger this list would have also included items such as legos, puzzle pieces and crayons, but all of those items were banned from my house in the Great Toy Purge of 2009. Unfortunately, I haven’t quite yet found a way to ban food and clothing from the house (although the presence of Taco Bell bags and the aforementioned Mountain Dew bottles makes it obvious that my children have a very loose grasp of what is considered “food”), and so the daily “floor treatment” continues on unabated. What can I say? Apparently you can take away an artist’s palette one color art a time, and yet a true artist will still create art.

Because that’s what their floors must be. Art. Strange, uncomfortable, annoying art.

Here’s the thing, though: usually the artist at least will be able to tell the difference between their own creations and those of another artist. Put them in a room with one of their installations and twenty other similarly organized “piles of garbage” and the artist will be able to pick theirs out every time. This is because the artist, unlike other people people, can tell the difference between real chaos and the illusion of chaos that they have created. Which is what makes me think, sometimes, that what is happening in my children’s rooms is not exactly art.

Would a real artist rip apart one of their pieces simply because they needed to wear a white shirt? Or because their math homework was due? Would they destroy their creation for something as frivolous as the desire to wear matching shoes? Of course not: a real artist would wear one flip flop and one hiking boot and receive an “F” for their daily math score,before they would ever move one single piece of their “Pizza in Revolt” masterpiece. (Or was that “Revolting Pizza”? I can never remember.)

Unless, of course, the dismantling is part of the installation. Is that it? Are they carefully layering objects on their floors just so that they (and whoever they can rope into helping) can then pull it all apart like time lapse archeologists?

Dear God, I hadn’t considered that possibility. I was so caught up in the idea that they were simply slobs, or worse yet, artists, that I hadn’t considered that they might actually be something much, much worse.

No. It can’t be true. I’ll kill them myself before I see them grow up to become performance artists.

To begin with, I am not one of those people who will tell you that there is absolutely no use for algebra in the “real” world: in fact, I have had to “solve for x” often in my daily life, even for something as mundane as doubling a recipe. So yeah, I get that algebra is a valuable “real world” skill that should be taught in our schools. I don’t have a problem with algebra, per se. What I have a problem with, however, is four years of nothing else.

Oh sure, they toss in some geometry, and maybe even trigonometry and calculus, but really, those classes have more in common with algebra than arithmetic. In a sense you could argue that they are, in fact, just different branches of the algebra tree. The big, flowery, obnoxious, “thinks-it’s-better-than-you” algebra tree.

Meanwhile, the cheerful little “consumer math” bush is growing contentedly in the tree’s shadow, despite the neglect it currently suffers.

I’m sorry: was that confusing? Liberal Arts major here—I tend to devolve into metaphor. Which is kind of my point. Not everyone is going to pursue a career that involves four years (or more, if you count college algebra) of higher math. Not everyone needs to know how to graph a function. But everyone does need to know how compound interest works.

And that’s my problem with the four year math requirement. Not that it requires students to take four years of math, but that it requires them to take four years of progressively more “difficult” math, while ignoring the simple (but necessary) math skills.

This was brought home to me the other day as I watched my daughter struggle with her pre-calculus homework just hours after I had explained to her what an adjustable rate mortgage was. She is in her last year of high school. At this point, there is no chance that she will ever take a “consumer math” class. There is no chance that she will ever be lectured about compound interest, usury and “easy credit” scams designed to trick poor people out of what little money they have. At least, she won’t be lectured about this at school. Which is a shame.

We make kids take American Government class so that they will understand how the branches of our government work, but we don’t require them to take classes that would show the most gullible among them why a payday loan is always a bad idea. The very fact that there are still places where you can “rent to own” a microwave tells me that there are people out there who don’t have the foggiest clue as to how interest works. (The last time I looked closely at one of these offers the interest was such that in the end the microwave would end up costing the “buyer” over two thousand dollars. How did I figure that out? I used math).

Math also helps me to know (and explain to Clementine) that an adjustable rate mortgage is almost always a bad idea, as are loans on your car title, pawn shops, buying lunch on credit and not starting a retirement account until you’re fifty. There’s something simple that separates the sharks from the chum in the financial world, and that thing is math. The sharks understand it; the chum just floats through it, oblivious.

Although, conceivably, at some point in their life they were able to tell you how to solve a quadratic equation.

Look: I am not against math of any kind, and I am well aware that learning advanced math skills helps grow pathways in your brain that will help you in a multitude of ways for the rest of your life. I just wish that there was room enough for both.