-by Sailor Mur

As you may have figured out by reading my older essays, I was previously a potty-mouth. When I got pregnant, I decided that had to go, because although it might be funny as hell to have a toddler say, "Mom, Dad, what the fuck?" when she views the Star Wars Christmas Special, you don't want that to happen for real.

So I have curtailed a lot of it. There are a ton of extra-special different words I use. I still let an occasional one out, like when the dog we're taking care of this weekend is so high strung he drinks his belly full of water and then vomits all the water on our bedroom floor, I feel a hearty, "Shit, get out of here!" is called for. But these are few and far between, and I'm pretty proud of what I have cleaned up.

Recently I had a rather intensive writing project. For the first time in my role-playing game freelancing career, I had to write what those in the industry call "crunchy rules." This means I can't just make up histories and religions and politics for the races, but I had to create items. Items have stats. The stats have to make sense, so there are formulas available to create those stats. Did you assume the designers just decided how much a +3 masterwork sword costs? Nope, there's a formula for it. So take my chosen career that has to do with words and insert... math.

Yes. Math.

When I was a kid, I was good at math. My father still insists that somewhere along the way I developed a block and convinced myself I was unable to do math. I don't know what really happened, but I have never been able to get past algebra (oh, and kids, algebra is very important when creating items for role-playing games. Just trust me. So when you want to ask a teacher "What the hell am I going to use algebra for in the real world?", the answer is writing RPG rules). I honestly have no idea what trig and calculus are.

You'd of course bet I would marry a computer engineer with a degree in math. But I digress.

The point is, I don't like math. I failed one class in college, nearly failed another one until I had a good tutor, and once I passed the requisite courses to graduate, have never looked back. Until this project, where I realize I not only had to do math, but I had to show my work. I was not looking forward to it. I bitched and bitched about it to my friends. "Ugh," I'd say, "I have to work on math today. I hate this part." On and on I went. I'm surprised I have any friends left, honestly.

Then I heard yet another report about how girls still aren't going into computer science degrees and how tragic that is. You've got the president of Harvard saying that women can't do math as well as men. And then you've got me. A mom of a little girl. Bitching about math.

It hit me then. Am I doing more harm to her by complaining constantly about math, showing her that women have problems with math, than by saying the occasional "shit" around her? Swearing around her will make her swear. Complaining about how hard math is around her might imprint on her that if mommy can't do math, she probably can't either.

Do I think I would have been happier in a career in programming than what I'm doing now? I started my first novel when I was thirteen. I went to two writer's camps as a teenager. I love writing and can't see myself doing anything else and being this happy. So no, I don't think I would have been as happy going on a more technical field. I think I'm in the right place, mental block against math or not. But I wonder what's behind my hatred of math.

It doesn't matter, though. It's the little things that kids pick up on. You want your kids to say please and thank you, but how often do you say those things to your spouse? You hope they have good eating habits, but you pick up crap at the drive through three days a week and tell them that broccoli will make them grow up big and strong. You tell them that mommy sucks ass at math, and they might just think that women in general really don't get it.

When I realized this, I stopped my complaining. I worried about my deadline, but that was because I worried I wouldn't be able to get my work done in time, not that the work was hard. And when I stopped complaining and realized I just had to sit down and concentrate and do it, it was a lot more manageable. So now I actually have the hope that my ceasing of self-deprecating comments might actually boost my confidence in math.

And maybe if my daughter thinks that mommy can do math, mommy might start to believe it too.

This article was originally featured in Mur's podcast, Geek Fu Action Grip. Check it out!