A man got into a major argument with his wife after he told their son the ‘truth about maths’, after which he turned to the internet to find out who’s in the right here.
Couples often have heated debates, especially about things that they’re both passionate about.
While mathematics doesn’t usually score high on the list of common reasons for a fight, in this case, it did as a woman got angry after her husband dropped ‘truth bombs’ on their child ’ (in his opinion, at least.)
The man then took to the popular subreddit r/ AITA, which stands for (Am I the A**hole). Users share their experiences on this subreddit asking for advice and seeking to know whether they made the right decision in that scenario.
The dad said: “My wife is a high school maths teacher. Maths is her passion, and she loves teaching. She has always been a maths wizard and thinks maths is this super fun subject that is enjoyable and relaxing.
(Image: Getty Images)
“When he was five she started teaching him all the maths she could. When he was in grade 1 he aced the class because he’d learned all of it before from his mother. This essentially made her think that her teaching him advanced maths was a good thing and pretty much all their time together is maths-related.
“By grade three he was doing algebra. He’s a bright kid, and at first he was really interested in maths because “It helped him understand how the world works”
The user Individual_Truck5184 explained that their son was now in 5th grade, going into 6th grade and his wife had already started teaching him some high school syllabus – which is pretty crazy to say the least.
He continued: “He’d been losing interest for a while because the maths was slowly drifting away from real world application and into “(X +6)(X+7), solve for X”. That’s where he began to lose interest, and because he’s obviously young and not really ready for that kind of maths yet, she had to push him insanely hard to get him to do well in it.
“There were days where she’d come home from work and my wife would immediately start drilling him with maths.”
As time went on, the couple had been arguing more and more because their son wanted to play on his games console with his friends instead of doing maths. The user’s wife told him to do the maths, in this case, it was “IGCSE trigonometry” which naturally, doesn’t sound all too appealing.
The drama began to unfold, as the son rebelled against his mother’s mathematical wishes: “He’s not even in middle school yet, and she’s making him do high school level work.
She left the room because she had to attend to something and my son threw his pen on the ground and started crying.”
Their son asked why maths was even needed, because he couldn’t see use for it outside of school tests, and to his wife’s dismay, the man told his son that “80% of maths is useless in the real world.”
“I have barely come across grade 9 level Trig and have never seen high school algebra, or calculus outside of school and maths-related fields. I did tell him that maths was important to get into colleges, but I don’t think he should be worrying about that when he’s not even in middle school yet.
After this, I got into a huge fight with my wife where she was screaming at me for impeding their relationship. I told her that their relationship can’t just be maths.”
The question is, is he the a** hole, or was he totally right in expressing his opinion?
The votes are in. Take a look at these abbreviations if you’re not sure:
You’re the a** hole (& the other party is not) = YTA
You’re Not the a** hole (& the other party is) = NTA
Everyone sucks here = ESH
No a** holes here = NAH
Not enough info = INFO
Sadly, there were a few ESHs in this thread, with one user commenting: “ESH. I’m a maths teacher. Forcing maths (or any learning) down young children’s throats does more harm than good.
“My daughter is talented at maths. We do no maths together at home beyond her school work – she is 5, she needs to be 5, so when she is home she plays, spends time with her family, has fun. However I can’t tell you how bloody difficult it is to teach a child at secondary level who has a commentary from home of “maths is pointless, you’ll never need this” etc.”
Ouch. Some users were quick to disagree with this comment though: “That doesn’t make it ESH. He’s a kid for crying out loud, and the father just pointed out some home truths. NTA.”
So, it looks like it’s a bit of a tie between NTA and ESH, with a few peeved users blaming the mother:
One user said: “NTA. A lot of my job is maths. So how useful it is depends on the direction you decide to go. I don’t think he should be worrying about that when he’s not even in middle school yet.
This is what makes you NTA. Let the kid be a kid. Your wife’s approach sounds like it will probably make him hate maths.”
What’s your verdict, was he the a** hole, not the a**hole, or were they all to blame? Isn’t the internet fantastic?