Catholic Herald Parenting™

	Friends of the Family

Recently my wife and I attended a celebrity roast. You probably haven't heard of any of the celebrities who were roasted that evening since they were sophomores and juniors at my son's high school. And the roasting was part of the ritual for induction into Mu Alpha Theta, a national math honor society. Our older son was one of the inductees.

The roast took place not at an exclusive restaurant, but in the school library. The room was filled with the students, their teachers (who functioned as the official roasters) and parents. The ceremony began with two students explaining a math problem.

Whenever I see algebraic groupings with numbers, and letters with tiny numbers next to the letters, I wonder one thing: why put those letters in there anyway? You see, mathematics was never my forte in school. The words "polynomial" and "integer" have always struck terror in my heart.

This was just the beginning. Next up was a real math pro, a teacher, who decided to dazzle the audience with a problem he had worked out. My comprehension of advanced math is so poor, I can't even tell you what the problem was about. All I know is that it involved a "sequence" with algebraic numbers and more letters with little numbers, brackets (this is also terrifying), and fractions with groupings of numbers above and below the division line. And there were a lot of them. And he talked about "infinity."

As far as I can tell, he wanted to know how many numbers would be left if he removed some of the numbers in the sequence. Some of the braver parents took a shot at answering the question. One parent ventured that there would be a finite amount of numbers remaining, while another confidently predicted that there would be an infinite amount remaining. I remarked to my wife that he should remove all the numbers, so that I could go home.

The answer was that there would be "both," a finite and an infinite amount of numbers left. At this point I was craning to see what was on the refreshment table.

The roast itself was a gentle affair with the teachers giving their students some good-natured jabs.

On the way home, I devised my own little mathematical formula that children are one-third their mother, one-third their father, and one-third their own creation. I called my formula into question since I could not recall one time where either my wife or I have been able to lend our son any guidance in solving a math problem.

You might think it's a fluke, perhaps a misfiring and random jumbling of the genetic cocktail which each of us inherits. Well, our younger son gets straight A's in math also.

One of the discoveries of parenthood is to see before you the evolving of a separate life force, that you think of as "your child," but who is really an independent creation. Parents do not "own" children. We only care for them as they become their own individuals. And that individual will never be "just like your father" or "just like your mother," even though he or she will have an interesting blend of both personalities as well as some new additions.

We are there to open the door, and introduce the individuals in our care to the world, to give them structure and principles to guide them. But in mysterious ways, they will chart their own course.

On the dining room table now are a pile of mailings for our older son from colleges throughout the United States. I looked through a sampling recently: Lawrence University, the University of Minnesota, Kettering University, Hamline University, the University of Puget Sound, Harvey Mudd College, Washington and Lee University, Brown University, and Gustavus Adolphus College. Soon he will have to start sorting out the offers and then make the application.

They offer curriculums in liberal arts, engineering, computer science, physics, philosophy, humanities and social sciences, and courses in the history of South Africa, death and dying, and the origins of the Constitution. What will he pick? I don't know, but I do know it won't be exactly the same choice as I made.

Families need to celebrate and cultivate the differences among their members. I may not understand math, but I understand the importance of math. I understand our sons' fascination with numbers. Numbers are the left brain supporting the right brain so it can have its aesthetic and spiritual experiences. Numbers are the stepping stones to the moon and beyond.

(Pankratz is a marriage and family therapist at Catholic Charities Milwaukee regional office.)