Do The Math

I currently find myself between two children who are doing math that is ever so slightly--okay, full disclosure--more than ever so slightly--beyond anything I remember from my own math education. They are scribbling and calculating away, and I think to myself, "how did I ever do any of these things, and if I did them, how did I forget them so quickly?"
 
I remember when I trained as a Booth PA, I was struck with how math had returned to my life with a vengeance. There was no calculus involved, but on a daily basis, I was called upon to think and calculate in base 6 (how else would you add and subtract time?). These days, most PAs I know have time calculators, but back then, it was good old-fashioned math. If you could do it quickly in your head, all the better. And since you were calculating not only how much show time you had used, but also how much was left, and what the time would be if you cut a page and a half of script, you needed to do each calculation forward, backward, and upside down. It was challenging and stressful and exciting, and it is a skill that I still have, though it has been years since my last Booth PA job.
 
I could explain to my kids how facility with at least the mental gymnastics part of math has actually been an essential part of my work. While it wouldn't help them do their daily homework, it would remind them that math really does matter, and that mental gymnastics, in math or otherwise, is a skill that will always help. For now, I'll just let them finish their homework. After all, we're running over on bedtime by at least 37 minutes, meaning we'll have to take cuts in sleep time. Even if we can give back 12 of those minutes at wake-up time, we'll still be over by 25. And, when it comes to sleep, no number of even the cleverest edit cuts can get that time back.