First-Grader Who's Had Enough of Math Is All of Us: 'Can't Be Bothered'

A 7-year-old girl had her parents chuckling with the sassy answer she gave to a math problem at school.

Carolann Smith from Bloomsbury, New Jersey, took to Reddit—posting under the handle /u/xskysoblue—to share the response her daughter gave to a question asking her to show her work on a multiplication sum.

Asked to show how she worked out that 19 plus 45 equals 64, Smith's daughter wrote, "I just know." Smith told Newsweek: "It came back with that answer circled by the teacher. I thought it was funny because it was so typical of her, but I also always felt the same way about those math questions growing up." Though she found it amusing, Smith said she was careful to address the issue with her daughter.

It might not be everyone's favorite subject, but a 2023 YouGov poll of 1,000 U.S. adult citizens found that four in 10 Americans wished they had paid more attention to math.

Smith said that when she asked her daughter why she wrote that as the answer, she responded: "I don't know. I just know it." Smith added that they "talked it through until she had something better to write."

Smith said she didn't originally plan to share the response on social media, but after showing their daughter's response to her husband, he suggested they share it. A screenshot of the answer was posted alongside the caption, "My daughter can't be bothered with these questions I guess."

"Honestly, I thought it wouldn't amount to much," Smith said. "I thought maybe a few people would get a laugh and disappear." Instead, the post went viral, receiving over 11,000 upvotes and sparking discussion about the way math is taught in school.

"That is what my kid used to write on these things. He was so frustrated by the requirement to explain when it was just how math works," one user wrote.

"I used to get so frustrated and bored having to repeat the same math problems with different numbers a million times. Like when we learned long division or multiplication we had like 20-30 problems, same concept, different numbers. I was bored out of my mind," another added.

Others disagreed and argued it was essential to show your work. One commenter wrote: "I know it can be frustrating when you're doing the problem, especially if it's an easy problem, but the issue is that there are a lot of basic things about math that people think they understand but don't really, and if we aren't forced to explain our reasoning, we end up just making stuff up and doing math by feelings. Which never works."

Smith acknowledged there seemed to be a "lot of debate" and "strong opinions" on the subject, but that was not something she had intended when she first posted her daughter's response.

"I'm happy with her math lessons," she said. "These types of questions have been around forever, and it seems like a lot of people also hated answering them growing up."