The Mathematics of Life

I had a mathematical revelation last night.

...or maybe it was a relational epiphany.

...or could it be a relational mathematic discovery? Or a mathematical relationship correlation?

Anyway...I came to the realization that Isaac, my one year old son, likes pretty much everything I do. He is like my biggest fan. I can just look at him and he laughs until he falls over. Of course he falls over a lot because he is still learning to walk, but you get the idea.

However, soon after this realization, it also became apparent to me that Ethan, my eight year old son, does not hold the same view of me. He probably only likes half of what I do and thinks the other half is lame/awful/tedious/dumb.

And so I went further down that path and thought about my second youngest child Hannah, who will be four tomorrow. She probably only likes about three-fourths of what I do.

...are you seeing it yet?

So I got out a pen and paper and worked out what I call the Parental Approval Theorem. It looks something like this:

If A = age of child
and if A < 18;
Then Parental Approval Percentage = 1 - ((A/4)* 0.25)

As you can see from this equation, our approval rating as parents significantly decreases, even dipping into the negative for a short time, until our children reach adulthood. By my hypothesis then Ethan will only like 25% of what I do by the time he is twelve and absolutely nothing by the time he is sixteen.

As with all great mathematically theorems, I know this must need revision. This is actually already the second generation of the theorem as a room full of teenagers helped me lower my threshold age from 20 down to 18. So let me know your thoughts and additions.

...or subtractions.

...or maybe even logorithms, as the case may be.

By the way, this is for fun. Please don't take me too seriously;)