Thanks to a vividly pictured counting book, I thought the numbers 0-9 were either male or female and had personalities. I came to dislike some of the numbers they pictured scowling. I'm not sure but I think this contributed to my lifelong hatred of math.
A childhood belief about counting
others believed things like this
- I used to believe that numbers had gender, that the odd numbers were boys and even numbers were girls. — Evelyn
- I used to think that to desex an animal meant to turn it from a male to a female or female to male.— Phil
- I used to be terrified of the numbers 18 and 19. I think I thought that when you turned 18 or 19, you die.— Emmy
- This may sound absurd but I thought the numbers next to the Bible versus said what time the person said it at!— Biomeka
- Numbers went up to 100 then restarted at zero.Anon
- The highest of all numbers was "a finnety."— Becky