Very well said! I'm a lover of math, and an engineer. For kids who want technical careers - especially in the physical sciences or engineering - seirous, hard math is necessary.

But for many of us, math is beautiful, and even fun. That doesn't mean it doesn't require hard work - for most, the details don't just drop into our heads to be remembered forever. And, problem solving is a skill, not a set of fact to be memorized.

But stick with it. And yes, the most important thing is: it is progressive. If you try to skip parts of it, you'll regret it later.

I do want to add - not everyone needs much math. Everyone should have a feel for it, for how arithmetic works (the most basic math most learn), and perhaps some algebra. But one mistake I've seen in various fads of mathematics teaching is to try to turn everyone into a math loving, math wizard.

I think that's a mistake.

Another mistake is to focus too much on the concepts and not enough on the hard, rote work. People grasp concepts at different ages, but if they don't know the real basics - the addition and multiplicatipon tables and procedures, they are less likely to grasp (and appreciate) concepts when they are presented.

For example, graphs are hard for a lot of people. But if they have a mastery of basic arithmetic, it's not hard to show someone how a graph is a way to look at what they already know.