Mattel 1992

Barbie says, “Math is Hard! Ugh! Let’s Go Shopping Instead!”

How Learning Math in the 60s and 70s Affected This Female Baby Boomer

by Sharon Turnoy

“Sometimes you have to shatter self-limiting beliefs.”

I f you were good in math and female in the late ’60s or early ’70s, boys avoided you and girls would not let you in their cliques. They worried you might taint it with too many nasty brain cells.

However, girls did get encouragement to excel in English, maybe because both boys and teachers saw us as naturally verbal (translation: chatty).

You Could Only Be Good in One

Undermining girls in math even further was the common belief that the human brain leaned in only one of two directions — language or math. It was impossible to be strong in both, according to popular science. Stemming from that belief was the implicit judgment that there was something inherently flawed about a girl who was good in math.

As a result, most of the girls in my class wanted to be sure their brains leaned in the language direction, not math. I was no exception.

Looking back now, I worried needlessly. At every age my brain’s direction was easy to spot. But when I first became concerned, most of the directional signs hadn’t shown themselves yet. What to do?

Oblivious to the irony of my need for scientific proof that I possessed a language brain, I wanted statistically supported evidence that I didn’t have a math brain.

It suddenly hit me: My standardized test scores might show it. We had to undergo the torture of those tests every year. Like the SATs, language and math sections had separate scores. Bingo!

My test scores pointed to greater strength in language — but, surprisingly, not by very much. What’s this? Was it remotely possible I could have a math brain?

Inversely Proportional

Mistaken psychologists of the time preached that if you were especially talented in one of the two areas, you were probably terrible in the other. The two were “inversely proportional.” I concluded that since I was so strong in English, I must be no good in math.

Never mind that I got straight A’s in math, too. I concocted an explanation for that:

I suffered from OCD around grades. (I suffered from OCD, period, if the truth be told.) On the night before a test, I memorized math formulas with an almost photographic memory, down to seeing the physical layout of the page, noting exactly where the symbols and numbers appeared on it.

Visualizing where things appeared on paper, in specific rows, was almost like reading an English text. I did the same thing for history tests because I could not remember the years — or even centuries! — when things took place, although I could easily remember concepts and leaders.

I always forgot the math formulas and the historical dates immediately after a test, but I could retain grammar and punctuation rules with no effort. So I couldn’t really have a math brain, could I?

Besides, I fell asleep every day in Mrs. Mitchell’s advanced algebra class. I couldn’t be very interested! (It wasn’t until years later that I learned about hypoglycemia and post-meal “carb crashes.” Algebra was always right after lunch.)

Accused of Being a Closet Geek

When I passed both statistics and physics the first time around in college (most liberal arts majors had to repeat them two or three times before they passed), envious classmates accused me of not being a legitimate liberal arts student. They called me a “closet geek.”

Not sure whether I’d be thrown in a lake to drown like the witches of Salem, I defended my liberal arts identity with my OCD/memorization explanation. It worked, just barely.

My strongest argument was that my memory of math formulas and science algorithms lasted only a day or so. It wasn’t “real” learning, I assured them. I honestly couldn’t remember any formulas or numbers after 48 hours.

So, I was truly no better at statistics and physics than the ones who flunked, right? That’s what I claimed and that’s what I believed.

My self-image as a “language girl” who was bad at math remained intact for years. It wasn’t shaken even when I worked my way through college in a bank and achieved fame as the clerk who could reconcile anyone’s hopelessly out-of-balance account!

Years passed, and as I grew into an ardent feminist, I learned to question all kinds of biases and stereotypes. However, my status as a math-handicapped language brain was never challenged.

Never challenged, that is, until I came to a crossroads.

Case Study: Challenging Self-Limiting Beliefs

For a couple of years, I incurred a massive amount of medical bills. They hung around my neck like an albatross. They bloated my credit card balances and occasionally busted their limits.

I tried not to let their weight bother me as I paid them off slowly. In truth, though, I couldn’t wait to get rid of them. The interest fees alone were killing me.

One day, I’d had enough. $2,500/month in credit card payments was just too much, especially when 80 percent of it went to interest. I made a vow to find a way to pay those cards off immediately.

“Immediately” might have been a tad ambitious. I spent a few months researching various courses of action. I ended up with a difficult financial decision to make. I didn’t have to decide between two possible solutions, but seven.

Seven Choices

Seven choices overwhelmed me. With so many options to evaluate and compare, I doubted my ability to make the right decision.

These were the seven choices:

1. Home refinance
2. HECM reverse home mortgage
3. Proprietary reverse mortgage
4. Sell my home
5. Sell my home and get a HECM for Purchase reverse mortgage on the new place I’d buy
6. Take a lump sum withdrawal from my IRA to pay off the credit cards
7. Use a debt reduction company

Just looking at that list of options exhausted me.

Lost in the Pros and Cons

There were so many pros and cons connected to each one that it was impossible to get my arms around them all:

• Was it better to pay high taxes and fees on a big IRA withdrawal, but stop the credit card interest from growing? How much would the taxes and fees on the IRA withdrawal amount to? More than the interest on the cards?
• If I did that, what about the loss in growth my IRA would suffer from having a lower balance? How could I estimate that?
• Should I sell my home and pay off the credit card debt with the sale proceeds? But what about capital gains taxes, realtor fees, moving expenses, and the price of another place to live? What if I paid more in selling fees than I would have paid in credit card debt? And what if, God forbid, I couldn’t afford a new roof over my head?
• Were there any other ways to access my home equity — preferably without paying big fees or taxes?
• Should I get a cash-out refi and use the cash to pay off the credit card debt? But then I’d have an even bigger monthly mortgage payment than the one I had now. Could I afford that?
• Should I get a reverse mortgage instead? Which kind — private or government-funded (HECM)?
• How long would it take before the accumulation of interest in a reverse mortgage grew to where the lenders owned my home completely?
• What if I needed my home equity when I was older? Wouldn’t it all be gone with a reverse mortgage?
• A debt reduction company could decrease what I owed by potentially 50 percent, but it would ruin my credit score for 2–7 years. Is it worth hurting my pride by becoming a deadbeat?

Oy! I didn’t want to have to figure this all out myself. I didn’t have a math brain, remember?

Reaching Out for Help

I pinged my smartest friends. When I told them what I wanted, much to my disappointment, they each ran to get their husbands. Unfortunately, everyone was busy. Almost no one had time to help me.

The one guy who tried to help could barely follow the ins and outs of the complicated choices before me. No one had heard about the new regulations passed to make reverse mortgages safer now than they had ever been before.

I had read every page in Investopedia about the new, safer reverse mortgages. But my friends and their husbands warned me to stay away from them as if they were the Devil incarnate.

No one unbiased was available to consult. The advice pool available to me consisted of refi lenders, reverse mortgage brokers, and debt reduction counselors. They were all eager to help, but each had an ax to grind. Every one of them was drooling in anticipation of the commission they would get if I accepted their proposal.

I faced the reality that I was completely on my own. I’d have to figure this out by myself or live with high credit card payments forever.

Getting the Okay From My Heirs

I felt compelled to tell my children what I was contemplating. What if, I asked them, I decide to go for a reverse mortgage and it backfires? What if the bank does get the house? You’ll still have some money coming from my IRA, most likely, but you might not get any property.

Putting my kids on the planet was the best thing I ever did.

They looked at me like I was from Mars. You put us through Stanford, they each said in their own way, plus paid for good schools, sports teams, music lessons, electronics, etc., etc.

They told me to use the house however I needed to get some financial relief. (Especially if it meant I wouldn’t have to move in with them, was the unspoken caveat. I didn’t blame them. I wouldn’t have wanted my mom to move in with me either when I was their age.)

Guilt dissolved.

Venturing into Hell

Interest rates on mortgages and refi’s were rising daily, which meant I needed to pull the trigger on one choice or another before I missed the window to have any choice at all.

After weeks of procrastinating, I finally locked myself in my study at 9 pm one night. I had with me:

• Investopedia bookmarked on my PC.
• New FHA and HUD regulations printed out and highlighted in various colors in a stack to my right.
• Pages of notes from my conversations with refi lenders, reverse mortgage brokers, and debt counselors in a notebook to my left.
• Tax tables for multiple years on a browser tab on my PC.
• Amortization and compound interest rate calculators downloaded to my desktop.
• Statements with my IRA results for the last five years in an encrypted file on my hard drive.
• An empty Excel spreadsheet loaded and waiting on my screen.

Last but not least, I had a full 750 ml of Jack Daniels under my desk, just in case I panicked.

I began the project by reviewing opinion pieces, reports, and government policies about refi’s, reverse mortgages, real estate predictions, and capital gains.

I looked again at my debt reduction, reverse mortgage, and refi offers. I calculated the likely return if I kept my money in my IRA vs. how much I’d lose in gains and taxes if I withdrew it.

The data was now at my fingertips. All I had to do was determine how to analyze and compare it to make the smartest financial decision.

That’s where I got stuck.

Word Problems Are the Worst

Getting down to the nitty-gritty, I discovered that it wasn’t the math calculations that scared me; it was determining the right “word problem” that had me stymied. Which were the apples and which were the oranges I should compare?

With no one to ask, I powered through as best I could, using trial and error. I filled out spreadsheet after spreadsheet, changing categories, columns, algorithms — all just to figure out the right questions to ask. Finally, I came up with a formula that looked like it might work.

For 10 hours, I was in hell. While in hell, I taught myself how to use these tools for the very first time:

• Software that generates amortization tables.
• Online compound interest calculators that I calibrated for 1 to 30 years for simulations of interest incurred on debt, and interest earned on investments. Oops, don’t forget to allow for extra deposits and withdrawals in my IRA when I retired.
• Online calculators that could recreate real estate appreciation for the last 20 years in Silicon Valley and predict appreciation for the next 20 years.
• Loan eligibility and approval policies, where they conflicted and agreed, per Fannie Mae, FHA, and HUD, since they were now the overseers and final approvers of HECM reverse mortgages.

If I never have to use these tools again, it will be too soon.

Emerging Victorious

The next morning, I emerged from my study with dark circles under my eyes and a massive headache — all from the calculations, as I hadn’t touched the Jack Daniels.

But I had a spreadsheet with seven columns of “apples-to-apples” calculations and a dollar amount circled at the bottom of each column — with annotations to boot! I now was sure which was the smartest financial choice, even though it went against conventional wisdom.

I presented my findings to anyone willing to listen. My friends and their husbands got lost in the first five minutes, but you can be sure that the lenders vying for commissions wanted to know what my decision was. Of course, they argued with me and challenged my conclusions, but I was ready for them.

Standing my ground, I responded with pure logic. When I showed them the factors I had included in my calculations, they couldn’t refute my conclusions. Either they knew I was right, or they were too intimidated to argue with me.

Despite the headache I had, knowing which solution made the most sense was a huge relief. I moved forward immediately with an action plan that involved a low-balance, low-interest proprietary reverse mortgage.

The Action Plan

I chose not to get a government HECM at this point because of the huge upfront insurance payment required. I planned to sell my house and move in a few months; with another reverse mortgage in my plans, I didn’t want to pay that $15k twice!

Instead, I got a proprietary reverse mortgage now from the mortgage lender, not HUD, and avoided the $15k insurance payment. It was a couple of points higher in interest than a HECM, but avoiding the $15k payment was a no-brainer.

I didn’t expect to have to carry the loan for more than a year, two at most, and I’d switch to a “HECM for Purchase” when I found the city and house I wanted. The higher interest rate for just a few months would not do too much damage.

The amount I’d save in mortgage payments starting now, plus avoiding a $15k fee, plus a good-sized cash-out let me pay off my credit card debt. Woo-hoo!

One of the big reasons I decided reverse mortgages were not works of Satan had to do with Silicon Valley’s home value appreciation rate. My plan might not work for everyone nationwide, but Silicon Valley was unique.

Even if I counted the bank debacle a few years ago and the recent real estate crash, Silicon Valley maintained a 15% annual appreciation rate in home value over the last 20 years. There’s no way 5% interest would accumulate fast enough on a reverse mortgage to outpace that kind of appreciation. My home’s value should stay well ahead of what I’d owe.

No bank was going to get my home.

Even if I lived another 20 years and never moved to the lower-interest HECM, the amortization tables showed that my children would still net around $2M, with my house selling for a projected $3M in 2040, and the bank getting the difference — a million back for their loan, plus interest.

Shattering Self-Limiting Beliefs Changed Me at the Core

Looking back at not only the calculations I performed, but the solid logic that guided me to the right factors to compare, I was amazed at what I had accomplished.

My biggest discovery from tackling this challenge was finding out I was not only capable of solving such a complicated math riddle, but I was good at it — better than all the guys I’d asked to help me.

That discovery was truly mind-blowing. Literally. My skull had to expand to contain the bigger-sized brain I just learned that I had. Even my reflection in the mirror looked different.

Who was I if not that language-centric, “terrible-at-math” person I used to see in the mirror every morning?

With a perfectly capable math brain, I had to drop my self-limiting beliefs and embrace a new identity. I had to face the music — music I’d never heard before.

While I didn’t go hog wild and leave my communications career to become a stock market analyst or an actuary, I stopped apologizing for my weaknesses in math. Turns out I didn’t have any.

Moving Forward with New Confidence

As I took the steps to act on my financial decision, friends warned me I was making a huge mistake, but they were wrong. It turned out to be a great decision. I paid off my credit cards completely, my credit score shot back up to 800, and I even had a few bucks left over to stash in my emergency fund.

What I regret is the opportunities I had passed on throughout my life — all because I lacked confidence in my abilities. Whether it was math, art, gardening, running, or anything else that I was sure I was no good at, today I no longer immediately jump to the same conclusion.

This is a monumental change in my self-image and my wiring. I mean, HUGE!

How huge, you ask?

What Does Stephen Curry Have to Do with It?

The best analogy I can think of comes from basketball. My son and his father excelled at it, but I was too short to play. Or so I believed.

But if tomorrow morning, I woke up to find that my 5’2” body had suddenly grown to 6’7", if 30 years were somehow chopped from my age, and if starring Point Guard Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors called me up, urging me to join him on his basketball team, that would approach the degree of change I experienced inside me.

Everything I ever thought I was lousy at now presents itself as a question to be reassessed. Is it possible I could do that?

Anything is possible if I put my mind to it. And I’m relieved to find out that I have a much better mind — and a much bigger brain — to put to it than I once thought I did.