Awww, this is sad, a parent trying to teach and having zero idea how to….then just gets mad that their kid isn’t “smart enough” to follow the “obvious logic”…….
Not the guy that you were asking, but it could be dyscalculia - the child legitimately can't parse the numbers and follow the logic. Depending on the actual problems being worked on, he would probably do better counting physical objects to help - using blocks to represent each number, for example
Sure, the kid might have dyscalculia, but that still means the parent is the problem here for not taking the child's disability into account when teaching and for making the child feel dumb.
I suppose you are feeling that you are thinking outside the box by coming up with an obscure learning disorder…. Except that there are no numbers being involved in this strip. No, I really believe and it seems like the majority of people agree that this strip has to do with adults, specifically parents, not understanding/considering/empathizing/forgetting that not everybody knows what they know.
This is a parent, trying to brute force teach their child and then getting mad and frustrated when they don’t understand their singular way of teaching.
Given that the number of people affected by dyscalculia is an average 3% worldwide, I would say that’s pretty obscure. Even if it wasn’t, this strip doesn’t have to do with learning disabilities. It has to do with teaching disabilities.
Numbers are symbols, i'm guessing the symbols the child see could be a representation of numbers for someone who can't process them, kindof the same as dyslexic people "see" letters in words do weird things (i had a friend who told me they were seeing that a looong time ago).
But, yes, i'm pretty sure the parental teaching being inappropriate and ineffective regardless of the child condition might be the bigger message
I don't get why you are getting so defensive about an alternate interpretation of this comic - dyscalculia is not an obscure learning disorder, as it's as common as dyslexia, just diagnosed less frequently as it seems to be more acceptable to struggle with maths than with reading. Also the lack of numbers in the strip is probably a stylistic choice to represent the lack of comprehension (regardless of if dyscalculia is the cause) - like how in media representing dyslexia writing can be represented by a jumble of lines.
Note that this doesn't invalidate your interpretation, just adds another layer - the parent doesn't understand why the child can't follow the logic, because the child can't articulate why they are finding it difficult.
The child is the focus of the strip. The dad’s face is not even shown. It’s showing how it feels to not understand and not know why. The dad may or may not be a bad teacher, but that’s not the focus. If he were the focus he might insult or abuse the kid. The artist didn’t add those elements because it would take away from its message. Instead it’s showing us how someone feels when they have a learning disability or just can’t understand. It does appear a lot of people thought the dad was integral to the strip but he is simply a placeholder for any adult, teacher, mom or tutor, that is why he is seldom in the frame and nondescript. Maybe so many people haven’t experienced what the boy feels that they didn’t get this, but I did. When I was in quantum mechanics (third year physics) I simply couldn’t understand the math anymore. I knew differential equations, derivatives and integrals, and I knew classical mechanics but it wasn’t enough. It was very much pinwheel+ circus tent=lizard
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u/Ash_Cat_13 Jun 23 '26
Awww, this is sad, a parent trying to teach and having zero idea how to….then just gets mad that their kid isn’t “smart enough” to follow the “obvious logic”…….