There’s a common phrase, you’ve probably heard it, maybe you’ve said it. To some, it’s a common refrain from most of the world, to others it’s by far one of the most annoying and purely wrong statements that everyone seems to say: I’m bad at math. Maybe thats not the statement, maybe its: I never liked math or: I was never good at math. It doesn’t matter which variant you use, please stop saying it. Stop saying it for your children, or your country, or yourself, just please stop saying it.
Why do I say that. You look back at middle and high school with some vague recollection of y=mx+b or you look back at college with some scary recollection of:
Hell, maybe seeing that gave you some flashbacks! Well, if you agree to continue reading, I agree to hold off on the “scary” math, I promise.
Lets start off with your concern: growing up, math was hard. Now, there can be many factors to blame for this. Possibly the first part is math really is not taught well. I remember teachers who couldn’t explain to me most of what they were teaching.
Example:
We should we care about 
The reason (definitely not the answer I got): This is a very important constant that comes up almost everywhere. It describes an important ratio. We can’t explicitly write down most numbers (and there IS a mathematically rigorous definition of most). But we can use it for symbolic manipulation. That being said, what is the number 2 but a simple we use to represent an idea?
So first, we probably had several incompetent teachers. They tried, but they probably didn’t get a full education in math, just some basic math courses and a degree in teaching. They aren’t trained to understand, so why would they?
Then, who’s going to help you with math? Do you know who helped me? I can tell you the moment I understood algebra, the moment it went from vague abstract nonsense. I was at my dads work, The Beverage Warehouse, working on my homework (my Dad is also friends with the owners). Now, a lot of college students do part time work, even some math majors! They tutored me, and after working on several problems, and getting excellent explanations, it just clicked!
To my parents, math is hard. But I had some people who were able to work with me on problems, explain what was going on, and then it wasn’t so hard. If you’re a parent, you owe it to your child to not say math is hard, but to work through it with them. Then, maybe they won’t think its hard!
Lets continue. I’m a software engineer. Lots of people say: “Software engineers don’t use math!” Oh yes we do. Math isn’t about this 
Finally, lets deal with the election. We have scientists discrediting mathematical models. Those are for the liberal elites, confusing us with the evil MATH!!! Well, I can tell you it’s HARD. I don’t understand that complex systems stuff, but if you take some time you can learn, and then you understand. This idea that a subject is hard, we don’t understand, and we should ignore it’s practitioners is harming our society. It’s giving an US VS THEM, the KNOWS vs DON’T KNOWS.
I believe it starts when an adult tells there kids: I’m not good at math, its hard.
I think, maybe, it ends in disdain…
experimentalprogramming 
I can definitely say that I have trouble executing advanced math. Long division is utterly gone, for instance. I could probably have done with some more explicit outlining of what we were actually DOING. I know a bit about sine, cosine, and tangent, but not what they ARE or DO. Just how to use them in very specific circumstances.
We don’t use most of the stuff that we’re taught in high school math, but I don’t think that’s an issue. High school is to introduce humans to the fundamental parts of our civilization, and maybe spark someone’s interest in a subject. But you can’t really spark a kid’s interest if you can’t really explain what you’re teaching.
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