You do have a point, but I wonder what's behind that 'love in math' you're talking about. I tend to think that curiosity is the only basic character trait needed to fall in love with something as basic as math, grammar, music or physics. However, the way this kind of love is triggered doesn't necessarily correspond to how it is taught in lower classes. At least when I went to primary school in the 90ies, 'math' was really just numerical algorithms (which are IMO not at the root of what math is, it's just one sub field). What can it be applied to in our daily lives? (considering someone doesn't take a higher math education) Knowing the price total in supermarkets, that's about it.
Couldn't we include symbolic math at a much earlier age? Children enjoy the building block properties of Legos starting at age 7 I'd say. How about we give them basic problem solving tools in math at age 10? I think we need to bring the potential feeling of achievement with mathematical tools to a much lower age. That could be geometry or color theory or basic physics (calculations with distance, velocity and time as an example).
I can only speak for myself but for me, the fact that math did not have any daily life application was one of the greatest reason to love it.
I despised physics even if I was fairly good at it. I considered physics was taking pure math virgin to a mud field and raped her there with "daily life" problems.
I understand what you mean, I think I'm wired in a similar way. However I'm skeptical whether you can spead that kind of 'love' to a wider audience without coming from the applied side of things. I believe the power to describe some daily live phenomenon in a mathematical model and then use mathematical tools to predict behavior could be a very eye opening experience for many children - and I think we could design exercises that follow such a path, even with very basic algebraic tools.
Simultaneously we could also come from the other end - describing a new world in a structured language (programming) - in order to awaken desires to learn new expressions. I remember, when I was a kid I wanted to program an 'Asteroids' clone, but I couldn't get the flying behavior quite right. I was excited when I learned about vector geometry - finally I had the tool I need to model that.
I see also what you mean, but this might apply more to programming or physics than to math. Being completely "useless" is a feature, not a bug, for math (and poetry, music, metaphysics, astronomy). Pure speculation or useless braingames is a thing many humans enjoy, see Rubix-cube or Sudoku.
Couldn't we include symbolic math at a much earlier age? Children enjoy the building block properties of Legos starting at age 7 I'd say. How about we give them basic problem solving tools in math at age 10? I think we need to bring the potential feeling of achievement with mathematical tools to a much lower age. That could be geometry or color theory or basic physics (calculations with distance, velocity and time as an example).