Multiplication is elementary school math which doesn't require any thinking and the learned approach is simple. You can't really compare the simple stuff that's taught to kids, like basic multiplication or riding a bike with stuff that requires domain-specific knowledge and experience.

Think more stuff like "find the angle of lines defined by (x-4y-1=0) and (x-y-2=0)", "write the number 2026 in base 7", "solve an equation sin^2(x) - sin(x) = 0".

I plucked these from our country's high school final exam from this year. Back when I was in high school, I did mine in 60 minutes without an error when the time limit is 150 minutes and I intuitively immediately knew how to approach each task since the moment I saw it. Also all needed formulas are supplied, you don't need to remember any of them.

I plucked these because for these I don't have the immediate "know how" now, I still understand the topics, and could solve them with enough time, but it would require some thinking and thus I would be slower at solving them than when I was in high school, even though I'm pretty sure I could still ace it in the 150 minute time limit.

But reality goes beyond high schoool... College-level math, like derivations/integrations, sums, algebraic proofs, is even harder and solving some of them could take me hours when I could do them in minutes when I was in college.

With code it's the same. I could solve simple Python/Pascal/C++ high school level tasks as fast or faster than when I was in high school, even if I didn't write any code for a couple of years. But we also had assembly class in college, and I would struggle at assembly if I had to code it now, 10+ years later, even though I didn't struggle with it back then.