It is harder to have a family the more intelligent you are?

[TheTribe]

I remember reading that more intelligent women are not having children. Is this choice or not do you think? Should we be encouraging smart people to have children in some way? I saw idiocracy...

www.mic.com/articles/58579/women-without-children-aren-t-selfish-they-re-smart

Turn it the other way round. If I didn't become a mother and took time off work for my family. I continued to progress my career, I would appear to be "intelligent" too because I would be at the top of the career ladder.

Of course it isn't "harder to have children" if you are intelligent, that akin to Victorians thinking educating girls damages their reproductive systems.

Being intelligent and educated gives you more choices in life. Of course, you might choose to delay having children until after the age of 35 which may make things more difficult. My IQ is >140 and I had children very easily at the age of 29 and then 33. Educating women is the solution to having a smaller global population.

What is less often mentioned is that men's sperm counts have gone down massively. Men are producing fewer sperm and are less fertile. Perhaps we should stop sending them to university, clearly it is damaging their testes said no-one ever. Yet people come out with this shit in relation to women all the time.

Where I live it certainly equates to people leaving school, not working, not doing higher education, whacking out a load of kids they can’t afford or want to bring up properly, so the cycle continues for another generation.

It was said before that career success is not the same as intelligence. I think people are getting that confused. Some careers, yes you need to be intelligent - anything that creates new ideas and thoughts that have not existed before. Other careers, lets say banking, you can be successful, but do you really need to be intelligent? Higher than average intelligence maybe but not super smart.

I read ages ago about a study which showed organic farmers had a higher sperm count than other similar Danish men.

There is a career idea!

I find this subject a difficult one to quantify as intelligence is extremely variable. In that a person can be extremely well educated but not intelligent emotionally (just one example).

Also I find it a little odd that statistics can be provided without meeting every woman who has chosen to have children and measure their ‘intelligence’ individually.

My IQ is rather high, but I’m dyslexic and discalculic, so to most I appear less intelligent. Also I read a study regarding IQ and it’s representation of actual intelligence and the suggestion was that, whilst they can help gauge certain aspects of cognitive function, they are not able to deduce a person’s individual intelligence.

I do wonder why the need to compare those who don’t have children to those who do, exists. It is by choice either way (in the context of this conversation, I don’t want to minimilise those who aren’t able to conceive).

Also, whilst Idiocracy is a fun film it is not a documentary (I know you know that) I have seen extremely bright children come from families who do no fit the ‘intelligent’ image.

My own Mum who is rather softly spoken comes across to many as less intelligent than her children, my MIL once joked that my sister and I must have been swapped at birth. I corrected her and said that “just because she doesn’t speak in the same way as Dsis and I, does not mean she is stupid. She’s actually very clever, just not in a way that can be displayed or measured by a stranger who barely knows her.”

Part of me wants to believe a lower level of education doesn't necessarily mean someone is less intelligent, less capable of reasoned thought, less rational

But then I look at the correlation between education levels and Remain/Leave voters and I want to smack my head on the wall repeatedly

Oh god. I either hope this isn’t the case, or I am at least an outlier (GSCE level education, voted remain and have a fairly high IQ)

I saw an argument for the intelligence level of left vs right wing political views. The argument involved looking at all newspapers available, whether they are right or left leaning, and the quality of the journalism. There are far more high brow papers that are left leaning or centre, and far more low brow reading on the right (think of the Star, and the daily mail)
Draw from that what you will.

Intelligence makes being a good parent difficult.

Of the most intelligent women I know, their children tend to be raised by somebody else.

Raising children is dull domestic work.

I wonder if there's a correlation between general intelligence and mental health, which has a knock-on effect on the number of children. I recall reading somewhere that there is definitely a link between genius-level IQ and increased mental health disorders. Having children is a hugely disrupting factor and many well-educated women may choose to limit the number as a preemptive measure for their own mental health.

I'm university educated and fairly intelligent/successful by society's standards. However I've always suffered from anxiety and panic disorder due to overthinking and overanalysing, which tipped into PND after the relentless grind of taking care of a baby and very little help from a work obsessed and mostly absent DH (who is a doctor though, so more anecdotal evidence for this thread).

I love DD to bits but cannot imagine having a second. One thing that always troubled me is the potential for suffering in this world (crime, accidents, climate change, economics etc). I know it makes no statistical sense but I feel that one child is easier to "keep safe", but having more almost seems like tempting fate. I marvel at huge families and the a sense of blitheness or obliviousness that every child will grow up happy and healthy.

Looking at my friends, I’d definitely say the ones of higher intelligence appear to have a harder time adapting to motherhood...

I think it is hard adapting if you like things a certain way. Or yiu had believed the narrative that kids do as they are told.
You think babies sleep. That kid's dont touch things you tell them not to. That you can have labour pain relief. It is rather shock to be unimportant.
There are good things but tbh it's mostly a bit of a lie so i can see why many now dont bother. Previous generations would have known more what raing kids was like due to numbers of siblings. I didnt hardly see and only held a baby once before having one.

More intelligent women (taking a wide definition of intelligence) are more likely to be better educated and therefore have more choices open to them than less intelligent women. So it makes sense.

Raising children is dull domestic work

^^That's an opinion. Personally I didn't find it so and I meet all standard definitions of "intelligent".

Meh, most jobs are pretty dull, regardless of status or pay. I thoroughly enjoyed raising my four. Much more fun than my stressful high paid job.

Or perhaps I’m thicker than my qualifications would suggest.

Either way I’m happy with my choices.

Most women I know at the top of the career ladder have kids. They had them late thirties - early forties but it’s usually a maximum of 2 and done and those at the very top only take 3 months maternity leave per child.

Of the most intelligent women I know, their children tend to be raised by somebody else.

Having professional childcare does not make you a bad parent. HTH.