..to think that having a child who is average is fine. And that having a child who is advanced does not actually reflect upon anyone

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...I have a staggeringly bright boy. i have another boy who has severe SN. I have a DD who is so far so average.
trhey are nice people. they are well mannered and very kind to each other. Loving, polite and affectionate.
I am not responsible for their IQ's - that is down to god the universe and genes .
The bright boy is not nicer than the boy with SN. My gorgeous average little DD is not of less worth than her more able brother.

Why are we all so obsessed with our kids 'smarts as if that is some holy grail bestowing health wealth and happiness.
And why do some of us seem to want to derive some vicarious kudos from the talents that their kids got from god knows where?

When did that start ?
AIBU that a whole generation of parents are going to be looking at their offspring in 20 years time wondering why they are just as averagly happy as everyone else ?

I've got one very clever DS (just landed himself one of those graduate jobs with amazing pay) and an averagely able DS who struggles through exams. But DS2 is tremendously popular in a quiet way and is a good reliable worker and I know he will do very well and be happy even though he will never get all the As and A*s that his big brother has. MIL, of course, once commented on him when he was struggling with school work "we never had any problems in our family". Well if he is a reflection of my family's character, I am very pleased!

Elasticwoman makes a very good point about what counts as a fulfilling life. I think the main problem we have as parents is that we tend to see a fulfilling life as a life that would be fulfilling to us, or, to be more specific, the life we have found fulfilling.

So those in high earning or status conferring jobs tend (if they are happy themselves) to think of those jobs as the fulfilling ones, those of us in the professions tend to think of only the professions as interesting (are you telling me there's a fulfilling life to be had outside of the field of medieval manuscripts???), those with artistic/creative jobs no doubt do the same. Which is not to say that our dc's will all have the same definitions.

My (very intelligent) nephew is currently training to be a carpenter. He finds it fascinating and I see no reason why this should not open up a great many interesting career paths- perhaps more so than if he had done a PhD in Medieval Numismatics.

I imagine being an electrician could also be very interesting.

Not only could being an electrician be interesting, it might also be useful. My dh and I are both educated to postgraduate level and neither of us could stop the bloody burglar alarm when it went off suddenly in the middle of the night due to electrical problems, until I rang the police and they advised getting the battery out.

I thought we were perhaps an unusually impractical pair, until I spoke to my friend a doctor married to another doctor, and they had a similar incident.

I said I didn't mind what they did but I was pleased daughter 2 picked something I thought would be well paid and fun and intellectually challenging. Also there is more stress at lower levels. Tehr is a myth that senior managers have more. It's not true. If you look at the statistics its people without power, who don't contorl their hours, who might be sacked at moment's notie, who queue to get casual work at 6am in the cold, who don't know how they will pay the next bill who have more stress and more heart attacks, Therefore if our children pick work where some of those stresses and lack of power are removed they will be happier.

In addition the ability to work for yourself to some extent in future can also be useful for children. My father (who died yesterday actually, see other thread, and it was very expected) he was able to practise psychiatry an did a range of things including NHS work but also lots of other work on his own account. That gave him more power than being a pawn at the hands of low grade NHS managers.

We have to accept surely that in this society we live in if your child empties the bins or even is a plumber there is not the status that some other jobs have and that some children will prefer to be in jobs with a higher status because we live in a status ridden society, the whole planet does, even people in jungles have status, biggest spear, penis gourd or whatever

I didn't imagine you were the sort of woman to dwell on penis gourds, Xenia. Sorry to hear of your loss. May his spirit comfort you, even as you mourn.

My brother is an accountant running his own business. Until he had a heart attack at age 43, he smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day at least. Being the boss has its own stresses.

I think it's endemic within humankind that we seek out the best man to breed with, the better more successful mate in all cultures and at all times otherwise we would never have developed as a species. Every attempt to change that whether through communism at state level or communes at nidividual level has largely failed although I expect a few nuns, buddhist monks and people who opt out of society manage to achieve it to some extent but look at any convent, any commune and you'll see the same jockeying for power, attempt to be top dog etc patterns emerging.

(I think I mourned my father 3 or 4 years ago when he was lost to dementia - so it is not quite as sad as other deaths might have been)

how did we get from average children to penis gourds?

Kew, surprised it took us so long

Agree with Xenia.
We all want to procreate/marry the best.
Whatever your definition of the best is:
most paternal/will look after you/ most money/ good businessman/ best husband material/ biggest cock ( not meaning twat, more biggest donger/ whatever else is important to you.

Oblomov - agree, my personal "best" (man, lifestyle, job etc) is not someone else's, there is not one societal pyramid but many...

one of the richest and most contented women i know from school was one of the most 'average' school girls you can imagine. not clever, or pushed, from an ordinary northern family. my 'gifted' middle-class peer group all piano lessons and university amibition thought she was awful, laughed about how she would have a baby at 16 etc etc. Turns out that she was amazing at hairdressing, and also a business wizz - now has a chain of salons! none of the 'clever' set from school have done half as well as she has by age 30. as a parent i think it's important to encourage your childs natural aptitudes, but also to coax them into being confident well-rounded adults capable of living their own lives.

Clearly I don't agree with year 1 social prejudices! As I wear glasses and DH wears glasses, obviously I don't want to promote a negative glass wearing attitude. But children pick out whatever they want to. I am currently battling with my DD because she says "every girl in nursery wears pretty dresses" which i think is highly impractical and managed to get DD to 3yrs without any dresses at all. DS said to me, that xx in his class could not be in the "cool" gang because if he was in a fight he would break his glasses (which I hasten to add I did not let go unchallenged). I myself hated wearing my glasses (got them from 7 onwards) and refused until it was obvious it was of dire necessity. Children can be quite cruel - they pick on every difference they can find.

I wore glasses from a young age, I can remember being shy with them the first time, but no one ever made a thing about it. My youngest DS is the only one of my children to wear glasses and it has never stopped him being popular.Personality is far more important.

So are you saying that it must be the child who is picked on's fault for not being popular enough, or loud enough? Well that makes it ok then...

I don't understand this last point. Are you saying that it is OK to pick on a DC becasue their ears stick out or they wear glasses and the personality has nothing to do with it? I would far rather that they looked below the surface. If a DC is overbearing and bossy they are not going to be popular, if they are spiteful they are not going to be popular, if their behaviour is off the wall they are not going to be popular, if they can't share they are going to be unpopular etc etc.They can do something about this, they can't alter their physical appearance.

No...why would i be saying that? My kids get jip because they have ginger hair...how does that imply they are mean or nasty? No, kids do not always look below the surface. If your child is very popular they most likely won't get picked on whether they wear glasses, have a brace, or are a first class bully. If your child is not one of the 'in' crowd, they will get picked on for anything, and a brace/glasses/extra weight will make people really notice.

It depends if you want to be one of the 'in crowd' in the first place. I have never wanted to be; those not in the 'in crowd' are usually far more interesting. You can still get on well with people. I was shy, had a brace at one stage, have worn glasses from around 12 yrs and hated games.I have always had a circle of friends and have not been picked on.Perhaps I have just been lucky. I remember the mother of one of my DS friends saying that she didn't want him to move schools when it looked likely around 14 yrs because he had ginger hair and his ears stuck out and she thought he might get bullied in a new place. He didn't have to move in the end; he had never had a problem through his school life and was a very popular boy-she just thought he could have a problem.I still think that personality is more important. I know a real 'pin up' looking 11 yr old boy, he has just been excluded from school because of his behaviour.He was not liked because he was dominating and could physically hurt other children.

I still think you are misunderstanding what i am saying. I agree that personality is more important than looks as a quality...but you can be a nice person and still unfortunately get bullied. Some kids see intelligence as something to pick on, some people screw with the quiet kids because they don't fight back. Maybe also depends on your attitude and your reaction to name-calling in the first place.

I think the popularity thing is really unfair, but that it's not necessarily about ginger hair or glasses. Some people just have a natural knack of making friends, even though they themselves may not be conscious crowd pleasers or have any desire to join an in-crowd. My MIL is one of these people; she makes friends with the most unlikely people, because of something undefinable in the way she is. As it so happens, she is also a very lovely person, but I am sure there are others equally lovely who just don't have her knack.

Dd takes after her; she has got away with being incontinent in class at junior school, amongst other equally uncool things; noone has ever been unkind to her about it. I was bullied at school for what still seems like much smaller things- but then I didn't have her bubbliness and knack of getting to know people. Or indeed her interest in people. All that comes from MIL.

So at least I followed Xenia's advice- I picked some good genes for procreation

I think that cory has the answer. Life is unfair, it is just the way that it is. You can have ginger hair, brace and glasses in one place and be popular-you could move and get picked on. Some people have the knack of everyone wanting to be their friend. You can be a lovely child and get picked on.I have rather lost track of the original point! Except that probably none of it relects on you. Some DCs are born musical,some are born with a mathematical brain, some are natural runners, some have an inbuilt knack of making friends, some have poor eyesight, some are naturally bossy etc etc you just have to make the best of it-and it isn't fair. You can be very brainy and the most popular DC in the class or you could be bullied because of it. You can wear glasses and be the most popular DC in the class or you could get picked on.

Now i agree