Does having children increase your IQ ?

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Member for

14 years

Posts: 4,996

Is it true that having children increases your IQ ?

It must be, as I've lost count of the number of times my sister and others have
said to us "Well you wouldn't know as you don't have children"

Original post

Member for

13 years

Posts: 422

A neat, wry, observation on life, with which I concur; but if taken apart and examined is fundamentally flawed.

First it confuses 'knowledge' with 'intelligence'. Certainly having children increases parents knowledge as they too have to re-learn long forgotten tasks, say long multiplication, over again and expose themselves to situations and places like museums that they would not otherwise revisit. On the other hand (providing I recall my education theory of 40 years ago correctly) I.Q. mathematically inevitably reduces with age, as age is taken into consideration in the computation of test results and producing the IQ score.

I still do like the life observation though!

Member for

14 years

Posts: 4,996

As you no doubt realized, my post was (slightly) tongue in cheek.

We didn't have children by choice, but it must be upsetting for those unable to have children, to
be constantly reminded of the fact. With friends and family telling how well their children are doing.