Motherhood makes Women Smarter

I am so thrilled by this article I wrote that I have decided to blog about it. So many times I have heard comments like 'after giving birth, your memory seemed to have failed..', "Becoming a mother makes you do things slower hor??" However, research has shown that motherhood does make women smarter. Haha!

The research studies broke down the word 'smart' into five attributes: perception, efficiency, resiliency, motivation, and emotional intelligence. Each category is supported by many animal studies as well as some human studies showing ways in which mothers have an edge.

The first category, perception, deals primarily with the five senses. One of the most interesting studies showed pregnant women had sharper "visual acuity" than women who weren't expecting. By that I don't mean they suddenly had 20/20 vision but they do notice a lot more. Studies show that pregnant women also have an enhanced sense of smell, which theoretically serves to protect the unborn baby from foods that are potentially harmful. Wow. This is what I call 'amazing'.

Other findings show that mothers can experience a boost in motivation, fearlessness, and the ability to multi-task and cope with stress. There's also exciting new research suggesting that oxytocin — a hormone important to labor and breastfeeding — improves moms' capacity for learning and memory.

Emotional intelligence is probably the clearest category in which mothers benefit, though. One of the biggest brain boosts for moms is the ability to see the world through someone else's eyes. In so many relationships, if you don't agree with a person you can just walk away. But you can't walk away from your child. At least, not if you want to be a good parent. Instead, you've got to stretch your mind to understand his or her point of view.

People's expectation that mothers are "less smart" after we had children can make us feel as though we're going to accomplish less in life as a mother than I otherwise might as a childless woman. So I refuse to be bathed in this kind of low-level demoralising theory. The truth is I am SMARTER because I've given birth!

And all the mothers say.... AMEN! hahaha..