|
First children are smarter—But why?
"Those born earlier perform better in school"—and according to a new study, it's because of the parents.
Moms and dads simply go easy on their later-born kids, according to data analyzed by economists V. Joseph Hotz and Juan Pantano, and as a result, first-born children tend to receive both the best parenting and the best grades.
The first thing to say about a study like this is that lots of readers will reflexively disagree with the assumption. With kids, as with anything, shouldn't practice make perfect? Don't parents get richer into their 30s and 40s, providing for better child-rearing resources? I'm a first child, myself, well-known within the family for being unorganized, forgetful, periodically disheveled, and persistently caught day-dreaming in the middle of conversations. For this reason, I've put stock in what you might call the First Pancake Theory of Parenting. In short: First pancakes tend to come out a little funny, and, well, so did I. And so do many first-borns.
But international surveys of birth orders and behavior (which might have offered me an empirical excuse to behave this way) aren't doing me any favors. First borns around the world, it turns out, have higher IQs, perform better in school, and are considered more accomplished by their parents. Looking at parent evaluations of children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in 1979, the researchers found that mothers are much more likely to see their first children as high-achievers. They regard their subsequent children as considerably more average in their class
根据一个新调查显示“家庭中更早出生的孩子一般会比他们的弟弟妹妹在学校里表现得好”，并且原因有可能就在于他们的父母。
根据经济学家约瑟夫霍茨和胡安分析得知父母在照顾第二个孩子时总是更得心应手，不像第一个孩子时那么紧张和小心翼翼。因此，家庭中长子总是会受到父母更精心的照顾并且在学校中也能得到很好的成绩。
一看到这个命题的研究，大多数读者一定会对其表示质疑。对于照顾孩子或是其他的事情来说，难道不是越来越熟练吗？父母从三十到四十的过程中，难道不是越来越富有，并且所提供给孩子的物质条件不是会越来越好吗？我是长子，我自己在家庭中开始时总是被照顾得不是太有条理，甚至有些凌乱。甚至在与父母沟通交流中有一种不真实的感觉。就是因为这个原因，我相信你所说的这个关于父母的“第一个煎饼”的理论，也就是说，我们在第一次做煎饼时，总是手忙脚乱的。就像我当时被我的父母所照顾的时候一样。我想其他那些跟我一样在家里是第一个孩子也是一样的感受吧。
但是根据非常可靠的国际出生调查表中所显示的数据消息，跟我的预期是不一样的。世界上出生的第一个孩子，据调查来看，相比其他的孩子，都有更高的智商，并且通常在学校里能表现的更好，现在让我们看看1979年关于父母对于孩子表现的纵向数据，调查者发现母亲都偏向认为她们的第一个孩子的能力更好，或是更希望她们的第一个孩子能够更有能力，或是她们认为她们的幼子在学校里大多表现得一般般。
|
