Is There a Maternal Intelligence?

For decades, some feminists spread the prejudice that motherhood “dulls” women, because they have to center their daily lives on the routine of breastfeeding, changing diapers, making baby food, washing clothes and so on.

That is what the distinguished investigative journalist Katherine Ellison, a Pulitzer Prize winner, used to think. She married late so as “not to get dull too soon,” and after giving birth at 38 and 41 she found out for herself that instead of getting duller she was getting smarter.

That was when she decided to write a book on the subject, The Mommy Brain, in which she shows, drawing on recent scientific research and her own experience as a mother, that motherhood really does help stimulate women’s intelligence, because it confronts them with new challenges and the need to resolve new situations.

I wonder what Katherine Ellison would write if she studied Venezuelan mothers and grandmothers, who, besides dealing with the everyday things all mothers face, have to deal with hundreds of “external” problems they have to solve. (To our exemplary “all-terrain” Venezuelan mothers and grandmothers, as I call them, I offer this article for Mother’s Day.)

The book’s motto is “Having a child improves your brain.” Of course, she explains that she doesn’t use that motto so that readers will rush irresponsibly into having children, but to give back to families, and above all to mothers, the social and neurological prestige they have been publicly denied.

Ellison says, in essence, that she never felt more misunderstood and undervalued than when she left her job for a few years to raise her son. People around you insist that you are wasting your talent, she says, but they are wrong, and that cultural attitude is one of the main causes of the state of the world today. Anthropologists, neuroscientists and plain common sense, she argues, show that attached, hands-on parenting is essential for children, and that it also changes our brains, making us more competent at the business of living, professional skills included: our biochemistry is activated and floods us with hormones that make us sharper, more efficient, more resilient, more motivated and more sociable.

That is why, she says, having a child is the best MBA in the world and should count double on the résumé of both men and women, as long as they really raise the child and don’t just give a bath at night and read a “quality” bedtime story. In her book she looks at five different kinds of “smart”: perceptiveness, the ability to cope with stress, motivation, efficiency and emotional intelligence. All of them matter for a person to survive and thrive, and all of them, in some way, grow with motherhood. The committed, demanding training of motherhood gives a woman a great capacity to meet deadlines, juggle many tasks, find creative solutions to problems, cope with constant interruptions and stay calm in the middle of a crisis. Having a child, she says, is a school.

The book is truly fascinating because it is full of lively, funny stories about today’s mothers, interpreted in light of the latest scientific findings. It describes breastfeeding wonderfully and the emotional and physical benefits it brings to mother and baby. It breaks real paradigms. One surprising example is when it shows scientifically how household chores develop intelligence (because they use all five senses at once). And this from a Pulitzer Prize winner!

It is a practical and innovative book on a subject of capital importance in the lives of many women and of society, because, as many people say, it is the woman who makes the family and holds it together.

Unfortunately this wonderful book is not currently available in Venezuela, but those who are interested can look for more information on the Internet, since the author has given several public interviews.

We really have to thank this journalist mother for describing, and backing up with scientific research, the work of dedication and love that millions of women around the world carry out “quietly and tirelessly.”