Want Smarter Kids? Space Them (At Least) Two Years Apart | Hacker News Reader

Want Smarter Kids? Space Them (At Least) Two Years Apart

freakonomics.com

118 pointsmikeleeorg62 comments

If time and attention really are the determining factors, maybe we parents should just chuck our smartphones and tablets for the first 5 years.

I'm only partly joking. I ditched my iPhone after my 2-year-old started saying, "Dadda, put your phone down! Come play!". It's relegated to my office now.

On a recent road trip I showed my toddler how to watch model train videos on my iPhone through YouTube. Big mistake! he wants to use the phone more than me now. I think it's because he can choose another train video after one finishes. He became the master of his own domain. My phone is now locked in the office as well :)

In fact, if one has sufficient savings and has no worries about career, quitting the full-time job also makes a lot of time/energy for the kids. That's pretty drastic, but I'd consider it myself in the future.

I've just spent two years bringing up my daughter (and iPhone apps on the side at night), whilst my wife works.

Highly recommended, if you can swing it, at least once.

Now, how to get back in the work-force...

You can go back as a consultant for ios development.

If only I had the social skills!

Yeah, hopefully something will turn up. I'm actually not that bad. I worked in an consulting shop for 4 years and commuted across the US every week.

A middle road is working from home on your own startup/bootstrapped company, or even just freelance work. You might forgo income and career advancement, but you may just reap the rewards of more success with your children.

I'm not suggesting you're falling for this mistake but working from home does not equal being a stay-at-home parent.

If you're concentrating on a startup or freelance work then you're not giving your kids your attention. It's not enough to be there, it's better than not being there but don't fool yourself that you're bringing them up just because you're in the same building more often.

Ahhhh freakonomics, meaninglessness-mass-market-pseudo-data-into-linkbait at its finest!

Their read is that "Smarter" kids = Math and Science test scores.

Is that how you measure "smart"?

- What about musically smart?

- What about non-linear thinking (classic entrepreneur trait)?

- What about decision making capabilities?

Freakonmics is link-bait data drivel that, due to its mass appeal, is dangerously influential.

It gets under my skin because you'll often see Freakonomics data repeated as "truth" in the media or in casual conversation.

Truth is not their product.

So in other words, it is not responsible to ever use the word "smart" in a headline?

The first paragraph of the article is in conflict with the headline:

"The positive effects were seen only in older siblings, not in younger ones."

So the headline is false.

Your "kids" won't be smarter.

But maybe the older one will be.

Then the rest of the article just fills space.

It's linkbait, which is my expectation with anything from Freakonomics.

My problem is that their headlines are disseminated as gospel and repeated verbatim thousands or millions of times, until that headline becomes a truth.

And winds up in a parenting book.

And causes somebody to make a decision based on false data.

Maybe I have too active an imagination, but this just gets under my skin.

So to update the headline to your (very reasonable) criteria:

"Study: Oldest children test scores higher when 2+ years older"

Your imagination is just fine. My mind went there too! This is just an entertainment fluff piece. I think I'm spending too much time on HN as I'm starting to feel like a lot of crap is getting on the front page. Who can I blame but the people who submit and then up vote it. So if that's who is to blame then maybe HN is getting diluted. or maybe I'm becoming elitist? Or I'd better get off here for a but and find something to do :)

It may be more responsible to use more exact terms like "academic performance" or "test scores" in headlines.

Personally, I find all of the focus on doing things to make one's children "smart" to be kind of creepy.

I don't find it creepy at all. Some people can obsess and that's not cool. My family always placed a high importance on intelligence. Not grades or test scores but real intelligence and thirst for knowledge. So when I'm ready to make some kids I really want them to be smart and I know I'll end up putting a lot of effort into making sure they are more intelligent than I am and then everyone else as much as I can without hurting the kid or giving him a complex.

There is a difference between what your family did and the deluge of plastic toys that play 8 bars of Mozart with the promise of making your children smarter.

Go shopping for infant toys sometime, you will see what I mean.

It seems that there should be a correlation between scores and what people consider as smart. People identify smart easily, just as they identify dumb. Someone must have done the statistics.

Do to lactational amenorrhea, mothers who breast feed their kids until age 2 (as the World Health Organization recommends) are much less likely to get pregnant again quickly enough to have kids spaced less than two years apart.

Considering that breast feeding (at all) is correlated with an 8 point IQ increase on average, the above could completely explain the study's findings.

Could be, but I bet the amount of people who breastfeed their kids for 2 years is dwarfed by the amount of people who don't, but due to chance have kids 2+ years apart.

Could be, but b/c gestation takes 9 months breast feeding would only have to take place for 13 months for lactational amenorrhea to result in the 2 year spacing.

Based on a quick google search of breastfeeding rates, in the US 25% of women who breast feed do so until 12 months, which may be enough to create the difference noted in the study.

We already know that children from larger families generally have lower educational attainment and IQ scores, worse employment outcomes, and are more likely to engage in risky behavior.

Has the direction of causation been determined? Do children from large rich families do worse than children from small rich families? (Also: the paper linked on the words "educational attainment" in the original article seems to contradict this quotation in its abstract: "First, neither birth order nor childhood family size significantly influences the level or growth rate of wages..."[0])

[0] http://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlabec/v9y1991i4p413-26.html

The paper in the link includes an instrumental variable model to look at exogenously caused birth spacing (caused by miscarriages). So if the model does what the abstract says it does, then that pins down the direction of causation to some extent.

Of course to be really sure you'd need to take a closer look and probably do more research.

Some people are looking for meaning in everything. Perhaps they do that enough they start seeing patterns.

Not saying that the study is bogus, it might well be true (e.g. the older child becomes a role model for the younger and thus tries harder or something similar), and while I like this age we live now many seemingly random things can be explained, I think it's good to stay skeptical and take such results with a grain of salt. Some people might draw conclusions that are not beneficial (for themselves and society as a whole).

Just saying, now back to work.

The trouble with these articles is that they actually affect some folks' lives. No doubt, for years to come, there will be couples sitting there and planning out how they want to space their families based on a half-remembered article that they read in the New York Times one day about how they'll ruin their kids' lives if they're spaced less than three years apart. Some of these couples will no doubt go on to delay their second child until they wind up infertile. Others will probably delay their second child until they're so old that the second child winds up with Down's syndrome (that being vastly more common for older than younger mothers). And basically, it's just another one of those random factors that really don't matter much for middle-class parents to agonize over (while lower-class parents keep pumping out a dozen crack babies to get more welfare).

Since crack babies don't exist, but black people have been have been the majority of people incarcerated for crack related offenses (though they are not the majority of crack users), I'm assuming that you're just awkwardly trying to specify black people?

http://www.nationalreviewofmedicine.com/issue/2005/07_30/2_f...

Don't know whether to upvote for the informative link or downvote for the unwarranted accusation of racism.

That's a fascinating article. Thank you for sharing.

What says fits for any ethnic group you can mention, with the possible exception that white trash is more likely hooked on meth.

I just about upvoted you until you threw in that last parenthetical comment.

Aw geez folks, are we getting so offended nowadays over a flippant piece of exaggeration?

No, not all poor people are pumping out a dozen crack babies. But they do seem to find it possible to have children in rather inauspicious circumstances while those of us further up the social food chain bite our nails and prevaricate about breeding under any circumstances other than perfect. And that's not a good thing on either end.

are we getting so offended nowadays over a flippant piece of exaggeration?

When the flippant piece of exaggeration comes across as demeaning/classist/racist, then yes, that's going to get us offended.

There is a meaningful phenomenon of lower-income familes tending to be larger than upper-income families. There's even a non-insulting way to talk about it.

The reason his remarks were classist is that poor people are lower class by definition. But the only way they can be constructed as racist is if you assume that poor = black.

The gp didn't.

I think you redeemed yourself here haha. Honestly, I didn't think you were really being serious but that was kind of a borderline comment. Borderline in the sense that if we assumed correctly that you were kidding around, do we tolerate that kind of thing around here and let it go or do we assume you're being ignorant and ferociously downvote you to hell? I get where you're coming from, hugh3, and I can have a sense of humor about it but other people's racism/prejudice radar just go off the charts when you say that kind of stuff.

But hey, I really like how you put your thoughts with that last sentence. "it's not that good on either end" - very true. It is ridiculous to take this article into any kind of consideration when thinking of having a child. While the study shows data to support the premise, it's far from enough to consider the findings accurate or relevant to having kids. Correlation does not equal causation and all that. It really is just an entertainment piece when you really dig in.

Dude, you had me until you started on that third sentence then you lost me.

I agree with Hugh that there will be people who take these findings a little too seriously. There are so many more factors that can possibly play a role. The possibilities are too many to even go into. This sort of thing makes for good reading but it's far from something to be taken as definitive.

Oh, Hugh, you almost made a great point.

Pure anecdote, but I and my sister (2 of 2) were born almost exactly two years apart, and I know that before she was born, there was an absurd amount of attention paid to me for the first couple of years (judging by the sheer balance of photography.) I was also read to constantly, and learned to read fairly well before kindergarten.

By the time my sister was a couple of years old, it was me that was constantly reading to her. The age distance there allowed me to be able to teach her things as well as my parents, and I'm sure that the act of reading for her and showing her things helped me to strengthen my grip on those things myself.

As adults, we're both 99 percentile types now, according to IQ and standardized tests and such. I'm not sure had the dynamic been different, we would have turned out the same way.

The most irresponsible parents don't practice family planning. That probably contributes heavily to their results.

Be careful with terms like "irresponsible parents" and "family planning". Some people plan to have kids close together in age.

For what it's worth, however, I have this to offer:

* My oldest son (age 5) can read at a second grade level and can do addition.

* My next son (age 4) can read at a first grade level and can also do addition.

* My next son (just turned 3) knows all of his shapes (including the difference between octagons and hexagons), recognize and count all numbers from 1-20, and knows all his letters and their sounds.

* My next son (almost 2) knows all his colors, can count to ten, sing his ABCs, and knows all his animal sounds.

* My last son (7 months old) just figured out sitting up unsupported, and can babble on his level.

Now keep in mind that my little guys also love Pixar movies, playing LEGO games on their Wii, dressing up as superheros, and hiking so they have managed to learn all these things while having a well-rounded and balanced childhood.

The reason these boys know as much as they do and are so well behaved is because my wife and I have taken the time to know their hearts and minds and have invested countless precious hours teaching and training them to be men.

So I want to make sure you understand that just because a family may have children close in age, it is no way has any bearing on their intelligence. My experience has shown me that the complete well-being of children directly correlates to the amount of time and love their parents invest in them, no matter how many siblings they have or far apart their ages may be.

Irresponsible parenting does not mean having many kids close in age. Irresponsible parenting simply means that you aren't willing to offer the time and love your kids need to thrive.

(edit for formatting)

He's claiming that spacing is the dependent variable, not the independent variable.

Parents who are not considering these issues at all are arguably more likely to cluster towards shorter spacings, but shorter spacings alone do not provide enough information to classify the cause.

Good point! I just wanted to make sure that the OP knew that he was too sweeping in his generalizations.

It wasn't too sweeping--I purposefully said nothing about what responsible parents do ;).

5 sons in a row? You should publish a book on how to father sons! That looks like a non-random result.

I agree with you in that the controlling factor is really just how much parental time is spent with the children. Closer spacing of children is likely to stretch parental time, but this is something a determined parent can easily overcome, even if just by being aware of it and correcting for it.

I would like to see a study which correlates future intelligence for things like time spent in childcare vs full time parenting. My personal belief is that a childcare effect would massively outweigh any child-spacing effect, particularly in boys, which in my experience seem to suffer from excessive childcare time under the age of 4 more than girls. I don't know if this is lack of male childcare workers or a biological difference in boys.

There already is a book. It works. http://www.amazon.com/How-Choose-Sex-Your-Baby/dp/038548562X

Evidence that some couples can only have one sex.

Evidence that 1 in 16 "fair" couples will have all of one sex.

I seem to have attributed a different cause to this correlation than most other HN'ers in the comments. Is it possible that the isolation of the older child plays more of a role in the higher test scores than the 2-3 years of undivided parental attention? The older child would grow up without an always available "playmate", and this seems like it could lead to more reading and eventually higher test scores. This same effect could also apply to lone children.

Note: I'm not saying this isolation is a completely good thing (child may not have as good of an opportunity to develop strong social skills).

> The largest effect they observed suggested that a one-year increase in spacing improves reading scores for older children by 0.17 SD—which would be three times the effect of increasing annual family income by $1,000.

In other words, instead of having your kids back to back, you wait a year ... and that's equivalent to $3000 of extra family income.

OK.

Earning 3K extra a year is ridiculously easy. Far more so than worrying about family planning. All I have to do is earn an extra $10 a day. If we split that between my wife and myself, that's an extra $5 a day. I'd rather focus on that. On top of it all, I can actually spend that money ... I can't spend 1 year.

I'd guess that 3k of income is at levels of the median or average family, where it actually matters. 40k vs 43k, that extra $3k might buy your family something important. Whereas at competent hackers income levels, I'd bet the marginal contribution of $1k toward children achievement is a lot lower. The difference between 120k and 123k is much less important.

Parental income and child intelligence are correlated, but the direct causal relationship is (I suspect) extremely weak except at the low-end extreme. The real relationship between these two variables is dominated by parental intelligence: smarter parents have smarter children (with a very strong correlation), and smarter parents earn more money (with a reasonably strong correlation).

Once the parents are picked, earning a little more money won't do much to make the children smarter. If anything it might make them dumber, since those extra hours spent at work are much better spent with your children.

> "Earning 3K extra a year is ridiculously easy. Far more so than worrying about family planning."

Take the time to look up other consequences of short birth spacing. Infant and maternal mortality, low birth weight, and a whole host of other complications become dramatically more prevalent as birth spacing drops below 2 years.

The academic results given here are just another part of the larger pattern: it's usually healthier to space births out 2+ years.

That assumes both that the increase in reading scores due to increasing family income is linear, and that annual family income and birth spacing are completely independent of each other.

This is using a predefined standard for being "smart," higher reading and writing skills. First the basis should be established that proves that being smarter, based on this metric, is actually better for every person. I find value in being smarter, but this does not mean that others will.

A better metric would be the amount of value the person derives from what he or she is doing. But this is an impossible metric to gather and even if it were it can't be used to compare individuals.

You make a fantastic observation here. If I am to believe historic pop culture, athleticism was once the holy grail for child achievement. Every parent wanted a child that was the quarterback. We have now shifted to every parent wanting the smartest kid, but both are rooted in the desire to appear better than your peers, not because it is actually important to be good at either.

I'm a nerd. As such, I appreciate that intellectual pursuits come fairly naturally to me, because it enables me to be a nerd. However, I am starting to grow tired of people claiming it is important for everyone to be that way. It is not. Everyone has different objectives for their life, and being a nerd is often not one of them.

Motivation to create something of value is the only attribute of importance. If you are a motivated athlete, you will do something great. If you are a motivated intellectual, you will do something great. If you are a motivated person without anything else going for you, you will still do something great!

I wonder why you got downvoteed? That makes sense, actually. The predefined metric is pretty standard but maybe it is flawed. Then again, everything is relative so we have to have some standard metric and can't be changing it to suit every individual either.

Perhaps there is no need for a standard for everyone. Take any student who wishes to enter into an industry, whether it is engineering, philosophy, aviation, or sports. Is there any value for him or her being rated by a standard that does not apply? Instead the student will try to achieve the accepted standard for the industry they enter.

How many years after high school will you or any employer care about your transcript? How about college? The experience you have in an industry quickly outweighs the number of years in college, at least in my industry (this may not be true when you need to go to specialized schooling, such as when you enter a medical profession, but I speak of general schooling).

It looks like the abstract basically says that the older child does better with a larger spacing (more dedicated time with parents, possibly), while the younger is basically unaffected. That makes sense to me.

Thank goodness association is causation, otherwise where would be?

AKA "You having another baby is bad for your toddler"

In many cases your toddler will let you know, too, in the form of jealousy.

Double and triple take on the title:

Throw my kids out an air lock? (Space them!)

Send my kids to the ISS? (Space them at least two years)

OK, I got this one a bit off :-(

Unless you want your own TLC reality show, in which case you should just keep popping them out as fast as you can.

Deleted comment

The author's attribute the effect of sibling spacing in part on the attention the older sibling receives in its youngest years. This, at least, would not be changed by skipping grades.

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