Left: Me at the beach in '92.
Right: Me at the beach in '09.
I wouldn't trade my beautiful, amazing, wonderful children for anything, but it would sure be nice to look like that again!!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
“Large Families Do Not Create Low IQs”
And all these years I thought my kids were going to be stupid just because there are so many of them.
That’s a relief, I guess.
Well, that would be a relief if the study didn’t go on to proclaim, “Low IQ Parents Create Large Families."
So now when rude people count the kids when we’re out in public and then ask us if we’re crazy, we can answer, “No. We just have low IQs.”
This study was first published nine years ago, but as a low IQ parent to a large family, I hadn’t come across it before. Or maybe it’s because I’m the busy working mother of a large family. Either way, the result is the same: I’m nine years late weighing in on this. But I will weigh in on it, regardless, because intelligence in America is a subject I’ve often pondered over. Actually, I’ve seriously stressed out over it because there are so many unintelligent young people in our society, and they will be the policy makers and lawyers and doctors and teachers of tomorrow. For that matter, I’ve met plenty of people in these types of positions today who are incompetent and unintelligent.
The information I need to draw strong conclusions on this matter is not available to me without heading to the nearest university and hitting the scholarly journals, something I won’t be doing anytime soon. I would like to know, however, how many large families and how many “normal-sized” families were followed for this study, and how many children, on average, the large and normal sized families had. I would like to know where they found the participants for this study. Face it, if they paid participants, they’d be more likely to find families that were low-income, which is also associated with low IQ. So, I would also want to know the average income of both sized families. Race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion were not mentioned, either, and these factors also influence IQ.
The results of the study that I have been able to find do not give any indication what percentage of the children from large families were found to have low IQs, normal IQs, and high IQs. There was no report as to the IQs of children from “normal-sized” families, nor was I able to find out what they considered “low IQ.” My guess is an IQ under 100 would be considered low, and above 100 would be considered high.
My opinion is that the majority of Americans have low IQs. IQ is not stagnant and can be raised by things like going to graduate school, doing crossword puzzles or Sudoku, and learning a foreign language. On the flip side, then, I would assume that you can also lower your IQ by watching stupid television shows, playing certain (most) video games, and spending too much time on some Internet sites, particularly on social networking sites like MySpace and You Tube.
Most of the high school and college students I’ve taught are not readers. I know this because it’s one of the first questions I ask when a new class starts. I spend a lot of my time encouraging and requiring students to read, but it’s a losing battle. They weren’t brought up to read. Their parents don’t read. They don’t read well. I’m very upset when I have students read aloud and they stumble over words that they should have mastered in 2nd grade. Remember, I teach 10th and 11th graders, some honors classes, 12th grade AP students, college prep courses, and college level English Comp and Literature classes. The vast majority of students in each of these classes cannot read at the appropriate level and are, in fact, reading far below where they should.
In 2005, I read an article by Sam Dillon in the New York Times entitled “Literacy Falls for Graduates From College, Testing Finds” that I found greatly upsetting, but not surprising. It stated,
When the test was last administered, in 1992, 40 percent of the nation's college graduates scored at the proficient level, meaning that they were able to read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences. But on the 2003 test, only 31 percent of the graduates demonstrated those high-level skills. There were 26.4 million college graduates.
The college graduates who in 2003 failed to demonstrate proficiency included 53 percent who scored at the intermediate level and 14 percent who scored at the basic level, meaning they could read and understand short, commonplace prose texts.
Three percent of college graduates who took the test in 2003, representing some 800,000 Americans, demonstrated "below basic" literacy, meaning that they could not perform more than the simplest skills, like locating easily identifiable information in short prose. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/education/16literacy.html?ei=5088&en=0e36586fe81ccdb3&ex=1292389200&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1134784871-U7g5x6gt0q+4+Khj28BJvQ)
The article quotes Grover J. Whitehurst, the director of an institute within the Department of Education that helped oversee the testing. Whitehurst said that in part the decline could be blamed on “a rising number of young Americans [who have] spent their free time watching television and surfing the Internet.” He also surmised that “substantial declines in reading for pleasure” are “showing up in our literacy levels.”
My point is that many Americans are unintelligent. I’m working from memory here because I can’t find any Internet sources I trust. (I could go out to the garage and dig out my old psych texts from college, but they’re outdated, anyway.) The average IQ is between 85 and 115, with 100 being the most common score. IQs of 50-70 indicate mild mental retardation. 115-124 is considered above average, while 125-134 is gifted, 135-144 is highly gifted, and 145 and above is genius. Americans are not participating in activities that would raise their IQs. They’re participating in activities that dumb them down. Turn on any TV channel right now and you’ll see what I mean. (Okay, not any channel. Some channels have quality programming, but you still shouldn’t watch them nonstop.)
You may have noticed that I’m spending much more time than is normal for me blogging today. This is because my online Intro to Lit class turned in their essays in which they write a statement of theme and explore how the different literary elements work to help the reader understand the theme. I have twenty students who turned in their essays. I promised myself I’d grade five essays a day so I could be through in four days. I get irritated and worn out reading the essays. I’ve graded five so far, and the highest score was an 80%. I simply can’t get myself motivated to grade today’s five essays. My students in my online classes usually write at a higher level than the students I encounter in the face-to-face community college classes I teach. I don’t know why that is, but still, they aren’t writing as well as they should as college students. If you’d like to get an idea of the average writing skills of my high school and college students, go to any online newspaper, pick an article, and read through the comments left by readers. Admire the spelling, the grammar, and the logic that go into these. Of course, people who don’t read can’t write well. They have nothing to model their writing after.
Another complaint I have about many people I’ve met is that they’re very willing to believe anything they hear on TV. Hey, it’s easier than doing a little research and thinking for yourself. Besides, if you’re not intelligent enough to “read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences,” research is a waste of time for you, anyway.
Now to get back to my original topic: Low IQ parents create large families. Well, low IQ parents also create small families. Bottom line, most people have low IQs, or at least act like they do and raise their children like they do. Therefore, Rob and I have pledged not to stop at nine children because we have to outnumber the idiots out there.
Evan!!
Our Visitors
Our family had a great treat this summer. Rob's little sister, Chastity, and her four year old, Evan, who is three weeks younger than Gemma, came to stay with us for ten days. We had a great time while they were here. The girls adore Evan, and I don't think I've ever met a better behaved four year old. It also gave the girls a chance to see what it's like to have a boy around. Okay, I learned a few things, too. One day when Chastity and Rob were out, Evan needed me to take him to the bathroom and I was a bit nervous, because I didn't know what he'd need help with. Turns out, he only needed his pants buttoned and unbuttoned. Also, boys don't have to use toilet paper after they go pee. I guess that's a good thing to know, but it seems kind of unsanitary to me.
We went to a nature trail one day where we saw several critters, but the highlight of that trip was seeing three manatees! Chastity has always wanted to see a manatee, so we were really lucky.
Another day we went to the zoo. It's a small zoo where we have an annual pass. Evan loved it because he got to see bald eagles. There is a petting area there, and the kids got to pet goats and
alpacas and llamas. At one point, the goat she was petting started eating Juliet's ponytail. I didn't feel she was in any immediate danger, and tried to take a picture. A dad standing right beside 
Juliet, though, felt she needed rescuing, and did just that, as I was saying, "No! Don't save her yet! I want a picture of that!" Well, Juliet's hair is VERY long, and all the goat could really do was chew on it. It would have made a good shot. An alpaca tried to eat Clara's hair, but nobody saw it happen, and she managed to extricate it herself. I would have helped her immediately. Her hair is much shorter than Juliet's. Rob loved the goat. He made me take about fifteen pictures of him with the goat. I don't think the goat cared much for Rob. Rob had no hair to feed it. There was a snake in the petting section, and its handler set it on the ground so the kids could all see it. Out of nowhere, with no warning at all, Violet decided to hop over the snake. Thank goodness she didn't land on it. Needless to say, the handler put the snake up after that.
The temperature that day was a sweltering 90 something. For the first time ever in my life, my hands swelled up so badly my fingers looked like white sausages. I found it quite alarming, but every day afterwards that we spent out in the heat, my fingers did the same thing. The doctor said it's okay; drink more water.
The most exciting thing that happened at the zoo was when a wild gorilla got loose and attacked Zoe on the boardwalk!
The day after the zoo we went to the science center, mainly to get out of the heat. Guess what? The air conditioner at the science center was out that day. Of course. My fingers puffed up like sausages. The kids enjoyed themselves immensely, though. Violet particularly enjoyed making a Mr. Potato Head from all the pieces available at that display. We also got to see feeding time for the alligators. Stinky, but neat. Evan's favorite thing was fixing a car.
We spent two days in St. Augustine. At least, we would have spent two days in St. Augustine, but it took us most of the first day to drive there. It shouldn't have taken that long, but we made many, many potty stops on the way, and we had to stop and fix the air conditioning in the truck, and stop to eat, and stop to buy honey roasted almonds. You get the idea. When we got there, we headed straight to the hostel where I'd found cheap rooms that would let each of us have a bed to sleep on. But when Rob and Chastity went in, they said it wasn't what I'd expected when I booked it, and there were creepy looking old men all over the place. We had to pay $40 to cancel the reservation. We ended up in two rooms with two double beds each at a chain hotel, but the kids got to swim in the pool, and they were exhausted at bedtime anyway.
I love St. Augustine. We got to see the Castillo de San Marcos and walk around the historic district. But it was really much too hot, and the highlight of the entire trip was eating at a nice restaurant in the Spanish quarter. We were all cranky, hot, and tired. We didn't get to take the ferry out to Fort Matanzas, and Evan was sorely disappointed, because that was something he'd been looking forward to. The ferry, that is, not Fort Matanzas. I told Chas they have to come back down when the weather is better. Like in December.
The day after we came home from St. Augustine, we had to take Zoe to cheerleading camp. She was gone two whole nights. She's never been on her own for so long before. She handled it much better than I did. That evening, we went to Downtown Disney so Evan could ride the ferry. He enjoyed that and the Lego store, which is unbelievably expensive. Then Chastity treated everybody to dessert at the new T-Rex Cafe. The kids loved it. I was sad Zoe wasn't there. Downtown Disney is best at night in the summer. Not unbearably hot. This is one of my favorite places to go on date night.
On Chastity and Evan's last day, we picked Zoe up from cheer camp and got to watch the different squads compete. The girls were all very impressed by the cheerleaders, and every day since Zoe's been home, they've had her teaching them and the neighborhood girls cheers, and they've planned their own fundraisers, along with the neighbor girls, to buy cheerleading costumes. They even had a peprally in our driveway yesterday. Better than that, they were all also very impressed with the university that sponsored the cheer camp, and they all want to go there when they graduate from high school. This is great because the four oldest ones have been asking me what they have to do to be able to go there, and we get to talk about grades and extracurricular activities and community service and saving money and applying for scholarships. I had seniors at the high school who didn't know these things, so I'm glad the girls are getting the idea now, when there's time to prepare.
Jack Russell Terror: Kokopelli
I didn't really know what we were getting into when we got Kokopelli, our Jack Russell Terrier, three years ago this coming October. I'd done my research. I knew that Jack Russells had lots of "personality" and were "feisty" and "energetic." What I didn't know was that these terms are euphemisms for "insane."
He was just weaned when we brought him home from a kennel in Rockvale, and he was filthy. We put him in our big garden tub and the water turned black. I had to refill the tub three times to get him clean.
Pelli seemed normal enough the first few weeks we had him. He was afraid of everything, including our Dachshund-Pomeranian mix, Chupacabra, who was three months older than him. (Chupa was hit by a car and killed last year.) But soon Pelli started to show his true colors. One morning I let the dogs out for their morning run. Our house was located on half an acre and was set well up from the street, which wasn't very busy. About five minutes later, I heard a lot of honking. I ran down the driveway, and there in the middle of the street was Pelli, all five pounds of him. He was facing down a short line of cars and trucks, barking. He thought he owned the street. After that, of course, we quit letting him outside without his leash.
From the time he was a very little puppy, he has loved Rob, his daddy. He demonstrates this love in kind of a strange way: every time he gets the chance (i.e., every time Rob sits or lies down), Pelli likes to nibble Rob's ears. He doesn't do this to anyone else. He also absolutely LOVES napping with Rob. Look at the couch any weekend afternoon, and you'll find Rob and his boy cuddled up, sound asleep.
Pelli isn't all bad. He's great with the kids. Violet is always trying to play with him, hug him, kiss him, dress him up. You know, typical three-year-old girl stuff. Pelli puts up with her as long as he can, then gives a warning growl, which she never heeds. After the warning growl, he "nips" her; that is, he puts his teeth on her arm without putting any pressure at all. The result is Violet thinks she's been bitten, although there is no mark and no pain and no tears, and she decides to find somebody else to play with.
But Pelli is, um, eccentric. About a year ago I bought a dog toy for Pelli at Wal-Mart. It was a squeaky hedgehog for about $3. He went CRAZY when I gave it to him. Within two weeks, he'd "killed" it. The stuffing and squeaker were all torn out, but he still played with the empty corpse. Now we have a supply of hedgehogs we keep in a bag on top of a kitchen counter. When he kills a hedgehog, we have backups. When he gets a new hedgehog, he spends all his time putting it beside somebody and watching it, waiting for that person to throw it. If ten minutes elapse and the hedgehog hasn't been thrown, he'll give a few sharp barks and settle back into watching. Or he'll find someone walking around, dropping the hedgehog at their feet hoping they'll kick it so he can run and get it. At night, he'll stay awake, putting the hedgehog by my feet, hoping I'll kick in my sleep so he can fetch. When he can't get anyone to play, he buries the hedgehog in a blanket and entertains himself, growling and trying to free it. It's not that nobody is willing to play with him. It's just that nobody wants to play with the hedgehog for 24 hours straight. Besides, after the first ten minutes, the hedgehog is slickery with Pelli saliva. We have to hide the hedgehog and put Pelli in his crate so he can get some sleep when the hedgehog is new.
A few months ago, Pelli had a crush on Joy, a pretty golden retriever who lives down the street. Joy was in heat, and one day, Pelli got out of the house. Rob chased after him, but Pelli disappeared into the doggie door at Joy's house. The neighbors weren't home, and Pelli would not come back out. Luckily, Joy was crated, so Pelli couldn't get at her. Unluckily, Pelli marked his territory by peeing all around her crate. Rob apologized profusely to the neighbors, and took our carpet cleaner over to take care of Pelli's mess. Still, how embarassing! Pelli spent quite a lot of time in his own crate after that incident.
About a month ago, Pelli got out again. Rob and I were getting in the truck to run an errand when it happened, so we followed Pelli down the street in the truck. He stopped in a driveway, and Rob pulled the truck over, got out, and told Pelli, in his deepest, meanest voice, "I'm going to beat your ***!" Pelli promptly rolled over on his back, and Rob picked him up and started cooing at him, because Rob isn't really mean, and he loves his doggie boy. Rob and I hadn't noticed, but the garage door was open. When Rob picked Pelli up, the front door of the car that was in the garage opened, and a Hispanic lady stuck her head out of the car and called to Rob, "Oh, you're talking to the puppy! Oh, that is a good thing!" Rob and I were surprised, and after Rob apologized for startling the lady, we had a good laugh, but we're grateful that the lady didn't call the police when she thought Rob was after her. Yikes!
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