By Kelly Kazek
kelly@athensnews-courier.com
January 25, 2008 07:40 pm
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Finally, someone is appreciating motherhood.
A mom has written a book claiming having children makes women smarter.
I was beginning to think being a mom turned my brain into a mass of sticky pudding — or was that the inside of my refrigerator?
I have to stack DVD rentals in front of the door so I will trip over them and remember to return them.
To remember an appointment, I have to leave a sticky note on the back of the front door so I’ll see it every day on my way to work.
Maybe if I’d made myself a note, I wouldn’t have found a Christmas present in my closet the other day that I bought for my daughter Shannon — in 2003.
But now Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Katherine Ellison, a mother of two, says I am smarter than I was before Shannon was born. Her book, “The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter,” even includes scientific research done on rats who have just given birth. (What better animal could they have picked to represent mothers than one that spends its life scurrying and eating?)
When I stopped and thought about it, I realized I have learned a few tricks, er, things during my nearly 12 years as a mother.
Because we moms have to stick together, I’ll share a few:
1. How to sound like you know the answer to any question.
When Shannon was 2, this was easy. She mostly pointed and asked, “Baw?”
I would answer, “Yes, that’s a ball.”
“Shanny cookie?”
“No, Shannon can’t have a cookie right now.”
I did know all the answers.
But at 11, her questions have become a little more difficult.
“Why does it rain?” she asked recently.
Hmmm. I was able to remember enough phrases from science class — “relative humidity,” “precipitation,” “barometric pressure,” “dew point” — to make my explanation sound plausible. I even threw in references to “Doppler” and “ground clutter” to give my response a high-tech edge — or at least confuse the heck out of her.
But when she asked how to figure the area of a quadrilateral triangle, no amount of bluffing was going to work. So I turned on the hair dryer and pretended not to hear.
2. How to be a good listener.
The other day, Shannon was talking to a friend on the telephone (which she does more and more often these days). I heard her say something about a dance team meeting on Tuesday.
“It’s Wednesday,” I corrected her. She rolled her eyes and kept talking.
Later, after she’d walked into the next room so I couldn’t hear her conversation, I heard her half whisper, “My mom keeps listening in on my conversations.”
“I do not!” I hollered indignantly.
3. How to make your house the one everyone wants to come to for sleepovers.
This one is relatively easy: Buy lots of Sour Punch Straws, Doritos, ice cream and canned drinks, rent two scary movies, lock your bedroom door and tune out any screaming.
Tip: Do not offer to perform one of your high school dance routines — the one with the swiveling hip action — while singing “Thriller.” I can tell you from experience that this will not make your child popular.
But the most important things I have learned as a mom are not to sweat the small stuff or cry over spilled milk, to look on the bright side and don’t worry, be happy. Adages and clichés do hold some truth. Especially those passed down from mother to daughter, through generations.
Seems moms have always been pretty smart.
Well, you live and learn.
You can contact Kelly Kazek at kelly@athensnews-courier.com
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