I realize that as I get older I have less patience with stupid statements, but every now and then someone says something that sends me through the roof.
Yesterday CNS News reported that:
John P. Holdren, the top science adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote in a book he co-authored with population control advocates Paul and Anne Ehrlich that children from larger families have lower IQs.
The article further reports:
Holdren and the Ehrlichs published “Human Ecology” with W.H. Freeman and Company in 1973. In June 2000, a study published in American Pyschologist debunked the notion that children in larger families have lower I.Q.s. But when Holdren appeared in the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in 2009 for a confirmation hearing on his appointment to run the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, he continued to argue for the benefits of “smaller families” on other bases.
Why does this matter? Because the mindset of the Obama Administration is generally anti-family.
Just a few notes on I.Q.s. A website called learninginfo.org posted an article entitled, “Do You Need A High IQ To Be Successful?”
Some highlights from the article:
A Canadian television program recently tracked down some of the people with the highest IQ scores in North America. One man who has an extremely high genius IQ works as a motorcycle mechanic, hangs out with biker gangs, and is frequently in and out of jail.
…Qualities such as determination and vision can be more important to your ultimate success in life than the IQ number you started out with. Being creative, optimistic, and flexible are important hallmarks of many successful people. Common sense, the ability to get along with other people, and knowing a good idea when you see one, may be more useful qualities than having a genius IQ.
Let’s look at that last paragraph again. Common sense and the ability to get along with other people are things that people learn in healthy two-parent families (generally with more than one child). A child with siblings learns to share–toys, the spotlight, successes and failures. A child with siblings (in a healthy family) grows up with a close support group that helps launch him into success.
The other part of this equation is the definition of success. Is a stay-at-home mother who volunteers in the community less successful that the corporate executive? Is her work any less valuable?
The article at CNS News states:
“The columnist Dr. Joyce Brothers answered a question sent into Good Housekeeping (February, 1981) by a mother of four asking if she should consider having another baby as follows: ‘Studies have shown that children reared in small families are brighter, more creative, and more vigorous than those from large families,’” the authors noted.
“However,” they said, “the belief that, for a particular set of parents in a modern country like the United States, a larger family will lead to children with lower IQs appears to be, simply, wrong. The belief that birth order effects on intelligence act directly to decrease the intelligence of children born later in a given family also appears to be, simply, wrong.”
“Do large U.S. families make low-IQ children? No,” said the authors. “Are birth order and intelligence related to one another within U.S. families? No.”
When you consider that the Obama Administration is moving the country toward a philosophy of national dependence on government, there is always the possibility that the move to limit the size of families is part of a plan to make the total population’s dependence on government more affordable. If you would like to see the results of a governmental policy that discourages children, take a look at the current demographics of Japan and the impact that is having on the Japanese economy.
