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Family Daze
Motherhood: More Brain Power
By Debbie Farmer
I recently read an article in the newspaper about a scientific study that said motherhood may actually make a woman smarter. After trying to maintain my concentration level long enough to read it, I learned that scientists had discovered that pregnant or nursing mice navigated mazes faster, made fewer mistakes, and retained new knowledge longer than childless ones.
"Do you see this?" I waved the article in front of my husband. "Motherhood has made me smarter!"
"That's nice, dear," he said. "But you can't even remember to put the keys in the ignition before starting the car."
I waved him away. "I can't waste my brain power thinking about unimportant things like that when I could be working on a hypothesis for the time/space continuum or developing a cure for cancer," I said. "According to the article, I'm at the height of my intellectual ability."
The article came as quite a relief, since lately I couldn't seem to remember a thing.
Last time I went grocery shopping I didn't park my car in the usual aisle. When I emerged from the store with my 6-year-old daughter, I wandered aimlessly through the lot, trying to look like I knew what I was doing, while a teenaged clerk pushed a cart of groceries behind us.
"Where are we going?" my daughter asked.
"We're going to the car, of course," I said loud enough for the clerk to hear.
Then I bent down. "By the way, do you remember where Mommy parked it?"
She shook her head.
By the time we walked down the last row I had figured out what had happened "My car is gone," I said. "Someone has stolen it."
Just as I was about to go back into the store to file a police report, my daughter spotted it at the other end of the lot in front of the coffee shop. I was embarrassed as the clerk silently loaded the groceries into the trunk. I could tell he didn't believe that a gang of car thieves broke into my car, then drove five rows away and parked so they could to buy a latte before making their getaway.
Since I was supposed to be so much smarter, I also wondered why I forget things like where I was going, why I was going, and what I was supposed to be doing once I got there. And how come I put my daughter's Girl Scout sash in my husband's lunch bag or gave my son a questionnaire from a women's magazine to take for his sharing day at preschool? However, my memory hasn't completely failed. I can remember things like who was the headlining band at the New Year's Eve concert I went to in 1983 and the words to all of the songs on Schoolhouse Rock!. I also know the name of anyone who ever insinuated I was fat.
I tried making lists for the harder things but, naturally, I could never remember where I put them. Then I tried writing things on my hand in mnemonics, but I couldn't remember what the letters stood for and I'd spend the whole day explaining to people why I had a tattoo that said "boborgymus" on my left palm. Finally, I decided the best thing to do would be to give my children the list and have them remind me of what I was supposed to be doing throughout the day.
But, I'm not too worried. As a mother of two, I figure most of my short-term memory has been taken up by carpool schedules, PTA itineraries or extracurricular activities. And, as long as there is scientific evidence that mothers are better, faster, and smarter--I'll believe it.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
