
Want Smarter Kids? Space Them (At Least) Two Years Apart - mikeleeorg
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/11/17/want-smarter-kids-space-them-at-least-two-years-apart/
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abscondment
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.

~~~
ehsanu1
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.

~~~
watmough
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...

~~~
tomjen3
You can go back as a consultant for ios development.

~~~
watmough
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.

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aresant
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.

~~~
jeff18
So in other words, it is not responsible to ever use the word "smart" in a
headline?

~~~
aresant
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.

~~~
eric-hu
So to update the headline to your (very reasonable) criteria:

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

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grandalf
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.

~~~
TheSOB88
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.

~~~
grandalf
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.

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nitrogen
_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>

~~~
dmgottlieb
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.

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scrrr
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.

~~~
hugh3
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).

~~~
pessimizer
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...](http://www.nationalreviewofmedicine.com/issue/2005/07_30/2_feature04_13.html)

~~~
rsheridan6
Don't know whether to upvote for the informative link or downvote for the
unwarranted accusation of racism.

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pessimizer
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.

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

~~~
andrewhare
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)

~~~
glimcat
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.

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

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

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lightcatcher
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).

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maratd
> 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.

~~~
robrenaud
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.

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waratuman
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.

~~~
billpatrianakos
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.

~~~
waratuman
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).

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angelbob
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.

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carsongross
Thank goodness association _is_ causation, otherwise where would be?

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

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

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Roboprog
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 :-(

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

