If You’re A Boy Parent, You’re Losing Your Mind: Study
Parenting is not easy. We know this. Both girls and boys come with their own challenges. If you’re a boy parent, a new study is confirming what you probably already knew: you’re losing your mind.
The research done by Columbia University, among others, showed that “parents of at least one son had a faster rate of cognitive decline compared to parents without any sons.”
What did the study find?
The study tracked over 13,000 parents aged 50 and above over 18 years to track their ability to retain knowledge. They would have some math questions to answer, and have to memorize and read back a list of words.
Results were pretty damning! Parents of boys scored progressively lower than the parents of girls. Mothers, fathers, it was all the same. This leads researchers to believe that the decline isn’t expected behavior, but more “social”. Researcher Katrin Wolfova wrote in the Journal of Psychiatric Research saying “daughters provide more social and emotional support than sons and often become informal caregivers”.
Whoa. Score one for the ladies.
Other things they noticed was that only one son could make your brain power drop. Three daughters? Should be fine. Add a boy into the mix? You’re aging quicker, getting dumber and possibly in worse health. Worse yet, the more sons you have, the faster your decline.
The study did point out the decline is not instantaneous. At first, both boy and girl parents had similar intelligence scores, but as they boys got older, their parents performed worse on tests.
So before you put a “boy mom” sticker on the back of your minivan, know you might be telling the people behind you that you’re probably not “all there”.
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