Parents and intelligence

arbygil

arbygil

Passing through
MBTI
INFJ
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9w1
This is going to sound incredibly vain, and I don't want it to sound haughty - but I think you'll know what I mean after I write it.

Do any of you feel - or are - more "intelligent" than your parents? Intelligence can be measured several ways, I know, and perhaps it's a communication issue rather than intelligence. My mother is one of the best teachers I know, but it's extremely difficult for me to talk to her. She has a master's degree in counseling and teaching but I think if the two of us took an IQ test, my scores would range a little higher than hers (that, and she would have next to no patience for the cognitive tests).

I love her, and she's by no means stupid...but some of our clashes happen because in the back of my mind I can't believe anyone would do some of the things she does.

Anyway, there's enough info on the forum about parents vs children. My question is about intelligence. If you know or feel more intelligent than your parents, how do you handle the cognitive "static" ? How do you speak/talk/deal with them kindly and politely so neither of you feel unintentionally stupid?
 
Overall no, I am not smarter than my parents. But I am probably smarter on certain subjects. My dad is actually a genius.

Do you feel you are still smarter than she was when she was your age?
 
My mother is stupid as hell. Sweet, loving, caring, an angel, but when it comes to intelligence....

My father... my father is the devil himself. He's ten times more intelligent than an average person. Even the way he looks at you is enough to make you think: " Oh shit, that guy just sold me to the enemy and I'm still not sure how that happened." My friends call him Ventrue (If you have ever played the Vamires RPG, then you know what that means.)
 
Yah, I do...and I'm a bit older. She's in her 60s and I just hit 40. But it seems the older I get and the older she gets, the less patience I have. Maybe it's because she's getting needier to me and it frustrates me. Our relationship has shifted somewhat in the past few years, and it's not necessarily in the direction I want it to go.

Yes, intelligence is one factor...but there are other factors. My mother is getting more eccentric but it's not Alzheimer's or any other mental issue. It's just her becoming more her, and me becoming more me. And we've had this "intelligence" gap since I turned 16 or so. At first it was simple teen angst and the like. But there are very few conversations we can share with one another - and I have to be careful, because sometimes when we share ideas she'll adopt mine as her own because it sounds good to her. I don't want that!

I dunno. There's just more than one factor at the moment and maybe it has very little to do with my mother and intelligence. I'm not sure yet, and I need to process.
 
Smarter yes, but she was tougher.
 
*Nod* I agree, SH - that's how I'd describe my mom, too. I would *not* cross her, even on a good day. She'll take ya down. :)
 
I was better at maths than my mum by the age of 2! at 18 months old I could add and take away, throw and catch a ball, sing pretty much every nursery rhyme under the sun and play football with kids 3 and four years older than me. At 3 years old my school teacher would sometimes get me to check other kids spelling for them. I think I have always been smarter than my mum.

Unfortunately I think being so smart so young made lazy. I thought I didn't have to try, because I could just do it. I only realised about 4 years ago that this was why I had done absolutely nothing with my life. I have now fixed my laziness.
 
My daddy is actually a super bright one, although he tends to be very biased through fanaticism in his religion. And my mother on the other hand is extremely subjective.

I would say that I am much more intelligent than my parents, especially my mother as she considers everything wrong that isnt her so called (subjective) 'facts'. My father acknowledges my intelligence and stimulated it in many ways although now it seems as if he tries to tone it down as I have trancsended into a more intelligent girl than he thought I could be. This is done as he tries to impose his faith and 'right way of life' on me.
 
@ Pristine Girl ... ^^ You go girl. I already said at least once or twice, you have a wonderful Brilliance of your own. (of course, that's just a subjective opinion of my own :smile:)
 
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My parents are geniuses. Sometimes I feel more organized than them, and I know a lot of different information than they do but I'm probably not smarter than them. They are also very well educated.
 
I'm more educated than my mother. Intelligence is a pretty relative concept.
 
You should be thankful for any intelligence you have; it should never outweigh your heart.
 
just me said:
You should be thankful for any intelligence you have; it should never outweigh your heart.
Click to expand...

Haha. If only the rest of the world thought that way.
 
I am smarter than my parents.

This is odd because the science says regression to the mean is the norm.

Three of my children (I have 5) are smarter than me. Since my IQ is around 159, that is unusual - even more so since two of the three that are smarter are female.

And as we INTJs know, males tend to cluster at the ends of the distribution - lots of really dumb males and lots of really smart males. Females tend to cluster at the middle of the distribution.

Of course, I am referring to standard IQ - not emotional intelligence or cultural intelligence. The distributions are very different for those.

I apologize for posting on this forum - I normally stick to the INTJ. An INFJ friend of mine suggested I check this out.

Let me know if I am out of line!
 
I got part of my dad's intelligence, and part of my mom's intelligence. They are both very smart people, but in non-classical ways of viewing inteligence.

My dad is very practial (very ESTJ), he can fix anything, make anything, repair anything. If he put his mind two it, he could build a house from the ground up, perfactly, without any training at all. If he wants to, he can learn nearly anything, except overly mathy stuff or philosophcal things, aka abstract things.

My mom is also highly inteligent. She is an incredible writer and artist. Her creativty and insight is boundless. She can come up with a theory out of nowhere, and explain it with amazing clarity (she is INFJ, like me). She knows social in's and out's on a very intuitive level. She struggles with some subjects like math, but otherwise could learn anything. Her inteligence shows through in her art, she can paint anything and make it look real, and I mean that literally.

I got some of my dads practicality, and some of his drive. I got much more of my inteligence from my mom. Her creativity, insight, and introspection. Along with her determination. If I want something to get done, it will get done. I found I do have a talent in art. However, it is in 3D art. I am also very creative, but I apply it more. Somehow all of this tied together and made me a science/chemistry geek who hates math, and loves art. haha.
 
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IQs have been steadily increasing for decades due to nutrition, research, etc., so chances are that you are smarter than your parents. Not that IQ and intelligence are exactly the same, but still...

My dad is pretty smart in some ways (PhD in chemistry, graduated from a top university in China with honors). On others... not so much. When my sister named our second cat Anchovy, he asked, "is that a type of vegetable?" This from a guy who speaks English with no accent whatsoever, and has half a dozen patents to his name.

Sometimes I think my mom is developing Alzheimer's already. But she definitely has a high emotional intelligence, more so than anyone else in the family.
 
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