How Firstborns Get Smarter

Firstborns have higher IQs than little brothers and sisters

(NEWSER) - Big siblings have long suspected it, and now science backs them up: Oldest children have slightly higher IQs than younger kids. Family dynamics, not biological factors, account for the 3-point discrepancy, which holds up for children who become the oldest after the firstborn dies. That tiny gap may mean the difference between a "name" college and a state school. More»

'I wasn't always there for them,' he told biographer

(NEWSER) - Steve Jobs authorized a biography of himself so his four kids could "know him," author Walter Isaacson reveals in Time . "I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why, and to understand what I did," Jobs told Isaacson in their final interview just weeks ago at Jobs' home in Palo Alto. Jobs was curled up in pain in a ground-floor bedroom because he could no longer walk upstairs. "His mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant," wrote Isaacson, whose book will be published later this month. More»

Three theories

(NEWSER) - You share a set of genes. You grew up in the same place, around the same family. So why aren’t you and your siblings at all alike? Researchers have long puzzled over the question of why brothers and sisters can wind up so different, and NPR tracks down three theories:

• The Darwin Theory: Evolution was driven, some theorize, by competition, with organisms specializing so they didn’t compete directly. Siblings may do the same thing, taking on different roles to less directly compete for their parents time and attention.

Kids stress us out—but we still find them rewarding

(NEWSER) - Ask parents if their children make them happy and they’ll likely say yes. So why does almost every study on the subject show that having children tends to make people less happy—and that, in fact, many parents love their kids but hate parenting? In an extensive New York article , Jennifer Senior explores how parenting, and Americans’ reasons for having children, have changed over the decades. More»

(NEWSER) - The latest trend in nomenclature rings false to at least one person who recently realized that "Mom" has become "the now generic name for every female parent in our country." Thinking it over, Anne Albeck dates the phenomenon to the early '90s, but familiarity—and overfamiliarity—really does breed contempt. "Being called Mom by everyone from the shoe store clerk to the pediatrician is a little too intimate for me," Albeck writes for the Chicago Tribune. More»