The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter - Hardcover

Ellison, Katherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465019056 ISBN 13: 9780465019052

Publisher: Basic Books, 2005

Synopsis

Generations of mothers have been told and believed that having a baby means checking their own brains at the delivery room door. The Mommy Brain” usually refers to a head full of feeding times, soccer schedules, and nursery rhymes, at the expense of creative or challenging ideas. But recent scientific research paints a dramatically different and far rosier picture.Journalist Katherine Ellison draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to demonstrate that, contrary to long-established wisdom that having children dumbs you down, raising children may make moms smarter . From enhanced senses in pregnancy and early motherhood to the alertness and memory skills necessary to manage like a pro, to a greater aptitude for risk-taking and a talent for empathy and negotiation, these advantages not only help mothers in raising their children, but in their work and social lives as well.Filled with lively (and often hilarious) stories of multitasking moms at home and on the job, The Mommy Brain encourages all of us to cast aside conventional thinking and discover the positive ways in which having children changes mothers' brains for the better.

About this title

About the Author:

Katherine Ellison has a mommy brain, herself. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, veteran foreign correspondent, and a working mother of two young boys. She is also the author of two previous books. She has written on the topic of "The Mommy Brain" for Salon.com and Working Mother . Ms. Ellison lives in San Anselmo, California.

From Publishers Weekly:

When Israeli scientists gave 100 brand new mothers an IQ test, they scored significantly lower than non-pregnant childless women. To this, Ellison, a Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist and mother of two, bluntly answers: "Duh... you are now looking at your future for at least the next eighteen years in its yowling red face. It's possible that your performance on standardized neuropsychological tests simply isn't a top priority." Throughout this well-framed argument for the intellectual pluses of motherhood, Ellison expertly demystifies the legend of "the mommy brain"—an assumption that pregnancy and parenting make women a little ditzy. By juxtaposing entertaining anecdotes from her own life and the lives of her friends with fascinating studies in neurobiology and psychology, Ellison substantiates her claim that motherhood is an "advantage in the lifelong task of becoming smart." Her argument's foundation is that learning changes the brain, and she makes a larger argument about the kind of intelligence motherhood fosters. Traits such as perception, efficiency, resiliency, motivation and emotional intelligence, she says, are present whether one's a good mom or "a CEO of a Fortune 500 company." Both, for example, must have the "logistical capacities that take you through the day with the minimum bloodshed and maximum productivity." Ellison's often humorous and always thorough approach reveals plenty of other illustrations of these skills that will amuse and intrigue smart mothers everywhere.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0465019056
• ISBN 13: 9780465019052
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288