First Children Are Smarter—but Why?

∷念念 選 趙陽 注

“Those born earlier perform better in school”—and according to a new study, it’s because of the parents.

Moms and dads simply go easy on their later-born kids, according to data analyzed by economists V. Joseph Hotz and Juan Pantano, and as a result, first-born children tend to receive both the best parenting1. parenting： 父母對子女的養(yǎng)育。and the best grades.

The first thing to say about a study like this is that lots of readers will re flexively2. re flexively： 條件反射地。disagree with the assumption. With kids, as with anything,shouldn’t practice make perfect?3. 難道養(yǎng)孩子不是和其他事情一樣遵循“熟能生巧”的道理嗎？Don’t parents get richer into their 30s and 40s, providing for better child-rearing4. child-rearing： 育兒的。resources? I’m a first child, myself,well-known within the family for being unorganized, forgetful, periodically disheveled, and persistently caught day-dreaming in the middle of conversations.5. 我就是家里的第一胎，也是最讓我爸媽頭疼的那個：我不愿受束縛、健忘、偶爾很邋遢，和別人說話的時候還愛走神兒；disheveled： 不整潔的，邋遢的For this reason, I’ve put stock in what you might call the First Pancake Theory of Parenting. In short: First pancakes tend to come out a little funny, and, well, so did I. And so do many first-borns.

But international surveys of birth orders and behavior (which might have offered me an empirical6. empirical： 經驗主義的。excuse to behave this way) aren’t doing me any favors. First borns around the world, it turns out, have higher IQs, perform better in school, and are considered more accomplished by their parents. Looking at parent evaluations of children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the researchers found that mothers are much more likely to see their first children as high-achievers. They regard their subsequent7. subsequent： 隨后的，后來的。children as considerably more average in their class.

好多人都說父母的第一胎更聰明、更有成就?？稍蚓烤故鞘裁?？是因為他們繼承了父母最好的基因？抑或是他們得到了父母最好的照顧？讀讀下面這篇文章吧，你會找到滿意的答案！

Let’s brie fly count off and nickname some of the leading older-kids-aresmarter theories reviewed by the economists, which push back against the principle of first pancakes.8. 讓我們簡單列出并命名這些經濟學家們總結出的、主要的“第一胎優(yōu)勢論”，這些論點駁斥了前文提到的“第一胎劣勢論”。push back against：反駁，駁斥。

1) The Divided-Attention Theory: Earlier-born siblings enjoy more time,care and attention than later-born siblings because attention is divided between fewer kids.9. Divided-Attention Theory：分配性注意理論； sibling：兄弟姐妹。

2) The Bad-Genes Theory: The strong evidence of higher IQs among first children leads some to believe that later kids are receiving diminished“genetic endowment10. genetic endowment： 遺傳天資，稟賦。.”

3) The I’ve-Had-It-With-Kids! Theory: Some parents decide to stop having more children after a dif ficult experience raising one. In that case,the poorer performance of later children isn’t genetic, so much as selection bias: Some parents keep having children until they have one that’s so problematic11. problematic： 成問題的。it makes them say “enough.”

4) The No-One-to-Teach Theory: This is the idea that older siblings bene fit from the ability to teach their younger brothers and sisters. Building these teaching skills helps them build learning skills that makes them better in school.

5) The Divorce Theory: Family crises like divorce are far more likely to happen after the first child is born ( first marriage, then divorce, then a first child is not a common sequence) and they can disrupt12. disrupt： 破壞，使中斷。later kids’ upbringing.

6) The Lazy-Parent Theory: The general idea here is that first-time parents, scared of messing up their new human, commit to memory the first chapter ofBattle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, but by the second or third child, they’ve majorly chilled out.13. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother：《虎媽戰(zhàn)歌》，是美籍華人、耶魯大學法學院教授蔡美兒出版的關于她教育自己女兒方式的書；chill out： 冷靜下來，緩和情緒。

Parents are more likely to make strict rules (about,e.g., TV-watching) and be intimately involved in the academic performance of their first children,according to survey data. They’re also more likely to punish their first child’s bad grades. Hotz and Pantano say moms and dads start tough and go soft to establish a “reputation” within their household for being strict—a reputation they hope will trickle down to the younger siblings who will be too respectful to misbehave later on.14. 霍茨和潘塔諾認為父母們會對第一胎格外嚴厲以在家庭中樹立起威望，第一胎會把自己對父母的敬畏傳遞給弟弟妹妹們，由此弟弟妹妹們便也不敢造次了。

The theory is interesting but not entirely persuasive. First it seems nearly-impossible to test. The survey data is much better at showing that parents chill out as they have more kids than at showing that parents chill out because they’re explicitly15. explicitly： 明顯地，清楚地。establishing a reputation for strictness. Nothing in the paper seems to argue against the simpler idea that parents seem to go soft on later kids because raising four children with the same level of attention you’d afford a single child is utterly exhausting16. exhausting： 讓人筋疲力盡的。. What’s more,if later-born children turn out to be less academically capable than their older siblings, it suggests that the economists’ reputation theory is failing in families across the country.