The title is a little deceiving because I don't hate smart babies. In fact, I have no idea if a baby is smart or not, and neither do you. That's the problem: parents who exclaim "my baby is so smart." If your kid can't speak in full sentences, I would venture to say you can't gauge the level his or her intelligence. "But he already grabs onto things, and he recognizes faces." Great. So do monkeys and Dutch people. The simple fact is that we are incapable of measuring how smart our kids are until they start taking tests or playing music by ear when they're two. In fact, one study explicitly revealed that babies are stupid.
I can say that Daughter is, undisputedly, the best baby in the world, but I'll have no idea if she's smart for at least a couple years. Taking a page from Dexter Manley's book (pun intended – not that she would get it), she puts up a front by pretending she knows how to read, but she doesn't. Hell, she's clearly turning the pages from right to left, and the book isn't even written in Arabic.
A couple days ago, I put a laptop in front of her and told her to Google "baby modeling," and she just sat there drooling and then tried to eat her foot. I had even pulled up the Google home page, so all she had to do was type it in. She had no idea how to do it.
And then last week, I went though an extremely detailed and laborious lesson on art movements with her, explaining which artists were a part of which movement. After the lesson, I threw her a softball and asked her which movement Monet was a part of. Her response? "Dada," and then she tinkled in her pants. Dadaism, really? Did I say Marcel fucking Duchamp?!
The bottom line is that babies are babies. Some might develop in different areas more quickly than others. If you claim your baby is smart, all you're doing is setting the kid up for failure. You have absolutely no quantifiable evidence to say that your baby is smart, just like I have no quantifiable evidence to say that your baby is an idiot. Although, let's face it, all babies are idiots. Because they're babies.
I can say that Daughter is, undisputedly, the best baby in the world, but I'll have no idea if she's smart for at least a couple years. Taking a page from Dexter Manley's book (pun intended – not that she would get it), she puts up a front by pretending she knows how to read, but she doesn't. Hell, she's clearly turning the pages from right to left, and the book isn't even written in Arabic.
A couple days ago, I put a laptop in front of her and told her to Google "baby modeling," and she just sat there drooling and then tried to eat her foot. I had even pulled up the Google home page, so all she had to do was type it in. She had no idea how to do it.And then last week, I went though an extremely detailed and laborious lesson on art movements with her, explaining which artists were a part of which movement. After the lesson, I threw her a softball and asked her which movement Monet was a part of. Her response? "Dada," and then she tinkled in her pants. Dadaism, really? Did I say Marcel fucking Duchamp?!The bottom line is that babies are babies. Some might develop in different areas more quickly than others. If you claim your baby is smart, all you're doing is setting the kid up for failure. You have absolutely no quantifiable evidence to say that your baby is smart, just like I have no quantifiable evidence to say that your baby is an idiot. Although, let's face it, all babies are idiots. Because they're babies.
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